Climber

“ But beyond this, climbing down was discovered to have its own pleasure as motion. A good climber in training, and descending upon rock that gives continuous hold, enjoys a sense of swift restrained rhythm, and a rushing thrill through his own extremities, that has something of the pleasure of flying and a pleasure from quick light contacts that even flying does not possess. His hands and feet appear to adhere almost accidentally underneath him, like the spokes of a revolving rimless wheel. They move across a sound hold with his change of balance rather than check him at each contact. ”

“ To advance upon this ledge, as steep as a roof, and where one false step would inevitably send the climber rolling to the bottom of the ravine, demands steady nerves. It invests the whole jaunt with just enough of the perilous to excite the apprehensions, or provoke the enthusiasm of the individual who stands there for the first time, looking askance at his guide, and revolving the chances of crossing it in safety. ”

“ I am aware that from that moment my interest in the peak should have ceased, that the well-conducted climber never repeats an ascent; that his object is to reach the summit, and, that object once attained, his work is over and he should rest in ignoble ease. ”

“ It is under such circumstances that the climber notes, with a feeling of devout thankfulness, the faint glow that heralds the dawn, and eagerly watches the conquering march of the sun along the peaks of the giant range.
With the breaking of day our spirits rose, and, being in splendid form, we simply romped over the first cliffs and snow slopes. Having gained the crest of a narrow rocky ridge, we descended by a slanting crack on to the plateau at the foot of the peak. We walked and ran across this plateau, and then started up a snow slope that took us on to the rocks of the final peak. ”

“ The longer a climber gratifies his instincts and pursues his sport, the larger becomes his store of reminiscences and the greater his experience. If he confines his attention to a single range of mountains such as the Alps, he is almost always in sight of mountains he has climbed and glaciers he has traversed. Each view shows him some route he has once pursued, some glacier basin he has explored, some pass he has crossed. ”

“ The climber soon learns to shorten his glance, to accept a reduced distance between his two requisite points of contact. The few inches of visible surface near his feet, be it only the edge of a rock ledge or the curve of a snow wall, projected against nothingness, will serve him, with practice, as sufficient rest-point for his eye, and give him the assurance that his body is upright and his balance secure. ”

“ If you stand in a suitable position, facing rather than enfilading any of these great walls, their slope seems practically vertical. Climbers know that they can all be climbed; their instructed eyes can even trace the routes without difficulty. In so far as that knowledge interferes with the imposing impression which ordinary persons derive from the mere look of the thing, it is a misfortune. Yet even the climber can sometimes forget his métier, and lose himself in pure contemplation of Nature's splendour. ”

“ But though climbing, even in the British Isles, means all that we have said and more, far more, beside, there is just one grain of truth lurking at the bottom of what Ruskin said. To the rock-climber the pure æsthetic pleasure of contemplation comes in flashes, not in a steady glow. There is so much to distract him—the technicalities of his art, the continuous attention to details, half automatic as it may become, which alone makes climbing justifiable—even the voices and proximity of his companions. ”

“ Let me not be misunderstood as wishing to depreciate in any way the craft of the climber, which, even apart from its great scientific and geographical value in the pioneering of Alps, Andes or Himalayas, and regarded merely as an athletic exercise, is one of the finest of sports; for which reason those who have long been familiar with the mountain life, though themselves not rock-climbers, will be the first to admire, and to envy, the marvellous [Pg 18] skill which has carried men into places where, a quarter-century back, no one dreamed of venturing. ”

“ Returning to the track and climbing steadily upwards, only stopping now and again ostensibly to admire some fairy moss, lovely fern, or other sylvan beauty, but possibly really to gain a few minutes breathing space, the climber at length emerges on the open land beyond. ”

“ Wherever, in climbing, the angle of the surface is so steep that even these few inches of margin for the eye’s reassurance are lacking,—for instance, on a precipitous rock wall with only minute stances, or on an almost vertical ice slope,—then, by the nature of the case, the climber can use his hands; and from this second point of contact, through his fingers, the climber gets an even more concrete assurance of his balance than from the judgment of his eye. ”

“ There is really very little hold for the hands, and nothing at all for the feet, the climber proceeding chiefly by a pious reliance on Providence, eked out at intervals by loose stones wedged with a doubtful, wobbling sort of semi-security into the crack. ”

“ The climbing starts at about the centre of the buttress, where is a cairn, but a vast overhanging precipice forces the climber away diagonally to the left along a narrow, grass ledge, which dwindles until, at a considerable height above the screes, an awkward corner is rounded. ”

“ Round the trunk, like a snake embracing its victim, a great climber had wound itself. Its main stem was as thick as a man's arm, and there were dozens of smaller, cord-like climbers. Thus, the lads had no difficulty in climbing to the point where the branches grew out. ”

“ So we started upwards one hot afternoon, bound for some overhanging rocks, which, we were assured by those who had never visited the spot, we should find. For the regulation routes up the chief peaks the climber can generally count on a hut, where, packed in close proximity to his neighbours, he lies awake till it is time to get up, and sets forth on his ascent benefited only in imagination by his night's repose. Within certain limits the less a man is catered for the more comfortable he is, and the more he has to count on himself the better are the arrangements for his comfort. ”

“ Every step is different, every muscle is called into play as the climber is now flattened against a [pg 38] rough slab, now abnormally stretched from one hold to another, or folded up like the conventional pictures of the ibex, and every step can be recalled afterwards with pleasure and amusement as the mountain is climbed over again in imagination. ”

“ Although it is not quite 2000 feet high, yet it needs a good climber to ascend this hill from the seashore at its feet. I do not know what the average angle may be, but on one summer afternoon it took me a very long time to accomplish the ascent.
Of course there is a great deal of heather and grass set at the steepest angle on which they will grow; but a climber ought to be able to be as safe on such a mountain-side as he is on hard rock or on snow or ice, and unless experience is obtained, he will remain a novice in this particular kind of climbing. ”

“ I am a wanderer and mountain-climber, said he to his heart, I love not the plains, and it seemeth I cannot long sit still.
And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience—a wandering will be therein, and a mountain-climbing: in the end one experienceth only oneself. ”

“ Seven hours’ climbing brought us to the higher slopes, which were for the most part ice, and required deep step-cutting. The whole duty of the climber on such slopes is to cut his steps properly, and to stand in them securely. At one period of my mountain life I looked lightly on the possibility of a slip, having full faith in the resources of him who accompanied me, and very little doubt of my own. Experience has qualified this faith in the power even of the best of climbers upon a steep ice-slope. ”

“ During the walking era, and still more during the gully and grip eras, the climber had generally to take what his hands, unaided by his eyes, found for him. A climber by balance or compensation keeps his head well away from the rock, at the maximum distance permitted by the necessity of keeping his body in balance above his moving feet. ”

“ A climber who can get away, if only for a day or so, at frequent intervals, to rocks small or big behind his house or on convenient hills, secures the best training for his balance, his nerves and his muscles, not by attempting extravagant gymnastic problems, but by practising, and always adding to, the number of his sequences of familiar climbing movements. ”

“ It is true the mountains are not high—as heights go in these modern days—yet even the Abruzzis and the Bullock-Workmans, your Conways and your Collies would, in the times I write of, find tasks to test their endurance—or, at least, their perseverance—and to put a strain upon their commissariat sufficient to conduce to a gradual tightening of the belts of such as wear them. Into that land of beautiful forests and a strange bird-life, of deep canyons and high waterfalls, of lovely lakes and clear rivers, of dark precipices and unsullied glaciers, we were the first climbers to adventure. ”

“ Even ladies catch the climbing mania, and are unable to throw it off. A famous climber, of that sex, had attempted the Weisshorn a few days before our arrival, and she and her guides had lost their way in a snow-storm high up among the peaks and glaciers and been forced to wander around a good while before they could find a way down. ”

“ But if it be admitted that the skill of the climber has not increased relatively to the difficulties grappled with, it would appear to necessarily follow that climbing is neither more nor less dangerous than formerly. ”

“ Being a novice, the climber lost much time in searching for practicable routes to the summit, and in an attempt to get up a chimney sent down such an avalanche of rock that the camp was aroused and began to contemplate a searching expedition for the remains of a fool climber. ”

“ If they are regarded as sights to be beheld, we shall characterise them as they affect our sense of vision. A climber may fancifully figure one mountain as friendly though severe, another as hostile, a third as mean, a fourth as recondite, a fifth as deceitful. Climbers, however, though I hope I may number some of them amongst my readers, are not primarily those for whom this book is written. It is aimed more broadly to interest the mountain-lover of whatever age or sex and whatever agility or endurance. ”

“ I looked to my right, just to make certain of what I was deadly sure of already—that there wasn’t any possible way up for a single climber farther along the ledge. And there, as sure as I’m a living man, were little steps cut roughly in the rock—choked with ice, but recognizable, serviceable. ”

“ Next morning the old familiar clink of the ice-axes on the rocks of the moraine sent a thrill of pleasure through us, while a sniff of the keen mountain air, and the prospect of a stiff climb, cheered us onward, as, leaving behind the depressing gloom of the dark, trackless forest, we resolutely strode forward to attack our peak. ”

“ This marks the start of the route by which the Buttress was first climbed. The crack gives out upon a grass ledge about 30 feet above the screes. Beyond this a somewhat awkward stretch of climbing brings one below some overhanging rocks, which entail a flank movement to the left until a conspicuous recess is reached. The continuation above this is most exhilarating, a steep exposed face of rock which takes the climber into an ideal situation, and which claims his entire attention in the continuation of its enjoyment. ”

“ But the combination of sun and slope became almost more intolerable than the slope without the sun. Three thousand feet of such work is apt to become a shade monotonous even to the keenest disciple of snow-craft. This particular wall is so long and so steep that the climber must give his attention almost [292] continually to the matter in hand. He has little time to admire the view. The steps must be cleaned out, and the rope must be held taut. Each man must keep his distance. ”

“ It is largely on this account that a climber, as he gets experience, finds that he can climb with always decreasing effort. It is for this reason also that long, continuous rock ridges, with oft-recurring situations, form the best initial training for young mountaineers and the best annual reintroduction for their elders. ”

“ In the event of a bridge breaking, and as soon as the fall has been checked, the remaining climber drives his axe into the snow, cuts himself free from the looped rope and slips this loop over the axe head. ”

“ But between these extremes a peripatetic climber can find many [Pg 183] joyous and gentle passages, where he may even remain anonymous if he goes armed only with such sound method as the type of rock suggests, and shod with soft soles. One experienced companion would be found of more service than many onlookers; and a tradition of classical mountaineering demands that the rope between two men should not pass over the summit before either has started. ”

“ But a mountaineer classifies peaks roughly as rock or snow, according to the chief obstacles that each presents. A climber may encounter serious difficulties in the way of bergschrunds, steep couloirs, soft snow, and so forth; but if on the same expedition he meets with rocks which compel him to put forth greater energies and perseverance than the snow required, he will set the expedition down as a difficult rock climb, simply, of course, because the idea of difficulty which is most vividly impressed on his mind is in connection with that portion of his climb, and vice versâ. ”