Hotel Couttet Chamonix Monday 6th Dearest Mother. Thankyou for your letters and enclosures and Elsa's. I wish you had read Mr B.'s letter. He is very enthusiastic, will love to come to us, doubts if he can come before the end of Sep. and sends me some Babi autographs. Roughly speaking you had better read anything you like of my correspondence! the bills, for instance, were all receipts! voyez vous ça! Well, I've got into the collar and am enjoying it thoroughly. I went up to Montanvert [Montenvers] - you may spell it any way you please - on Thursday. It's a big hotel at the foot of the Mer de Glace and the Aiguille du Géant rises right up in front of it. Next morning I was off at 5, with Fournier and Démarchi, my porter, and walked all up the Mer de Glace, up the famous séracs, and so on to the Col du Géant, 7 hours. There I found a capital cabane, desservie, where I slept 2 nights. The view on the Mer de Glace is certainly very beautiful and surprising; the soaring aiguilles on every side and the great affluent glaciers are all my fancy painted and more, and the séracs are far the finest I have ever seen. We took an hour and a quarter getting up them; they are a continuous mass of the most wildly broken ice, a real ice waterfall, in which great masses are constantly breaking away and crashing down. I found at the Cabane a Frenchman and a girl, just a friend, I gathered - her mother had confided her to him for the course. They were rather nice - we spent the afternoon sitting outside and looking at the wonderful view. The Cabane is just over the Italian side, which is marvellous steep; the Courmayeur valley winds like a ribbon beyond and you can see to the Matterhorn on one side and to the Meije on the other. Mt Blanc rises right over it. Next day I did the Aiguille du Géant, which is one of those which was reputed impossible until people found the way. They have put up a fixed rope on all the difficult part, which of course lightens the labour immensely. I think it could be done by good rock people without; it doesn't seem to me that there is anything which is more difficult than the Meije, which is innocent of all artificial aids and is much longer besides; still even with the rope, it requires a good deal of agility,some nerve and all your head. It was bitter cold, a high wind and a good deal of blowing cloud about. Démarchi was so frozen that I thought he wd fall off and lent him an enormous pair of woollen gloves I had in my pocket; I never really stopped shivering till I got down to the bottom of the rock again, but I didn't feel unpleasantly cold or frozen at all. The Aiguille was playing that beautiful game which Aiguilles love - the windward side was clear and the cloud kept forming on the lea side and frothing upwards like smoke. It was a thoroughly amusing climb but I felt when I got back to the Cabane at 3 that I had had enough for the first day. I was alone that evening. An Austrian arrived late at night and I saw him next day. He had come from a place of which I could not seize the name - at last I found out that it was the Grands Mulets, a cabane on Mt Blanc. I intended going there the next day and he asked me to fetch some things he had left behind. He wrote his commission down for me and I then understood where my difficulty had laid for he spelt it Gramilé. I walked off over the glaciers to the Cabane de l'Aiguille du Midi intending to pass the night there and take Mt Blanc en col next day. But the weather got worse and worse, we were wrapped in mists most of the way and the Cabane was a disgusting dirty little place in which the water froze at midday. When it began to snow, we decided that Mt Blanc wd not be possible next day and that we wd not pass that horrible night in the Cabane, so we came down to Montenvert in record time, 4 hours, snow and hail and wind most of the way, and today there is a lot of fresh snow and I think Mt Blanc wd barely be possible. Anyhow I'm thankful I am not taking such an infinity of trouble over the big silly thing as I should have had to have taken. There was a very nice woman at Montenvert last night, Miss Bateson. She is much interested in women labour question and was intelligent and pleasant. She knew who I was and had read my article on the Dauphiné. Here's fame! There are also an agreeable father and daughter, Broom by name. He is a great alpinist and has done everything; she is just beginning and doesn't like it much. We are going to walk back to Montenvert together presently. I came down to lunch, having various little things to do in Chamonix, it's an hour down and 2 up. I am glad to say that my second guide, Fuhrer, has arrived. He is delightful, intelligent and civil and I believe a capital man all round. I like Fournier and am quite satisfied with him, but this man is far better educated and more of an accomplished mountaineer, understanding and knowing about mountains in general. I think with the two I shall do very well. I've got a very nice acquaintance here too, an Englishwoman of about 40. She is a great friend of Mrs Woods, but not at all like her. I don't know her name. My hat box hasn't turned up; I wonder what I ought to do about it. You will be glad to hear that my clothes are perfect. I have at last found exactly the right thing. The weather doesn't look very promising. It's boring, for I must have it perfect for the Aiguilles round Montenvert. I think I learnt a great deal in the Dauphiné last year, but oh dear! one's self satisfaction is a good deal lessened when one is with people who really can climb. However I'm good for sticking onto a mountain and my two men are so efficient that I don't think I run much risk. Démarchi leaves me today. It's good fun. Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude
I am glad Papa is better. It's he who ought to be careful more than I.