The buttress to the left of the central couloir looks as difficult as rocks possibly can look.
But there is a chance that a careful search among the rocks to the left of the central couloir might reward a rock-climber with an exciting and successful scramble.
What a sense of poise between heaven and earth is received when one is in a steep couloir which vanishes into mist above and below.
Once in thecouloir you are completely isolated, almost as though perched in the air.
It is theCouloir Pass, a col led up to by a narrow snow-or ice-filled gully.
Visitors like ourselves, looking up to the Cervin, see a long couloir which looks smooth and easy.
A slight hint at the dangers to which the climber is exposed was afforded just before they had left the couloir for the shoulder.
Repeating these tactics he was enticed onwards again, until crossing an ice-couloir rendered dangerous through falling stones, I walked out on to the level glacier at the bottom to await him.
It arose, of course, from the couloir being bent, and from the falling rocks having acquired great pace before they passed the angle.
The gap is now called the Col du Lion; the glacier at its base, the Glacier du Lion; and the gully which connects the Col with the glacier, the Couloir du Lion.
Hard, thin, and wedge-like as the Ecrins had looked from afar, it had never looked so hard and so thin as it did when we emerged from the top of the couloir through the gap in the ridge.
Bennen turned round and told us he was afraid of starting an avalanche; we asked whether it would not be better to return and cross the couloir higher up.
Cutting up a couloir 1000 feet high was not the right sort of preparation for work of this kind.
The inflexion or dip of the couloir was slight, not above 25 feet, the inclination near 35 deg.
An example of a couloir with a double bergschrund is given on p.
Upon the other side we knew that there was a couloir in correspondence with that up which we had just come.
He received a conclusive though unexpected answer from one of the obelisks above-mentioned, which fell at the moment, broke into fragments, and swept the couloir from top to bottom with incredible violence.
His companion formed a better estimate of its character, but being at least five hundred yards to one side of the couloir or snow-slope, down which it rushed, he judged that they were safe.
Just then several pieces of ice, the size of a man's head, rushed down the couloir and dashed close past him.
Our men were, I am afraid, wellnigh worn out: cutting up a couloir one thousand feet high was not the right sort of preparation for work of this kind.
Croz went to the front, and led with admirable skill through a maze of crevasses up to the foot of a great snow-couloir that rose from the head of the glacier to the summit of the ridge over which we had to pass.
He says, too, that it is not fond of traversing steep snow, and in descending a couloir that is filled with it will zig-zag down, by springing from one side to the other in leaps of fifty feet at a time!
By five minutes to six we were at the top of the gully (a first-rate couloir about one thousand feet high), and within sight of our work.
Notwithstanding this, they had boldly glissaded down the Couloir du Lion, J.
Illustration: A typical Couloir is seen streaking the peak from summit to base in the centre of the picture (page 73).
After skirting a jutting cliff, we reached the couloir at its narrowest point.
The party had gained a considerable height on the mountain when it became necessary to cross a couloir or gully filled with snow.
On the far side of the couloir there was safety, as all the stones must in the end reach the couloir, which divides the whole face of the mountain into two parts.
Which was the more serious danger, the threatening avalanches in the couloir or the pelting of the stones which swept down from every side?
The impression which the couloir made upon me is best shown by the words which I at the moment addressed to Lammer: 'We are now completely cut off.
At last, after immense difficulty, we reached the edge of the couloir at the place we had left it in the ascent.
The moment I put my foot on the snow, all the top went away, slowly at first, then, taking to the left, went down the couloir with a rush.
He had pluckily kept it all to himself until the real difficulties were over; but the snow of the couloir had softened his hands, and these last rocks were weathered granite, and very sharp and cutting; so he had to go very gingerly.
But the ascent was long, and the couloir curved round as they climbed higher, displaying a fresh length of ascent invisible from below.
Beyond that there is a couloir running right up to the ridge, and it will be the easiest place for us to mount.
It stopped because in its progress downwards the broad couloir down which it was going got narrower, and the mass of snow could not pass.
By a lateral deviation we reached a point whence we could look into the couloir by which Mr. Tuckett had ascended: here Bennen relieved himself by a sigh and ejaculation: 'Would that we had chosen it!
Bennen looked extremely blank, and often cast an eye downward to the couloirwe had quitted, muttering aloud, 'Had we only held on to the snow!
It was also proposed to vary the proceedings by assailing the ridge by the couloirnearest to Monte Rosa.
From this saddle a kind of couloir runs downwards, widening out gradually and blending with the gentler slopes below.
All doubt on this point was removed this year; for Mr. Tuckett, led by Bennen, had crossed the barrier by the couloir most distant from Monte Rosa, and consequently nearest to the Cima di Jazzi.
The couloir was a most singular one; it was excessively steep, and along it were two great scars, resembling the deep-cut channels of a mountain stream.
In 1860 the greatcouloir which stretches from the Col du Lion downwards was filled with a neve of deep snow.
We reached the rocks to the right of the couloir and climbed them for some distance.
Straight up the couloir seemed the most promising route, and we pursued it for an hour, the impression gradually gaining ground that the work would prove heavier than we had anticipated.
We shot down a shingly couloir to the Trift, and looking up the glacier the anticipated cascade came into view.
But to crawl up that couloir with a sick heart and a desperate impulse to hurry was the worst sort of nightmare.
To get down that tongue of rock to the lower snows of the couloir was a job that fairly brought us to the end of our tether.
Finally as they came down the rocks by the great couloir to the glacier, he cried out: "Ah!
There is a glacier, a rock traverse, a couloir up a rock-cliff, and at the top of that a steep ice-slope.
From the Montanvert side a steep gully leads to the cleft; up this couloir we proposed to try the ascent.
An avalanche on passing through a rough couloirsoon attains a uniform velocity--its motion being accelerated only up to the point when the sum of the resistances acting upon it is equal to the force drawing it downwards.
We ascended the rocks once more, continued along them for some time, and then deviated to the couloir on our left.
The centre of the couloir was occupied by a deeply-scored trough, evidently a channel for stones and avalanches, while the space on either side was so narrow that in case of a large fall we could scarcely expect to escape unharmed.
At every step we took, it became more apparent that nature had never intended any one to pass this way, and had accordingly taken more than usual pains to render the approach to the couloir difficult and dangerous.
Zurbriggen and I had no more than set foot upon the grass, when we beheld a huge avalanche-cloud descending over the whole width of the ice-fall, utterly enveloping both it and a small rock-rib and couloir beside it.
I had too much to think of to measure it with a clinometer, but it was certainly steeper than any part of the couloir leading to the Col des Ecrins, the greatest inclination of which was 54 deg.
The first gleams of sunshine now arrived to cheer us, and, getting under way once more, we pushed on hopefully, as the couloir was rapidly widening and the face of the mountain almost in full view.
The route is now well known, and thus it is possible to hit off the easiest passages, but the traverse of what is known to the guides as 'the Couloir Whymper' always requires the greatest care.
As before observed, this section of the couloir seemed admirably placed for receiving ice-falls, and we now saw that it formed part of the natural channel for snow and debris from each and all of these glaciers.
My hat blew off here, and rolled on its stiffened brim at a tremendous pace down a couloir of ice.
The axe at once came into requisition, and we cut steadily in hard ice up and across the couloir towards the small rib or island of rock before-mentioned as dividing it higher up into two portions.
Crossing a small glacier, they turned up a couloir or gully terminating in a cave, above which the cliffs rose almost perpendicularly.
Crossing the couloir we rapidly ascended the rocks on the left side and at its top, to our great surprise, landed on a bed of shale, which by an easy slope led in a few minutes to the summit.
This was offered by a large couloir leading to the 'saddle' between the black tower and the summit of the mountain, which is not much higher than the top of the tower.
The last part of the couloir became so narrow that the climbers had to force their way up by propping their bodies in the angle against the rocks on either side.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "couloir" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.