Guide (mountaineering)

“ In the second stage, where the climber may be only a novice in the alpine sense, the guide may possibly be technically inferior to his employer as a rock climber, a pace maker and so on; but in the absence of the amateur’s alpine experience the guide deserves to retain his ‘leadership’ when his qualifications in both mountaineering fields are considered together. ”

“ In the early days of mountaineering guides were frequently drawn from the chamois hunters of a district, a sport requiring, perhaps, rather the quickness and agility of the born climber and gymnast than the qualities of calculation and prudence needed in addition by the guide. ”

“ MOUNTAINEERING. A good deal of interesting mountaineering can be done in the British Isles if you know where to go; and it is grand sport, and brings out into practice all your scout-craft to enable you to find your way, and to make yourself comfortable in camp.
You are, of course, continually losing your direction because, moving up and down in the deep gullies of the mountain side, you lose sight of the landmarks which usually guide you, so that you have to watch your direction by the sun, and by your compass, and keep on estimating in what direction your proper line of travel lies. ”

“ On the descending scale of climbing competence, when parties are in question which contain no first-class amateur, a guide is, of course, essential; and in this case his supremacy in skill, accompanied by any proportion of managing ability which he has acquired,—and which will naturally be greater than that of such inexperienced amateurs,—entitle him to all the control, and consequently to much of the responsibility which in former days used to be considered his alone in every department of mountaineering. ”

“ The statement has been made more than once, and may even be seen in print, that the first-class amateur is superior, as a mountaineer, to the first-class guide. Surely such a statement can emanate only from those who have no actual, personal experience of the highest capacities of a great guide. The truth is, that the first-class guides of the Alps number less than the fingers of one’s two hands, and—let us be humble—the first-class, British, all-round amateur mountaineers less than one third of that. The ideal, strongest mountaineering party would be composed of two or more first-rate guides ”

“ As we really desired nothing more than to be let to wander about on the mountain according to our own fancy, we were rather pleased than otherwise when our escort of four soldiers with the guide, seeming to think that they had done enough of mountaineering after an ascent of some two thousand feet, proceeded to instal themselves, with the horses, who enjoyed a day of rest, in a pleasant spot, and showed no sign of pushing the enterprise farther. ”

“ But of actual mountaineering, as a rule they know nothing. Most of them have little knowledge of snow craft or of the use of the rope—which they are apt to regard as a danger to themselves rather than as a safeguard to their party; and above all, they have nothing of the high tradition of the alpine guide. A guided party in the Pyrenees would save time below the snowline in getting across country; but, provided they had a little experience of the Alps and of English climbing, above the snowline they would usually be safer alone. ”

“ It does not follow that a man of considerable mountaineering experience, who habitually climbs with guides need entirely relinquish the control of the expedition. Such a man—there are not many—may, indeed, 186 take a guide as a reserve of strength, or as a weight carrier. He may enjoy training up a young and inexperienced guide, who has a native talent for rock and ice, while lacking experience and mountain craft. One occasionally finds a guide who is a first-class cragsman, but whose general knowledge of mountain strategy is inferior to that of a great amateur. ”

“ It is not, even, as if it were the only form of mountain expedition open to them. Work within the powers of the least competent is abundant in every Alpine valley, much of it surrounded by the noblest scenery both of ice and snow. The art of mountaineering consists in being able to climb easily and securely, in being able to relate one's skill to the difficulties of the slopes above and around, and it may, to some extent, be practised and enjoyed, consistently with reasonable safety and self-respect, by every man, no matter how slight his natural aptitude and training may be. ”

“ To the keenest climber mountaineering in these great ranges is more of the character of mountain travel than of a climbing expedition, such as could be planned in Switzerland, and at present it must be so, unless the traveller is content to march direct to some group and stay there. ”

“ But the “white domes of frozen air” exist outside the poetic imagination, and mountaineering is not a simple but a complex science, and the proficient mountaineer is not only a rock-climber, but a [Pg 263] snow-and-ice craftsman, an adept in the use of rope and axe, a pathfinder, something of a meteorologist, an organiser and, no less important, must have acquired the knowledge of how to conserve his energy, build up his powers of endurance and cultivate the proper mentality. ”

“ During climbing in ice and snow one is allowed, in fact, one is expected, to cut steps. But it is held to be entirely contrary to the laws which govern the great sport of mountaineering to make similar holes in rock. ”

“ Yet the guided climber, then and now, missed the real inwardness of the sport. Mountaineering, in the modern sense, is a sport unrivalled in its appeal to mind and body. The man who can lead on a series of really first-class climbs must possess great nerve, and a specialised knowledge of mountains that is almost a sixth sense. Mountaineering between guides need not involve anything more than a good wind and a steady head. Anybody can get up a first-class peak. Only one amateur in ten can complete ascent and descent with safety if called on to lead. ”

“ Qualities of management, ability to contribute the most to the combinations of the party, to its reserve of power, confidence and cheerfulness, and so to increase its continuous effectiveness, are the marks of the ‘leader’ in great mountaineering. The better mountaineer may not be the better able to go first up passages of excessive difficulty, and may, on occasions such as I have mentioned, even operate more potently from the centre of the rope. ”

“ And further, although there scarce remains a great Alpine ridge untrodden by man, though the magic words—‘No information’—are rapidly vanishing from the pages of the Climber’s Guides, yet as subjects for literary, artistic, and philosophic inquiry, the mountains are far from exhausted. The basic emotions of the hills, at once bold and subtle, remain an almost untouched field, and many a curious by-path in the psychology of mountaineering has yet to be explored. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The novice, also, who has spent a few summers behind guides in the Alps will discover that one season of guideless climbing in the Pyrenees will infinitely increase his knowledge of mountaineering in the larger sense of the word; he will have experience of route-finding both in the valleys and on rock and glacier, of step-cutting, of using aneroid and compass and of camping, and he will return to the greater peaks with a heightened capacity for appreciating the mountains and their craft. ”

“ After some years, however, it was found quite unnecessary to have so many guides and porters, and nowadays a party usually numbers four, two travellers and two guides, or three, consisting generally of one traveller and two guides, or occasionally five. Two is a bad number, as should one of them be hurt or taken ill, the other would have to leave him and go for help, though one of the first rules of mountaineering is that a man who is injured or indisposed must never be left alone on a mountain. ”

“ Nothing could be truer than this of very high climbing, whereas the amount of sport that could be obtained and the amount of real mountaineering that could be done, with a limit of 20,000 feet, is enormous, and an unexampled time could be put in. ”

“ It did not seem worth while to make any attempt to reach the summit of the ridge from the side we were on, even if we could have done so, which I doubt. The day may come when the climber will seek to discover some variation to the route up the peak; but mountaineering skill will indeed have improved out of all knowledge if anyone ever succeeds in getting up this northern face. ”

“ He has heard all about this bit of the climb since his boyhood, and he tells his traveller that, once on the top of the rock, all difficulty will be over, and the final slope to the summit will be found a gentle one. So it comes to pass that the party reaches the highest pinnacle of the great mountain without once diverging from the best route. Occasionally the leading guide may take with him as second guide a man from the locality, but most climbers will prefer to keep with them the two guides they are used to. ”

“ In so far as they accept the popular and mistaken classification into guided and guideless, these climbers help in continuing it. Our equally brilliant school of British rock climbers, recognizing the absurdity of taking guides on the short climbs of Scotland or the Lakes or Wales, often adopts the same attitude. Only by slow experience, and in individual cases, when they meet the problems and actual conditions of real mountaineering in the great Western Alps, do they learn the magnitude of the traditional fallacy. ”

“ Should climbers desire to make ascents in seldom explored parts of the world, such as the Caucasus, the Andes, or the Himalayas, they must take Alpine guides with them, for mountains everywhere have many characteristics in common, and as a good rider will go over a country unknown to him better than a bad horseman to whom it is familiar, so will a skilful guide find perhaps an easy way up a mountain previously unexplored, while the natives of the district declare the undertaking an impossible one. ”

“ For I include among beginners not only those who have had no experience of adverse alpine conditions, but also all prophets who are in the habit of asserting that alpine mountaineering only differs from crag climbing in degree, as well as all climbers who, because their modern balance technique has proved sufficient to carry them through a season or so of standard expeditions in fair weather, consider themselves fully qualified to exercise all the discretionary functions of management and leadership without first learning them. ”

“ A mountaineer may be satisfied to nurse his athletic infancy upon home rocks, and he may be happy to pass the later years of his experience among the more elusive impressions and more subtle romance of our old and quiet hills. But in the storm years of his strength he should test his powers, learn his craft and earn his triumphs in conflict with the abrupt youth and warlike habit of great glacial ranges.
Snow and ice are permanent upon the high hills, and consequently ice and snow craft are essential departments of greater mountaineering. ”

“ Well-known climbers, whose opinions necessarily carry the greatest weight, have recently declared their belief that the dangers of mountaineering no longer exist. Skill, knowledge, and text-books have hurled them to the limbo of exploded bogies. ”

“ Some hold these virtues in less estimation, and assign base and contemptible motives to those who indulge in our innocent sport.
Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.
Others, again, who are not detractors, find mountaineering, as a sport, to be wholly unintelligible. It is not greatly to be wondered at—we are not all constituted alike. Mountaineering is a pursuit essentially adapted to the young or vigorous, and not to the old or feeble. ”

“ That the technique of our sport has made rapid progress is alleged against us as a sort of crime, but I venture to say, in reality, it is a matter, not for regret, but for congratulation. To emulate the skill of their guides was the ideal of the early climbers, and I trust it will still be the ideal that we set before ourselves. A. terminology which suggests that as a man approaches this goal, as he increases in mountaineering skill he ceases to be a mountaineer, stands self-condemned, and must be remorselessly eliminated from the literature of our sport. ”

“ In mountaineering, all the party share the pleasures and the dangers. Every climber has to help the others. Every climber has to rely both on himself and on his companions.
Mountaineering makes a person quick in learning how to act in moments of danger. ”

“ Their use is to place a greater value upon the fidelity with which previous reconnoitring has been conducted, and its result remembered, if we wish, in mist, to arrive at an intended climb at all, or to make descent into the right valley on our return. Not impossibly they are sent by nature to complicate what is otherwise the over-easy mountaineering training of our hills; to handicap the specializing gymnast, and to enforce the practices of observing detail, using the compass and map, and exercising judgment, memory, and the precious sense of direction. ”

“ Blocks of white granite gleamed here and there in contrast with the general depth of shade. At last, descending a hill, there shone before us a red light; the horses plunged forward at a gallop, and in a moment we were in camp. After this ride we supped, relishing our mountain fare, and then lay down upon blankets before a camp-fire for the mountaineer’s short evening. One keeps awake under stimulus of the sparkling, frosty air for awhile, and then turns in for the night, sleeping till daybreak with a light, sound sleep. ”