Mountaineer

“ The mountains are exquisitely beautiful, indeed, from whatever points of view we contemplate them; and the mountaineer would lose much if he never saw the beauties of the lower valleys, of pasturages deep in flowers, and dark pine-forests with the summits shining from far off between the stems. Only, as it seems to me, he has the exclusive prerogative of thoroughly enjoying one—and that the most characteristic, though by no means only, element of the scenery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such are some of the pleasures which the mountaineer is heir to. But whether we leave the heights in calm or storm, in sunshine or shadow, we leave them only for the moment; we descend, but with an inner prompting to return. ”

“ And, if curious about such things, you may discover specimens of this hardy tree-mountaineer not more than four feet high and about as many inches in diameter at the ground, that are from two hundred to four hundred years old, still holding bravely to life, making the most of their slender summers, shaking their tasseled needles in the breeze right cheerily, drinking the thin sunshine and maturing their fine purple cones as if they meant to live forever. The general view from the summit is one of the most extensive and sublime to be found in all the Range. ”

“ To the uninitiated, mountaineering is the dangerous, foolhardy, yet withal praiseworthy sport of the superman, heroic of physique and nerve, who gaily struts along the brinks of, or nonchalantly hangs over, awesome precipices and, disregarding all moral obligations, continually and with careless smile fences with death. ”

“ Still grander is the sight when the mountaineer has already reached some lofty ridge, and, as the sun rises, stands between the day and the night—the valley still in deep sleep, with the mists lying between the folds of the hills, and the snow-peaks standing out clear and pale white just before the sun reaches them, whilst a broad band of orange light runs all round the vast horizon. The glory of sunsets is equally increased in the thin upper air. The grandest of all such sights that live in my memory is that of a sunset from the Aiguille du Goûté. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A mountaineer, standing on the edge of a crevasse, deciding whether to try to leap across and win a precarious way to the summit, or to turn back and confess the climb has been in vain, is confronted by a choice like that. ”

“ The real mountaineer A man of average activity could, probably, actually climb, without any particular experience, most of, or all, the more difficult rock peaks under good conditions of weather and the like. But how different from the really practical mountaineer, who strives to make an art of his pastime. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The suspicion, indeed, sometimes crosses my mind that the so-called mountaineer confounds the pleasure he derives from photography or from geological or other research, with the purely aesthetic enjoyment of noble scenery. Doubtless, the summit of a peak is peculiarly well adapted to these semi-scientific pursuits, and if the summit is the only thing desired, the easiest way up is obviously the right way ”

“ The Alps merit a patient novitiate, 213 and the mountaineer who does his Matterhorn and Mont Blanc in his first season misses the essential charm of the hills. We spent some ten summers and four winters in the mountains before we even crossed the snow-line. But the bitterness of waiting was redeemed by the joy of long deferred fulfilment. We learned during those years the fascination of the lower hills, too often dismissed as tedious grinds fit to serve only as training walks or as exercise for an off-day in bad weather. They are worthy of a more loving study. ”

“ Probably most mountaineers would agree that the charm of mountain scenery is to be found in every step taken in the upper world. The strange interfolding of the snows, the gaunt, weird crags of the ridges, the vast, blue, icicle-fringed crevasse, or the great smooth slabs sloping-downwards through apparently bottomless space, are each and all no less lovely than the boundless horizon of the summit view. ”

“ The subject, however, must not be taken too seriously. No doubt the average individual has most excellent reasons for abstaining from climbing hills, whilst the mountaineer is, as a rule, more competent to ascend peaks than to explain their attractions ”

“ 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. ”

“ Provided with a congenial friend, and secure in the company of at least one first-rate guide possessed of the skill and knowledge necessary to encounter every obstacle of the snowy Alps, the English mountaineer runs a tilt at half the mountain-tops which lie in his erratic course, meeting on the whole with wonderfully few falls or failures on the way. He dashes from peak to peak, from group to group, even from one end of the Alps to 183 the other, in the course of a short summer holiday. ”

“ When one remembers all the facilities for climbing which are found at present in every Alpine centre, the experienced guides who may be had, the comfortable huts which obviate the need for a bivouac out of doors, the knowledge of the art of mountaineering which is available if any desire to acquire it, one marvels more and more at the undaunted persistence displayed by the pioneers of present-day mountaineering in their struggle with the immense difficulties which beset them on every side. ”

“ Somewhat the same difficulty interferes with any accurate summary of more elementary signs to be looked for in reconnoitring,—signs whose discovery is, or should be, part of our daily alpine routine. Every mountaineer should know at a glance, in the right conditions of light, new snow from old snow, ice from crusted snow surface, open glacier from firn or névé. ”

“ Every one who has been above the snow line, under his or her own power, so to speak, understands that there is no satisfaction quite like that of getting to the top of a mountain. The most leisurely and unambitious mortal, once he finds the 500-foot contour lines slipping away behind him, acquires something of the true mountaineering itch. ”

“ Later on in the season, an experienced party may unhesitatingly dispense with the rope on glacier expeditions, provided that they are not only adept ski-ers with full command of their skis, but really skilled mountaineers, with eyes open, ever on their guard against the hidden dangers of the mountains. ”

“ For those whose ambitions do not soar beyond home, the crags and fells are a pleasurable playing ground where they may [Pg 268] scramble to their hearts’ content; to those who have well served their apprenticeship in the wider and loftier playground of the Alps, the homeland hills will provide useful muscular exercise and plenty of healthy fun; but for the beginner who aims at being a true mountaineer, the only safe place within easy reach to learn the craft is the Alps. ”

“ In the presence of mountains this desire urges him upward. He does not start as a mountaineer intending to climb, and climb. He starts for a single expedition, just to see [8] what high peaks and glaciers are like. ”

“ We did things which one does not do without guides and ropes and the paraphernalia of mountaineering, and when we got down to the tortured fissured rocks below the cataract we looked up whence we had come and said again to ourselves, “Impossible, impossible!”
[92] And as in going up the mountain the winning of the summit was continually deferred, so in descending to the valley we only conquered one steep mountain slope to be presented with another steep mountain slope and another series of terraces and another impossibility. ”

“ In these days of hurry-scurry mountaineering, when the words of the wise are on every climber’s tongue and the intention to obey them in few men’s minds, a great deal is written concerning the perils of the mountains. ”

“ It is absolutely essential that the climber planning a visit to the Himalaya should make up his mind exactly what he wants to do. Leaving aside exploration, the most dangerous lure on the path of the [Pg 525] mountaineer, we may for convenience confine ourselves to two courses—the attack on some particular and probably very high peak; or a less ambitious and more general campaign in some selected district in which climbing for its own sake, apart from any design of raising ‘the record,’ is the object aimed at. ”

“ The magnificent school of foreign rock climbers which has of late years grown up in the regions of lesser peaks north, east and south of the Alps, and which, with some notable exceptions, has little conception of what independent mountaineering on the great peaks means, accepts the performance and narration of these tourists in the big Alps as typical of ‘guided climbing,’ and very justly condemns it for its obvious lack of many of the features which constitute the pleasure or merit of their own mountaineering. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is a higher and better aim than to produce phenomenal walkers and mountain climbers—though such may incidentally be produced. It is a higher and better aim than a self-adulating company of those who have perched themselves on alps. Alpine climbing is splendid sport, but the aim mentioned is an ignoble one. Says one [128] mountaineer, [8] who is incidentally a delightful writer, with humility:
“I utterly repudiate the doctrine that Alpine travellers are or ought to be the heroes of Alpine adventures. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men. Therefore we are all, in some sense, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home. Yet how many are doomed to toil in town shadows while the white mountains beckon all along the horizon! ”

“ The great public, or that part of it which has reached the point of accepting mountaineering as a legitimate background for sensational magazine stories, cherishes one fixed idea on the subject of climbing—that the guide is a providence who knows and shows and goes the one sacred and impeccable ‘path’ which every genuine mountain possesses: to go without him is to tempt destruction deliberately ”

“ 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. ”

“ The knowledge of the art, acquired primarily in the Alps, which has led to the development of mountaineering as a science will not be wasted, and the training acquired in holiday expeditions, when amusement or the regaining of health was the principal object, can be turned to valuable practical account elsewhere. So shall there be a future for mountaineering. No doubt but few may be able to find the opportunity, unless indeed they make it somewhat of a profession, of exploring the great mountainous districts still almost untouched—such, for instance, as the Himalayas. ”