CHAPTER I

MOUNTAIN CRAFT

[Illustration: THE ALPS [SYDNEY SPENCER]

MOUNTAIN CRAFT

EDITED BY

GEOFFREY WINTHROP YOUNG

WITH 28 ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

1920

TO

THE MEMORY OF

GALLANT COMRADES IN THE MOUNTAINS

FRANK BERGNE

GUY BUTLIN

C. K. CARFRAE

FOSTER CUNLIFFE

G. T. EWEN

E. N. FINLAY

R. W. FLETCHER

W. G. FLETCHER

H. O. GIBSON

EDMUND HARTLEY

S. W. HERFORD

TERENCE HICKMAN

TREVENEN HUXLEY

H. O. JONES

MURIEL GWENDOLEN JONES

E. L. JULIAN

HORAS KENNEDY

F. M. LEVI

JOSEF LOCHMATTER

FRANK LUCAS

SIDNEY McDOUGALL

NIGEL MADAN

KENNETH MOORSOM

L. E. NOON

L. OPPENHEIMER

HUGH POPE

KENNETH POWELL

PAUL PREUSS

J. E. RAPHAEL

C. J. REID

C. DONALD ROBERTSON

JACK SANDERS

H. JONES-SABIN

LAURENCE SLINGSBY

MORRIS SLINGSBY

FRANK SPARROW

WILBERT SPENCER

THOBY STEPHEN

LOUIS THEYTAZ

H. W. THOMAS

J. M. ARCHER THOMSON

ERIK TODD

KENNETH TRAYES

GEORGINA MARY TUKE

HARRY WALKER

CHARLES WERNER

C. A. WORDSWORTH

C. S. WORTHINGTON

LAWRENCE C. H. YOUNG

PREFACE

This book is for mountaineers; and a mountaineer is not only one who

climbs mountains, but anyone who likes to walk, read, or think about

them.

I do not myself attach much value to mountaineering handbooks: an

open-air pursuit can only be learned by practical attempt and from good

example. I used to read them for the fun of surprising some hero of

my youth as he strained his imagination to squeeze a grave principle

out of a random holiday memory, and for the sympathetic pleasure of

reconstructing for myself the real day of irresponsible adventure the

recollection of which was bringing a thrill of forbidden joy to his

mind before he composed his face to inflict it upon me in the form of

an edifying three-line precept. I can read them now no more than I can

read the ‘climbing accident’ type of fiction popular with magazines,

which used to provide a less sensitive digestion with some acrid food

for mirth. On the other hand I would still set myself to learn Chinese,

if that would enable me the better to understand one more record of

genuine mountain adventure or discover some unfamiliar attitude of the

human mind towards the mountains and their symbolism.

I do not expect other mountaineers to read, or to refrain from reading,

these opinions in a different spirit. Mountaineering, like other arts,

has suffered much, for all its youth, from the limitations imposed by

hasty tradition and by doctrine prematurely crystallized; and, as in

other crafts, if ever a period comes that shall find the traditional

rules too rigid to admit of a wholesome influx of new and original

conception, mountaineering will cease to deserve the name of an art or

craft, and become at best an ‘organized game.’

But the opinions as they stand may yet serve a limited purpose. Some

men are born climbers. They will learn little about climbing from

precepts. At the same time many of the finest climbers fall short of

our ideal of safe method because they have never concerned themselves

with the possible existence of any fundamental principles governing

the various unrelated movements in which they delight; and so it comes

that, though they may do nine things, by instinct, right, they do

the tenth, by habit, wrong. For these climbers I am not without hope

that the statement, made I believe here for the first time, of the

principles which underlie all correct climbing motions, and which have

been steadily emerging during fifty years of practical mountaineering,

may not be entirely useless. If they find that nine spokes of their

practice lead back to my hub, and the tenth does not, they may learn

how to correct the tenth. If, on the contrary, they find that only one

leads back to it, and nine radiate elsewhither, well then, no doubt

they will decide that I am wrong.

But whatever we may be as climbers, no one of us is a born mountaineer.

Mountaineering, in its wider aspects, can only be learned by

experiment; and even the natural climber may be able to get some

guidance from the collective expression of other men’s mountaineering

experience.

Many efficient climbers, again, never bother themselves at all with

mountaineering as a craft. They simply take its pleasures, and leave

its responsibilities to guides or to chance. Mountaineering will

profit, if they can be led to discover something of all that they are

missing.

More of us are, in a sense, specialists; interested in one department

alone, and neglectful or ignorant of the rest. For such of us there

is some benefit in surveying, if only superficially, the immense field

that a man must set himself to traverse who aspires to lead a party

safely.

Yet another group, with whom I have a particular sympathy, who belong

to the class of ‘made’ climbers rather than to that of ‘natural’

climbers, may often find that they have stuck fast at a certain point

in their technique and are abandoning the prospect of improving

further. Experience encourages the hope that they may be able, after

learning something of the essential principles of method, to recast or

amplify their own methods, so as to make further progress on sounder

lines. Or they will discover that a man may be useful to a party as

an expert in one of the less common but no less important branches of

mountaineering craft. Their inferiority in a single department--for

instance, rock climbing, in which excellence is often overrated as

compared with other equally valuable qualifications--will then be seen

in better proportion.

And those who are not climbers, but who are interested in or perhaps

even resentful of the fascination which mountains exercise, may

discover, if they have the patience, that mountaineering as it is

now practised is no simple outlet for an athletic impulse, and no

selfish indulgence in a game which has the demerit of risking lives

often of notable value; but that it is a genuine craft, as well as

a genuine enthusiasm; an education alike in self-development and in

self-subordination; a discipline of character, of infinite variety in

its demands and in its reactions upon strength, endurance, nerve, will,

and temper, upon powers of organization as upon powers of dealing with

men; a test of personality for which no preparation may be considered

excessive, and a science for whose mastery the study of all our active

years is barely sufficient. Of its rewards, in health, self-knowledge,

æsthetic pleasure, and incomparable adventure, it is not the place to

speak in a book of practical counsel.

For the opinions on technical points, and their elaboration in

theory, I must be held alone responsible. Where the multiplication

or repetition of detail may appear tedious, it has been inserted for

the better illustration of some underlying principle, or to provide

the more material for the future settlement of some point still under

discussion among mountaineers. Those who disagree with the methods

recommended may still make use of the advice, much as I should do in

their case, treating it as yet another statement of an individual

point of view, such as may at least act as a serviceable standard of

comparison for their own practice.

Our object will be gained if the suggestions are found to provide

a basis for more general discussion and thought, an available

condensation of a good deal of theory floating and partially formulated

among modern mountaineers of experience, and something of a book of

reference and reminder for those who may not have known, or cared to

admit, that there was so much about which they ought to form an opinion.

* * * * *

In the innovation of giving a prominent position to considerations of

personal management and leadership there has been a special purpose.

For reasons not difficult to assign, most manuals dealing with the

practice of active pursuits have been in the habit of ignoring the

dominant influence that is exerted upon all combined action by the

psychological factor, and the extent to which changing conditions

of mood and humour, and the more stable divergences between the

individual temperaments of men acting in association, must contribute

to success or failure. The accentuation of the human problem, as it

presents itself in mountaineering, has therefore been intentional. In

mountains, where personality counts before everything, men are forced

back upon their elemental selves; they become very different beings

from their drawing-room semblances, and unless they allow for this

in the adjustment of their relations on the hills, they can achieve

only the mediocrity of performance, the barrenness in results, or the

complete break-down which are the common fate of all ill-constituted

parties, for exploration, for mountaineering, for warfare, or for any

other active adventure that depends for its success upon effective

combination.

* * * * *

Mountaineering, in its modern development, involves a large number of

matters for arrangement which cannot be classed under the headings of

technique or of specific equipment for climbing; such as methods of

travel, care of health, choice of districts in less-known countries,

special routes of access, and details of topography and equipment

peculiar to any particular district chosen. Most of these vary in

detail in the different ranges.

It has, therefore, seemed most convenient to deal with the special

conditions which characterize a number of the regions now most

frequently visited in separate chapters, each chapter devoted to one of

the great ranges. These chapters have been undertaken by experts who

will be recognized as speaking with authority by mountaineers of every

school and nationality. Their intention is to give just the amount of

practical information which we all need, and which we find it so hard

to procure, when we are in process of making up our minds what region

we will visit; and to add sufficient indication of where we may find

all the more particular information which we shall require when once we

have decided upon our region.

Captain Farrar’s suggestions on Mountain Equipment, Mr. Arnold Lunn’s

on Equipment and Method for Mountaineering on Ski, Dr. Wollaston’s on

the Care of Health, and Mr. Sydney Spencer’s on Photography, apply,

generally speaking, to all mountaineering regions and to all organized

expeditions. To Captain Farrar’s advice the suggestions on Outfit made

in the regional chapters are complementary, dictated by the special

conditions of the district or of the season.

Besides that which is owing to innumerable contributors to discussions

which have extended over many years and exercised a variety of

languages, I have to acknowledge a very special debt of gratitude

to Mr. H. V. Reade, C.B., for his helpful suggestions and careful

revision; to Captain Farrar, D.S.O., for constant encouragement and

a characteristically kindly criticism; to Mr. Oscar Eckenstein,

for having most generously placed at my disposal the notes of much

accumulated experience and illuminating inductive theory, and for

having provided me with information and reminder in several of the

less-known branches of mountaineering; and to Mr. Sydney Spencer, Mr.

Charles Mead, and Professor Norman Collie, F.R.S., for a group of

illustrations, which may be found to lighten the practical detail of

the text and serve as reminders of the beauty, the mystery, and the

strangeness of the mountain world into which--safely and superficially

or masterfully and understandingly, according to the degree of our

preparation--the study of mountain craft purposes to enable us to

penetrate.

_June 1914_

* * * * *

Six years ago these papers were sent in for publication. For my own

share in them I made the decision, then, with some reluctance. In

mountaineering there is always something new to learn, and they might

all too soon need correction or amplification.

But the chance of battle which delayed their appearance has, in the

event, confirmed the resolution. My colleagues have brought their

regional contributions up to date: I have added the substance of the

notes jotted down during my last climbs in July 1914; and I can now

let the opinions go with much less hesitation, since from the annual

demonstration of their deficiencies by their most obstinate critic they

must, in future, be exempt.

G. W. Y.

_June 1920_

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP 1

By the EDITOR

Management in anticipation--physical

well-being--food--thirst--smoking--ailments--bathing--young

folk--preventable humours--boredom--over-excitement. Leadership in

action--the collective confidence--keeping touch--temper--abnormal

moods--reaction--disappointment--over-confidence--hysteria--vertigo

--the effect of height. Social composition of the party. Walking

manners--some notes on hill-walking. Choice of district. Incidental

duties--hut usages--consideration--some night notes--a last task.

Weather--clouds--wind--signs in general--habit of the

season--persistence. Training--the framework--the organs--will and

nerves--nerve--height and reach. Pace--adjustment of

time--benightment--weight handicaps--continuous

going--combination-halts--the maximum rhythm.

II. EQUIPMENT FOR THE ALPS 80

By J. P. FARRAR

Equipment--boots--clothes--some alternatives (G. W. Y.)--costume

for women (Miss BRONWEN JONES). Outfit--sack--axe--rope--knots

--necessaries--bivouac--tent, etc.

III. GUIDED AND GUIDELESS MOUNTAINEERING 101

By the EDITOR

Old-time errors--the guide of the chronicles--the guide as he is--the

amateur as he may be--the composite mountaineer--the guide as

mountaineer--the amateur as mountaineer--the question for the

leader--the social consideration--the technical

compensation--examples--the expert--the tourist--the beginner--the

moderate mountaineer--summary--a supreme example. Management of

guides--guide nature--the right footing--before the ascent--on the

mountain--fine shades--the terms of the association--the rare

crisis--the reward.

IV. ROCK CLIMBING 138

By the EDITOR

A theory of the development--balance climbing--the individual

standard--solitary climbing--initial practice--the use of the

foot--hard soles--soft soles--foothold--anticipation--the ankle--the

knee--the hand--cling holds--push and press holds--in cracks--on

slabs--chimney climbing--rib riding--wet rock--glazed rock--summary.

Unsound rock--semi-detached--detached--moraine and scree. Unusual

rock--in quarries--along sea cliffs--on freaks. Climbing

down--positions--facing outward--facing sideways--facing inward--down

chimneys or cracks--the rope in continuous descent--the doubled

rope--brakes--springing the rope--the long rope. Pegs and aids.

The axe on rocks--carriage--the extra hand--the Manx leg.

V. CLIMBING IN COMBINATION 209

By the EDITOR

Collective rhythm--imitation--the rope while moving together--to

the man in front--from the man behind--while moving

singly--following and leading--stances--with belays--without

belays--holding the rope--the order on the rope--on ascents

and descents--on traverses--the order of merit--the order with

beginners--the order of moving--the duties of first man--of

second man--backing up metaphysically--backing up physically--of

third man--more about the rope during climbing--with

stones--during halts--coiling--suitable lengths--funicula.

VI. CORRECTIVE METHOD 256

By the EDITOR

Human fallibility--warning--easing--checking on traverses--the

case of the end man--the measure of courage--the second

man’s action--after a fall--accidents. Mountain perversity--falling

stones--snow slides--ice fragments--evil weather.

VII. ICE AND SNOW CRAFT 279

By the EDITOR

The age for glaciers. Ice craft--the nature of ice--ice-claws--cutting

steps--using steps--the rope on ice--glacier work--snow-covered

glacier. Snow craft--some characteristics and counter-moves--snow

travail--snow slopes--the rope and axe--bergschrund and

bridge--cornices--snow in couloirs--snow at home--confusing

weather--the sense of direction. Glissading--on

ice--positions--arrests. On snow--positions--steering--jumping--brakes

--sitting--stone-tests--the rope--some variations--alternate

glissading--face inward--plunging-on claws. On other

grounds--on scree--in winter gullies--on grass and heather.

VIII. RECONNOITRING 370

By the EDITOR

Things seen--snow surface condition--angle on snow--snow cornices--wind

and snow signs--ice--couloirs--rock--faces--ridges--slabs--rocks

in Britain. The Half-seen. The Unseen.

IX. MOUNTAINEERING ON SKI 397

By ARNOLD LUNN

Technique--equipment. The alpine calendar. Snow craft. Winter

snow--powder snow--the effect of wind on powder snow--the effect of

sun on powder snow--summary of winter snow. Spring snow. The effect of

Föhn and thaw--Föhn in winter--Föhn in spring. Summer snow. Snow

avalanches. Classification of avalanches. Summer snow avalanches.

Tactics on avalanche ground. The High Alps in winter--weather

conditions--the approaches to the High Alps--snow conditions in the

High Alps--rock ridges and ice slopes. Glaciers in winter--ski-ing on

a rope. The High Alps in spring--March--April--May--June. The spring

time-table. Summer and autumn ski-ing. Summer ski.

X. MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY 471

By SYDNEY SPENCER

Camera and apparatus--the choice of subject--colour

photography--stereoscopic photography.

XI. MOUNTAINEERING IN TROPICAL COUNTRIES 479

By A. F. R. WOLLASTON

Health and remedies. Equipment--food--canteen--clothing--furniture

--tents. Management--loads and packing--trade goods, natives,

etc.--carriers--camps, and things in general.

XII. MOUNTAINEERING IN THE ARCTIC (SPITSBERGEN) 497

By Sir W. MARTIN CONWAY

Modes of access--plans of campaign--from the coast--into the

interior--exceptional phenomena--summary, cost, etc.

XIII. THE CAUCASUS 506

By HAROLD RAEBURN

Topography--literature--routes of access--modes of

travel--centres--equipment--organization--maps--expense.

XIV. THE MOUNTAINS OF CORSICA 517

By GEORGE FINCH

Season--equipment--centres, access, and topography--nature

of the climbing.

XV. THE HIMALAYA 522

By T. G. LONGSTAFF

General considerations--configuration--conditions--conduct of the

campaign--season. Chief districts--Eastern Himalaya--Sikkim--Nepal

--Kumaon and Garhwal--Tehri Garhwal--Simla Hill States--Kashmir and

Karakoram--Hindu Khush, etc. Personal matters--expense--outfit--food

--the high camp outfit--clothing--instruments.

XVI. THE MOUNTAINS OF NORWAY 536

By W. CECIL SLINGSBY

Guide-books and literature--season--routes of access, travel,

etc.--expense--equipment--guides--topography--local conditions.

XVII. THE SOUTHERN ALPS OF NEW ZEALAND 548

By MALCOLM ROSS

Routes of access--local conditions, guides, etc.--topography--flora

and fauna--glaciers.

XVIII. THE PYRENEES 556

By CLAUDE ELLIOTT

Topography--centres--guides--maps--huts and

inns--equipment--expense--literature.

XIX. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 572

By A. L. MUMM

Topography--the C.P.R. district--the Selkirks--guides and

equipment--the Northern Selkirks--the Purcell range--some minor

ranges--the main chain from Laggan to Jasper--the groups east of the

main chain--the main chain north of the G.T.P.--modes of

travel--outfit--season--the annual camps--access, cost, etc.

INDEX 593

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE ALPS _Frontispiece_

From a Photograph by SYDNEY SPENCER

FACING PAGES

KNOTS FOR USE IN ALPINE ROPES 92, 94, 96, 98

From Photographs by O. ECKENSTEIN

ROCK AND ICE 280

From a Photograph by SYDNEY SPENCER

MOUNTAIN ARCHITECTURE 370

From a Photograph by C. F. MEADE

SNOW WAYS 398

From a Photograph by JEAN GABERELL, Thalwil

THE HIMALAYA 522

From a Photograph by C. F. MEADE

NORWEGIAN PEAKS 536

From a Photograph by NORMAN COLLIE

IN THE TEXT

PAGE

TRICOUNI BOOT-NAILS 83

ICE-AXE 92

DIAGRAMS SHOWING SLOPES 426

SKETCH-MAP OF PART OF CIS AND TRANS-CAUCASIA 507

SKETCH-MAP OF THE PYRENEES 558

MOUNTAIN CRAFT

CHAPTER I

MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP

A party consists usually of from two to four climbers, exclusive of

guides. A larger number inevitably divides into two or more units

for mountaineering purposes. The management devolves upon the most

experienced mountaineer. His selection as leader, in this sense, is

more often than not tacit and unexpressed, especially among British

climbers.

Over-management is fatal to the effective co-operation of a party;

and a formal selection of a leader[1], or a precise insistence upon

the performance of particular duties by individual members, may only

disturb the pleasant relationship of friends on a climbing holiday.

If a man is not felt to be qualified as leader by personality and

experience, no vote will make him so.

Large or democratic parties, of equal inexperience, can carry out very

delightful sub-alpine wanderings without leadership. If they attempt

serious mountaineering, it is usually at the cost to their friends of

sleepless nights and of expensive search parties.

Among men of equal experience, equally able to grasp a situation and

to co-operate without words of command, the duties of leadership

are slight and their operation never obtrusive. Experience teaches

them to accept, as a matter of convenience, the management of their

daily routine by some one of their number, and to acknowledge, as

a matter of security and of economy of time, the leadership of the

most expert in the incidents of the climbing day. In a pursuit so

exacting as mountaineering, charged with the unexpected and dependent

upon continuous harmony of action for its ordinary progress, some such

voluntary subordination is essential. The leader may be only the focus

of the collective opinion of an experienced party: like the conductor

of an orchestra he may not be equally competent to play all the

instruments he directs; but if there is no one to whom to look for the

word, in mountaineering as in music the time is lost and the harmony

vanishes for easy and for difficult passages alike.

In parties of unequal experience the leader’s responsibility

is greater, and his direction has to be the more formally and

unquestioningly accepted. A child has to learn to take his elders’

‘yes’ or ‘no’ as final in the crisis of some new experience: there

is often no time to give him reasons, and his experience would

be insufficient to enable him to convert them into the immediate

action required. But it is more difficult for a man, possibly with a

brilliant record behind him upon British rocks, to accept a decision

unquestioningly, especially if he has been accustomed in moments of

crisis to depend upon his own skill or judgment. To delay, however,

or to argue is as fatal as to disobey. The leader may be wrong, but

his error will probably be on the side of over-caution, since he

will be consciously directing for a party that has not yet learned

to work together. To prove him wrong, by the successful issue of our

disobedience or disagreement, is as destructive of the future harmony

and activity of the party as to prove him right, by its ill-success,

may be to the actual safety of the party at the moment. A good-tempered

party of beginners, with a mild leader, may continue to climb together

on these undefined terms, but there will be hesitation and consultation

where there should be decisive action; it will never grow fit for any

serious expedition. A leader of greater experience or shorter temper

will clear matters up at once. He will know that though his judgment

may not be infallible, the fact that it may be questioned at a moment

of crisis must be dangerous. A mountaineering party has to establish

a habit of friendly discipline. Most young men when first taken out

to the Alps have had experience of this discipline in other pursuits;

but in moments of excitement the national spirit of independence, or

the instinct of self-preservation, is apt to assert itself, and these

moments, if they occur before the party is welded into a climbing

unit, may be fatal to its constitution. A wise leader will insist on a

reasonable discipline or suggest a dissolution as the lesser evil.

If it is the duty of the young mountaineer to learn to accept a

constitutional authority for the good of his party, it is that of the

leader or manager to see that it is used only for the good of the

party, and to make it personally the less obvious, the more it grows to

be accepted in understanding.

An early alpine tradition, historically traceable to the isolated and

responsible position of the first guideless parties, who had to face

the dangers of the mountains, still unfamiliar, and the army of their

hostile critics as if going forth against an enemy, made the leader

an absolute autocrat, the commander of a forlorn hope. Many leaders

of this type were frankly bullies, ordering their friends for their

good like old-time schoolmasters. Occasionally, when one man was

marked out by experience or personality, the results were effective in

climbing. But the tyranny would not now be considered tolerable, and

under modern conditions it would constitute bad leadership. Knowledge

of the craft is far more widely spread, and the climbing attempted is

of a standard that demands an equal share of responsible work from us

all. It is now recognized that the strength of a party lies in its

collective capacity, not in its leader as one outstanding exponent. But

the tradition still survives, and some oppressed parties will still

awaken in the casual climber a wonder at the large amount of hectoring

they will endure from their leader compared with the little which his

methods enable them to achieve.

MANAGEMENT IN ANTICIPATION

Three things only are necessary for the salvation of a mountaineering

holiday: good health, good fellowship and good climbing. These three

conditions are mutually contributory and interdependent; and the last,

the declared object of the association, is only attainable when the

other two are secure.

It goes without saying that a good leader must be able to design and

direct an ascent so far as the actual climbing is concerned; but he

will discount beforehand half his chances of successful performance

unless he has learned how to bring his party on to the glacier, at four

in the morning, fit in health and on good terms with themselves and one

another.

[Sidenote: Physical Well-being.]

Fortunately, in dealing with healthy men, special attention to the

first condition of health is confined to the first two or three days of

a tour. After these are safely passed, air and exercise and increasing

general fitness take over medical charge and deal summarily with the

beginnings of any lesser or local ailments.

There is no need to bother overmuch about the party before the tour

commences. Of course men, for their own sakes, will come as fit as

they can. Attention to the diet and, if it can be got, some regular

exercise in the open air--walking, running or tennis--may be suggested;

but I have never seen any particular benefit accrue from exercising

particular sets of climbing muscles. I return to this elsewhere; and I

would only make one exception here, for a leader’s attention. Some men,

especially as they get on in years, are liable to cramp in the trunk

muscles from the fatigue of general climbing, and in the hands after

severe rock-work. In these cases it is well worth while recommending

anticipatory ‘local’ exercises for the hand and forearm and for the

walls of the trunk, to keep the muscles supple and ‘long.’ Dancing,

skipping, fencing and wood-chopping are all worth mentioning to men who

cannot get into the open air. And, above all, the morning cold bath!

The first few days of the tour, however, are vital. Mountaineers are

sound men, and have usually only two weak points, the feet and the

stomach. New boots or overwork attack the first; unaccustomed food,

changing atmospheric pressures, and revolutionary hours of sleep, food

and exercise upset the second. For the feet precautionary measures

are the safest. In ordinary life we accept their constant service

unconsciously, and it requires an effort to give our own and, even

more, other men’s feet the additional attention they require on the

first few days of any tour. To see that the boots fit, on the second

day even more than on the first; to make sure that one or even two

extra pairs of socks are put on if any boot has become stretched after

wetting; to discover if there is any beginning of rub or blister, and

to check it by boracic powder or other ointment in the sock at once,

even if this means a halt in the middle of a climb; to suggest bracing

with cold water in the evenings or whenever opportunity offers; in the

case of anyone whose skin is tender, to double these precautions: these

are some of the first duties of management.

Internal chill is a constant risk during the first few days of exposure

to unaccustomed changes of temperature. Damp clothes next to the skin

are principally to be avoided. A spare vest, flannel shirt or ‘woolly’

should always be taken in the sack, for a change at hut or bivouac,

even if the other clothes have to be worn wet or slept in. In a hut

it is preferable to take the wet clothes off and to sleep rolled in a

blanket, even though that may be also damp. During the day it is unwise

to sit on damp or cold rocks. A coil of rope may be used as a seat, or

a useful habit is to carry a small square of waterproof, in which the

spare shirt can also be wrapped. When nearing the ‘gîte’ or hut, it is

well to reverse the usual practice, and go slow for the last twenty

minutes, so that the perspiration may dry gradually from the body while

in motion, and not after it is at rest. By the fire in the evening,

during the snooze on the summit, and especially in an enforced bivouac,

the stomach is the vital point to protect. In case we get benighted,

any spare clothes, or even paper, should be wrapped round the stomach.

The coat should be taken off and fastened round the shoulders outside

the arms, so as to concentrate all the body’s warmth within it. The

feet can be put in a rucksack. If possible, the boots should be kept

on, to avoid their freezing hard. If they have to come off so as to

save the feet from frost-bite, they should be sat upon, to keep them

soft. Wind is another enemy to guard against while resting during the

day or sleeping out, and a light wind-cloak is a sound protection.[2]

On returning to the hotel, a hot bath, if procurable, or a hot

sponge-down, should always be taken; it not only clears the pores and

supples the muscles, but it restores the normal circulation and removes

congestion, due to great exertion and changing temperatures, which

often produces a general feeling of discomfort, especially in the head.

[Sidenote: Food.]

Care in the choice of food, discouragement of the inclination to starve

during the day and to overeat in the evenings, insistence upon a

regimen to get the subconscious stomach working by its new time-table,

and, in case of failure, the employment of the simple domestic remedies

at once and in time, these are all indispensable during the first

days. But their observance cannot be left without prompting to the

individual discretion. Especially is this the case in looking after

young mountaineers, who are unacquainted with the treacherous dealings

of odd meals and broken sleep at high altitudes.

In the matter of the choice of food the leader has to overcome the

repugnance natural after a satisfying evening meal to attend himself to

all the rather messy details of provisioning for the next day.

No guide or hotel-keeper can be trusted to do this. During the first

days of hard exercise the average man will eat but little solid food,

and turns from meats and tins such as hotels love to load into the

sacks. He has to be tempted with sweet-stuffs, jams (the small tins

are irresistible), chocolate, and meat-essences and eggs for support.

The disposition to eat little during the effort of the first days, and

to eat largely in the reaction of the evenings, has to be countermined

by the offer, at not infrequent intervals, of pleasant luxuries that

go down easily. It is old-fashioned and entirely wrong, especially

with young people, to give them only what used to be termed wholesome,

nourishing food. In healthy open-air conditions the body knows what it

wants, and the palate interprets the desire. Food that is not palatable

or eaten with pleasure is of little benefit, and cloying sugar

compounds, the best muscle fuel, become again surprisingly attractive.

After the new regimen has become a habit the air and the exercise will

make almost any food welcome, and at any time; but even then the secret

of vigour is still plenty of sweet-stuffs. One of the small matters

that contribute almost absurdly to maintaining the good spirits even

of a trained party is the production at suitable or surprising moments

of small indulgences--chocolate, raisins, preserved fruit, honey or

sweet-meats. They weigh little, but the body’s appreciation of and

response to differences of food is exceedingly fine when it is making

great exertions, and their immediate effect upon muscle and spirit is

as rapid as that of stimulants in ordinary life. A whole summer tour

in a bad season of soft snow has been lightened by a large bag of

acid drops reappearing each day at weary moments with a new delight.

In the plains I am myself a small and careless eater. But among my

mountaineering memories days of fierce sun-glare on interminable white

passes still remain rosy with the recollection of ‘a raspberry-jam

snow’ or golden with the cool glow of a tin of yellow plums scooped up

with ice-splinters.

Good management will consider no such detail of provisioning too small

for attention. And it is not sufficient to order: each bag or packet

should be opened, to see that the order has been fully executed, before

the sacks are packed.

[Sidenote: Thirst.]

Thirst is another difficulty at the beginning of a tour. To a

large extent such thirst is merely feverish; it is impossible of

satisfaction, and to indulge it swamps and upsets the human machinery.

Some resolute men, to avoid the delicious temptation, train themselves

not to drink at all during the day; and then make it up in the evening.

But a certain amount of liquid is as essential, in action, as a certain

amount of food, and the moderate habit has to be acquired by practice.

The exact amount necessary, as distinguished from acceptable, varies

with the individual. The merely feverish thirst of the first day can be

dodged by letting water run through the mouth, swallowing, as a special

indulgence, only a mouthful or so. Sucking a prune-stone, or even a

pebble, keeps the saliva flowing and is a consolation on hot snowy

tramps. To the same end, of prolonging the pleasant assuaging process,

devices such as sipping water slowly from a pearl-shell or cup cool to

the eye, chewing orange peel, sucking a lemon or tea or wine slowly

through lumps of sugar, or crushing a handful of snow till it becomes

an ice-pear in the hand and then sucking the end of it, are all worth

remembering.

Meat-fed men do not require strong stimulants. A little wine in the

water, chilled by snow, is often pleasanter to the taste than water

alone. Mountain water has often a flat flavour of cold stones, or

recalls the flask or pouch in which it has been carried. Wine removes

this suspicion. Spirits should be kept for a last resource, for cases

of injury or collapse, and then used only if the head is not affected.

Their stimulus, under the conditions of climbing, is too evanescent

to be of any service; the reaction is almost immediate, and the

resulting condition worse than before. Cold tea and cold coffee are

popular beverages: or the juice of many lemons can be carried in a

small aluminium flask, to mix with the chosen blend. Sugar lessens the

quenching power. If sugar cannot be dispensed with, a lemon squeezed

into the tea restores its effect upon the saliva-ducts of the mouth.

Snow, crushed ice or water can be added as the supply diminishes.

The danger of drinking snow water is, in my view, a superstition

disproved by experience. Its supposed ill effects are usually to be

traced to the amount of cold liquid actually consumed rather than to

its character.

Some men prefer to take their liquid in the form of snow sprinkled over

any food they eat. This is an excellent way of making food of all kinds

palatable in the early stages of a tour, while the disinclination for

solid food lasts.

A device that never fails to entice even the youngest mountaineer past

the clogged-up ‘can’t eat’ phase of early training, is to make a small

hollow in the snow, empty a jam-tin into it, and mix the jam with loose

snow into a fruit ice. In colour, flavour and immediate effect it is

one of the few undisputed additions that the ingenuity of man has been

able to make to the charms of the mountains.

A good manager should never fail to remark a man who is constantly

stopping to drink at passing streams. Spartan example in abstinence

will do much to check him, but if this fails, he must use his wits

to substitute one of the devices mentioned, so as to save the man’s

interior without injuring his feelings by direct comment.

[Sidenote: Smoking.]

Smoking I believe to be a question for personal decision. I have

never found the moderate indulgence in pipes or cigars affect wind or

training in the slightest degree during the hardest days. The rule that

halts should be few and short ensures moderation; for smoking during

actual climbing is all but impossible. One famous mountaineer prefers

to light a pipe before any particularly hard problem, but experiment

suggests that the art is not worth learning. It is uncomfortable for

the lungs and costly in pipe-stems. A pipe makes a good temporary

substitute for food, drink or sleep. It comforts many cold moments of

waiting and makes a soothing counsellor in difficulties. Ability to

smoke, and consequently to sustain his part in the effortless silence

which characterizes the true comradeship of mountaineering, should be

among the qualifications of any climbing companion.

[Sidenote: Ailments.]

A manager’s functions are precautionary rather than corrective. It is

well that he should know something of medical treatment and of first

aid. But advice under these headings is best obtained from the many

good handbooks. From them he will learn how to use the contents of the

pocket medical and surgical cases without which no party should ever

attempt to climb.

Without trespassing upon their special province, there are yet certain

practical observations and precautions which a manager should make and

take as part of his routine.

The readiness or unreadiness for food, and the disposition to drink

or abstain between halts, are useful indications of the extent to

which a party is coming into condition, and a leader must observe

them and take them into account in his choice and conduct of the next

climb. The desire to drink early in the morning is a sure sign that

a man is slightly ‘feverish,’ or that he has not slept well, and his

condition must be mentally noted. A sudden inclination to sleep at

odd moments usually means that the nerves are exhausted by some shock

or by over-long strain. The desire to sleep should be indulged, and a

condition of lower vitality must be temporarily allowed for. The slight

trembling of the knee in the tension of climbing that often recurs at

the beginning of a tour is, of course, only a purely muscular sign that

the leg muscles are out of training. It will pass in the first few

days, but it cannot afford to be entirely neglected. While he is liable

to it no man should be allowed to lead a difficult passage. Many men

suffer at first from violent headaches above a certain height, often

with giddiness and an inclination to ‘mountain’ sickness. This occurs

more particularly on snow; usually it passes off after the first few

days, as the changes of altitude become customary. In these cases,

during the initial period, constant supervision is needed in the matter

of food, of bodily regimen, and above all of pace. Easy going is the

best precautionary treatment. Wet handkerchiefs round the head, and

bending forward whilst walking, so as to ease the heart’s action, often

afford partial relief; to cough, or hold the breath, gives a momentary

respite. Rests are of little use, and often increase the pain. The

attack should cease at the particular lower level which suits the

individual circulation. If it persists, a hot bath will cure it for the

night.

Half the sickness that so often spoils climbing or camping parties

during the first few days is due to an interrupted or irregular habit

of the body, such as is imposed by the new topsy-turvy time-table and

the unfavouring conditions of living. A leader must let no reserve

stand in his way, especially with young climbers, in warning against

this risk or in securing its immediate correction.

Frost-bite is an insidious enemy: it attacks young people of weak

circulation without any warning of pain and at very short notice.

Inexperience treats it as just a passing numbness and not worth

mentioning. I have known only one hour’s walking over cold autumn snow,

on the way up to a hut in the evening, to take all life out of a hand;

and it took us another hour’s hard rubbing to restore the circulation.

There should always be spare gloves and socks in all of the sacks; and,

until he knows his men, a manager should insist upon instant notice of

a finger or toe that has ‘no feeling in it.’ Immediate and continued

friction with snow or brandy is the remedy; but it must be applied at

once. The limb affected should be lifted and kept up. Fires and warm

rooms should be avoided. When fingers or toes have once been, if only

partially, touched, they are more liable to a return. Extra socks and

gloves should then always be worn. A mitten, with or without a glove,

is of comfort where the climbing is too difficult to permit of the use

of ‘fingerless’ snow-gloves.

Cold is not only a danger as it produces local chills or frost-bite,

it also has an immediate deleterious effect upon the general climbing

power and confidence. Wind, in this respect also, is the greatest

enemy of the climber. The muscles generate their own warmth, which is

the body’s energy; but once they get chilled from outside by wind or

cold, they lose a great part of their power. A cold limb should at once

be rubbed; and, as a precaution, clothes should always err on the side

of being too thick rather than too light. The human body can endure

great windless cold, but little cold wind. With the chilling of the

muscles the nerve and will-power diminish also. For the reactions of

cold, local and general, a leader must be always on the watch.

The sun has three dangers for inexperience. Snow-blindness rarely

gives warning. It is often only painfully realized on the following

day. Therefore until a man knows the power of his eyes he should use

precaution and put on coloured or smoked glasses when he sees the first

flash from the prisms on glacier or snow-field. But on rock coloured

glasses are a great nuisance, where they are rarely needed however

strong the glare. Again, in traversing snow-covered glacier such

glasses are frequently an interruption to the observation of hidden

crevasses. Further, experience suggests that as many as a quarter of

those now climbing really require no protection at all. For others it

would be sufficient to have their eyes blackened round with burnt cork.

For others again it would be enough protection to wear clear glasses

over eyes so blackened. Experiment alone will find our individual

equation, and, unfortunately, the experiment may often be trying. But

it is one well worth making, on suitable occasions, for the sake of the

permanent gain if we find that glasses can be dispensed with. If a man

who finds he needs glasses has forgotten or lost them, a mask should

be made of any piece of paper, with the smallest possible slits for

the eyes. He should also blacken round his eyes with cork. If only a

single glass is broken, a paper or card, with a minute hole, should be

inserted in the empty frame.

Sun-blistering is as permanent and excruciating in its consequences as

it is gradual in its attack. It may be produced by the direct sun-rays;

more severely by light reflected from snow or water or diffused through

thick mist; less severely by wind and reflected light from rock or

road. Grease is generally useless as protection; colour salves, as

elsewhere recommended, are the only preventive. It is to be noted that

the facets of the face most exposed to the reflection from the snow,

the underside of the nose, the lips and the cheeks, are usually given

an insufficient allowance. Bathing in cold water is deadly, especially

to the lips, once the skin has scorched. One compensation for the

loss of our complexion with advancing years is the lessening of our

susceptibility to this infliction.

Sunstroke in a mild form is constantly mistaken for mountain sickness,

for “poisoning at the hotel,” and so on. The surest precaution is

to wear a loose handkerchief hanging from the hat, to protect the

neck. The coat-collar can also be turned up. It is excellent, on all

sun-glaring days, to make a habit of filling the hollow in the crown

of the hat with snow, and, when it melts and trickles refreshingly

down, of renewing the snow. Until men have got accustomed to being

alternately baked and frozen three times a day, they have to be

reminded of these and similar small precautions. In the event of slight

sun-touches, ice or wet cloths, shade, light food, and no alcohol

are the local treatment. Plenty of moisture outside and inside is

essential, and, as for all other ailments, rest.

[Sidenote: Bathing.]

Bathing in lake or stream, or even in glacier pools, is one of the

most perfect rewards of mountaineering effort. In the very early

morning or at a night-start it is not advisable, as it checks the

necessary business of getting the bodily machinery working; nor is

it often desired at these hours. During the day, the inclination at

great heights fortunately appears to diminish, coincident with the

disappearance of the opportunities to indulge it. When the human

machine is centring all its powers on the continuance of a single

exceptional effort, it has an instinctive shrinking from submitting

itself to processes, however delightful, that will interfere with this

concentration. Rest is a necessary interruption and must be suffered,

but short exposures of the body to hot sunlight upon cold rocks, or

in colder water, in most cases do us more harm by producing a general

relaxation than they benefit us by their momentary refreshment. But

when the main effort of the day is past, and the body has no fear

of calling out its last reserves, the bathe on the descent is an

indescribable delight and refreshment. We may have still some way

to go, but to perform this we shall have, in any case, to summon up

our energies afresh; and at such natural moments of interruption the

bracing impetus of a bathe will help to regulate our circulation anew

and to store mind and nerves with new energy for the new commencement.

We climb for pleasure; and when body and mind are working in harmony

the pleasures our mind suggests are generally the remedies or

relaxations our body needs. If no water is to be found, to get rid of

the stuffiness of alpine clothes, and to give all the skin surfaces

a bath of air and sunlight, is only one degree less pleasant or

stimulating than a bathe in water itself. Caution at the same time is

necessary in encouraging men, and especially young people, of whose

circulation or heart we may have doubts, to risk the intensely cold

shock of glacier water upon baked and sun-congested surfaces. It is

perhaps worth remembering that the risk of actual chill is greater

during the process of drying in cold air or wind after a bathe (always

a lengthy process in the towel-less Alps) than during the bathe itself.

It is unpleasant for the time, but far warmer in feel and after effect,

to put on clothes without waiting to get dry.

Minute attention to such details of provisioning, health, and regimen

can be relaxed as a party of men comes into training and begins to know

its business, but it should never be entirely discontinued. One day’s

carelessness in revising the food, or the disregard of a cold toe, a

blister, or a ‘bad night,’ may at any time upset the plans of a whole

tour.

[Sidenote: Young Folk.]

In the management of boys and girls below twenty-two or so, it is

impossible to exercise too much care. Boys especially, whose activity

depends upon the impulse of their interest and rarely settles to

an automatic rhythm, may ‘shut up’ with startling suddenness, both

mentally and physically. Nor can our observation tell us for certain

beforehand when they are really beginning to draw upon their reserves

of vitality, or when they are only getting bored. They have no

conception of economy in their movement, so long as the impulse of

excitement lasts. As the interest of a climb diminishes, on the evening

tramp or the prolonged snow slope, their mental vivacity may die down,

and with it ends their energy. At such times, if they have not been

allowed actually to exhaust their physical strength, they will revive

as rapidly in response to a new mental stimulus, of talk, or sight,

or varied exertion. In their case it is the mind that calls for first

attention and first aid.

Girls move less on springs and more by rhythm. Their activity is less

reflective of external stimulus, and less dependent upon mental impulse

for its continuance. They have not the boy’s natural armour of nervous

sensibility against overwork. It is, therefore, more possible in their

case to watch the degree of positive physical fatigue in outward signs,

and to anticipate more exactly the moment of exhaustion by suitable

measures. Though their endurance is on the whole greater than that of

boys, or at least fluctuates less in proportion to the amount of mental

distraction or interest present in the physical effort, the effects

of over-fatigue are more lasting. With both boys and girls, the only

safe precaution is to allow very broad margins of time and distance, to

select climbs which both in difficulty and length shall be well within

the powers of young growing bodies, and above all not to be induced by

the suppleness of youth or its momentary enthusiasm to make exceptions

‘just this once’ to sound general rules.

[Sidenote: Preventable Humours.]

The influence of the mind upon the body has its special concern for

mountaineering management. An athletic body, if it be nervously

constituted, may be as susceptible of fatigue after two hours’

walking on a dull road as after twelve hours on an exciting ascent.

Mental distraction is as important as change of movement for the easy

performance of sustained physical effort. Mountaineering owes for

this reason to its infinite variety of motion and interest a record

of feats of sheer endurance such as no other human pursuit or sport

has excelled. But not all mountaineers are conscious of their debt to

this peculiar virtue of the hills, or allow sufficiently for its full

enjoyment in making their plans. Far more than any muscular strength or

even physical fitness, will-power is the dominant force in maintaining

normal energy and in subduing abnormal _accidiæ_, to which reference is

made later. The leader is most efficient who can best protect his party

against influences that irritate the nerves and so interfere with the

power or desire to bring the will into play. Men bored, men irritated,

men disappointed, men overwrought, without pleasure in retrospect or

prospect to refresh them, lose the wish to throw off their mood. It

is against the causes of boredom, the effects of exaltation or of

disappointment, that the leader has to take his precautions. If, in

spite of him, the moods are created, he must be ready, in anticipation,

to provide some remedy of distraction that can release the will from

the oppression of the nerves and associate it in the effort to master

the mood. External distractions are the most effective. The alarm

of fire has been known to banish rheumatism or paralysis; the sound

of an avalanche electrifies a twisted ankle into painless activity;

the sight of the hotel round the corner cures exhaustion like a cold

douche; an ingenious conversational opening will carry a limping

band over unconscious miles of extra effort. Anything that for the

moment can release the consciousness from its over-mastering nervous

affection, nervous in effect however physical in origin, enables the

will to recover control of the muscles. These external provocations

excite states of anger, interest or alarm wholly different in character

and effect from passive states of irritation and obstinacy which are

produced by the reaction from an internal consciousness of fatigue. A

leader will welcome them, in fact, as antidotes to their apparently

kindred humours.

[Sidenote: Boredom.]

It may be assumed that a modern leader will not make the elementary,

although traditional, blunder of taking beginners or young people or

women for their first expedition upon the weariness of snow trudges,

such as the traditional first tour up the Zermatt Breithorn. But even

with an expert party he has to remember that boredom is one of his

chief enemies. Monotonous snow slopes, long moraines before dawn, long

zigzags on the path when the excitement of the day is over, make an

undue call upon the will, such as suggests fatigue to the mind before

the muscles are really exhausted. They are part of the day’s work, but

they put a strain upon the temper of an untrained party that is more

wisely avoided.

With the same danger in view, a leader, while he insists on early

starts, should not give his party too much to do before daylight. Men

without guides lose endless time, energy, and, worse still, temper and

tone in losing their way and their footing on the preliminary paths and

glaciers in the dark. It is better to start an hour later, and recover

half of it from the easier, surer going of daylight progress. But best

of all for a guideless party is to reach the inn, hut or bivouac in

sufficient time the evening before to allow them to make thoroughly

sure of their next morning’s dark exit from the mazy streets and

fields, or of the easy route on to and through the nearer glacier. Men

are irritable enough in the dark, and if they cannot get going at once

to a sure rhythm on a certain route, their harmony of movement and mood

may be impaired for half or all of a day. Of the means of meeting the

special boredom peculiar to snow tramps, something is said under Snow

Craft.[3]

[Sidenote: Over-excitement.]

During the early days of a tour, on the other hand, there is always

the contrary possibility to guard against, that the mere excitement

and novel sensation of meeting difficulty may urge men beyond their

strength and conceal from them that the limit of their endurance is

already crossed. When the nervous tension is over, physical exhaustion

sets in very suddenly. The situation is awkward to deal with; but

physical crises are definite and yield to definite remedies. The

sympathy and efforts of the whole party are at once concentrated upon

the victim. Fatigue is lost sight of in the greater common need and the

supreme effort for which it calls. The individual may suffer, but the

tone of the party, if anything, profits. The leader may take comfort

in this thought, and also in the fact that even if a climb turns out

unforeseenly sensational, it has none the less to be carried through,

and that there is some cause for his gratitude if undue excitement will

help to sustain a weaker member of his party over the serious part of

the day, even at the expense of an off-day on the morrow.

The effects of fatigue from mental suggestion or boredom upon temper,

will and, ultimately, energy are less preventable. They tend to divide

a party socially and to make them irritable, carelessly reckless, or

obstinately languid. Mental tonics, distractions and talk are less

easily administered than helping hands. But a leader, whatever his

own state, has to pull himself together to anticipate or to meet the

occasion, and use all his tact to distract attention and create a new

interest in anything but the individual consciousness of fatigue.

LEADERSHIP IN ACTION

The manager as leader has a special responsibility to himself. He is

the stroke of the party. Like a good stroke, while exerting himself to

the utmost, he has always to keep some strength, nervous and physical,

in reserve, to meet a sudden emergency or to vitalize unexpectedly

depressing hours of dull return. As a duty to the party he should

save himself by making use of the stronger members, should there be

any, to take something of his share of the more laborious and less

vital labour. A party which knows his value as reserve and management

will save him, for instance, some part of his portion in the work of

carrying, of leading in soft snow, or of easy step-cutting. They too

must recognize he has always to keep something in reserve for a crisis.

[Sidenote: The Collective Confidence.]

At the same time, no matter what the crisis or his private doubts, he

must never appear, if he can possibly help it, to have called out his

last reserves, or to be feeling any diminished confidence in his own

ability, or in that of his party, to force a successful issue. He must,

too, avoid mystery. Nothing is more nerve-trying in critical moments,

to men whose experience cannot measure the extent of a crisis, than

tense silence or too obvious self-control on the part of those who can.

It is better, if the situation is genuinely serious, to bring it down

to a human level by blowing off a few words of violent commonplace

expletive, than to leave it in that daunting remoteness of gravity for

which words are inadequate. The more crucial the occasion, the more

does the nerve of the party centre in the leader. Their confidence

in his confidence is a more important asset than their confidence in

his skill. The combined ability of a party, each one confident in the

others and relieved of individual responsibility by his sense of the

general confidence, goes further towards success in the solution of

difficulties or the repulse of danger than the brilliant independent

success which any one individual in it could achieve by reliance on

his single skill and nerve.

For this confidence the leader is the focus, and an important decision,

such as the resolve to advance or retreat in a given crisis, should be

guided by his estimate of the amount of confident capacity represented

by the party at the moment, and not merely by his opinion as to his own

power to force the passage as an individual.

If he decides to turn back on a climb, he should take the odium of

the decision without fear of later criticism. He knew or felt what

the collective ability of the party was at the time in relation to

the effort demanded, and it is unimportant what an individual may

afterwards think might have been his own chances of overcoming the

particular difficulty “had he been allowed to try.” If he continues the

climb, with the same consciousness advising him, it must be his object

to better the chances of success by stimulating the existing confidence

into that cheerful humour in which men do their skill most justice.

[Sidenote: Keeping Touch.]

To keep in touch with every one of a party of friends, so as to

continue aware of the way in which their minds and their bodies are

being affected by the circumstances, is not easy. On severe climbs it

is all but impossible to prevent the rear men, separated by lengths of

rope and interruptions of difficult ground, from remaining in ignorance

of what is being done in front, or of what is guiding the choice of

problems which they are expected in their turn to surmount. For this

reason it is helpful to break the habit of silence which falls upon

men dealing with serious work,--and which, like the inclination to

whisper in a dark room, seems to have behind it some primitive feeling

of fear of provoking further attention from unseen but very present

forces,--and talk down the rope occasionally, passing question and

answer up and down, and cheering the tail with a renewed feeling of

unity and confidence drawn from the confidence of the leader. With the

same object in view, wherever the climb allows it, the party should be

allowed to collect for a moment and forget in talk the depression or

doubt inevitable to solitude, before the leaders start again.

Guides are great offenders in this respect. They have no conception of

the extra force given by a single united consciousness to a party, of

the means to keep in touch with it, or of the help they themselves may

draw from it. They climb absorbedly ahead lost in the sense of their

own responsibility. Consequently they often turn back, from a doubt

of their party or a lack of confidence to carry a climb through on

their single responsibility, on occasions where a good amateur leader,

with or without guides, can feel himself justified in proceeding. He

is in a position to take the even chance of a turn of weather, of the

possibility of a return at a later and more unpleasant stage, of the

crossing of an exposed couloir or the ascent of a snow or ice slope

down which there may be no safe return, because he is confident in his

knowledge of the condition of his party, of their concerted action

and reserves of strength and cheerfulness, and feels that these are

sufficient to carry them over the possible chances of worse weather

or more trying conditions, and to lead them through a longer day to a

later descent even by another line.

He has to earn his right to his more confident decision in thus

matching his men against the mountain by supplementing his single

mountaineering experience and instinct firstly by his precautionary

care for their condition and humour, and secondly by his ability to

keep in close touch with their collective capacity at any and every

moment. His reward will be their increasing confidence in themselves,

in him, and in their united strength, and the increasing power which

this brings with it.

[Sidenote: Temper.]

A mountaineering party, when in action, is dependent for its

good-humoured and hearty co-operation on more than the external

interests of the climbs, however well selected beforehand and

sustained, on more even than its good health and food, however well

cared for. It has to be welded into a fine instrument: its temper is

its strength; and its temper has to be kept at just the right heat. Hot

words on occasions will do it little harm. Men in a state of primitive

well-being are apt to become elemental in temper. A sudden crisis sets

off a shower of sparks of language. These do no harm. No experienced

man looks upon them as personally directed, or remembers them when

the crisis is past. What has really to be guarded against is the

effect of monotony in any form, even the irritating repetition of some

small unconscious personal trick. Slight resentments become magnified

grotesquely during the long hours of silent effort, especially of

monotonous effort, on snow, glaciers or path. Any ordinary mountaineer

will probably remember occasions when some trifling habit of a good

friend, some unintentional or momentary lack of consideration, has

taken advantage of the dull ending of a strenuous day to come back

upon him irresistibly, and fill him unaccountably with sullen growing

resentment. He may realize its foolishness, but, like the similar

insistence of the refrain of some silly comic song, it becomes part

of the mechanical movement in which his whole being is for the time

absorbed.

If he has been fortunate enough to escape such an attack himself, he

must at times have been aware of the dangerous electricity accumulating

in some one or other of the members of a tired party. It is the

commonest symptom of fatigue. A manager has to look out for this. Its

consciousness will disappear with the sight of the hotel door, and be

secretly regretted on the morrow, but in the meantime he has to prevent

the unforgettable being said. Silence is his chief enemy. It is useless

to try and tempt tired men, usually tramping in single file, into

agreeable conversation, unless some happy accident of the way rests

the mind with a new distraction, but he has to seize any desperate

occasion for casual remarks. It does not signify what he chatters,

provided he is not inappropriately cheerful, and shows himself at least

to be completely and seemingly idiotically unconscious of any strain

in the situation. Even if he draws the discharge of temper on himself,

he has averted all serious danger. Song is the best outlet since it

fits in with the mechanical movement while it withdraws attention from

it; but song can only be employed when the ground allows of the feet

moving in accord. If he himself is one of the two between whom one

of these smouldering irritations is getting ominously overcharged in

the silence, he has a harder task. But he will have his reward if he

can sacrifice his own humour to his sense of responsibility. There is

nothing more refreshing to an irritated man who has succeeded, at last,

in forcing himself to make a suitably casual and unconscious remark,

than to watch the visible efforts of his friend, suddenly deprived of

his sure conviction that the resentment was mutually conscious, to pull

himself hurriedly together and answer in the lighter key. Both men are

so fully aware that their savage humour is ungrounded and absurd, that

neither wishes to appear to be left alone in his folly.

Temper is the one permanent peril to all climbing parties, and it

is never allowed for sufficiently, or openly treated in its true

character as a largely physical phenomenon. Men who have to live long

together at great heights, as in the Himalaya, or in great solitudes,

as at sea, know that its outbreaks are practically uncontrollable,

and many an expedition has failed on its account alone. It is best

to treat it frankly as a necessary contingency, and to take the only

two precautions possible: the one, to make sure that the men know one

another well enough to accept each other’s abusive outbursts as a

sick mood, to be answered in like manner, if they will, but not to be

remembered; and the other, to impress on them that it is the keen edge

of silent resentment or sarcasm that leaves permanent scars, and that

blunt abuse or invective, obviously uncontrolled, clears the air like

an electric storm, and can be safely countered by retort as noisy and

superficial.

It is superfluous, no doubt, to make these suggestions for what may

be called the social conduct of a climbing tour. But friends, because

they are good friends, are apt to reckon too little with the severe

strain put upon comradeship by the circumstances of their mountain

association. Personality is tried by the realities of mountaineering in

deadly earnest: your good comrade in the hills is a very different man

from your pleasant neighbour at the mountaineering dinner. And just as

there is no comradeship that can grow so intimate or lasting as that of

men who have climbed long together, and faced death, storm, fatigue,

success and failure in company, so there is no compact which should be

entered upon, with more precaution, or protected with more sedulous

care in the trifles of its daily routine.

Unless it be to men whom he is definitely initiating into the pursuit,

a leader should not give advice or make direct suggestions; in fact,

the less he fusses or appears to be consciously setting the tone, the

better. There is nobody so tiresome, in daily contact, as some one who

is constantly being cheerful or tactful or managing. Example is the

leader’s medium for correction, in humour as in action.

He must see to it that no loophole is left for discord, in small

arrangements as in small talk. For this reason it is helpful to let

each man look after some department: one to see to the ropes, another

to the drinks, and so on; but it is a mistake ever to remind a man

of his duty to the party. Management is the leader’s business in the

end; and he should see to any omission himself rather than suggest

forgetfulness by a criticism. Similarly, as an instance, in dealing

with a foreign language, with a new hotel or with a new guide, the

negotiation should be entrusted to one alone. He may be chaffed

afterwards, but not interrupted at the time. It is feeble in effect

and rather humiliating to see, as one often does, two or more sedate

Englishmen effusively answering a head waiter in chorus, or treating

any remark that has to be made in a foreign language, say to the guide,

as an occasion for a collective assertion of individual capacity to

speak with tongues and of equal right to use them in giving orders.

Again, as a small instance of what I mean, there should be no question

of comparing the weights of respective sacks before a climb. It is

assumed that each man will carry what he can. If a man is a poor

carrier and intentionally lightens his personal luggage, it is a

blunder on all counts to ask him to carry more than he offers to take

of the common provisions. It may seriously handicap him, and will

certainly hurt his feelings. As an exception, however, since it is no

reflection on his comradeship, a man who is found to be constantly

carrying more than his share may be checked for his own physical good.

There are a few men who by development and disposition are unhappy

unless heavily weighted. They may be indulged, especially with the

charge of the agreeable extra luxuries.

Once he has got his party started, fit and fed, and with no failure

or dispute in arrangement or humour that may give room for later

discomfort or irritation, the manager has to be especially on the watch

for the different effects on his men of the hours before dawn and of

the hours of evening return. The habit of talking before sunrise

should be tacitly discouraged. Most men are inclined to surliness in

the early dark hours, which will disappear with the sun and improved

circulation. Silence at this period is fraught with no dangers which

the beginning of active climbing will not remove. During these early

hours mind and nerves and muscles have got to rediscover their

harmonious working for the exertions of the day. Their process of

adjustment should not, therefore, be distracted.

In the morning mechanical action and the automatic reflexes have to be

re-established, and the mind has to be induced to co-operate. In the

evening, as has been shown, when mechanical action tends to degenerate

into monotony, and muscular and nervous fatigue become master of the

mind, an exactly contrary line of action in management is necessary,

and the mind has to be helped to escape from the infection and to

reassert its independence by intentional distraction.

[Sidenote: Abnormal Moods.]

But there are certain abnormal states, unforeseen but inevitable

effects of the direct action of mountain incident upon nerve,

harmony and energy, which on occasion must be met, and which should

therefore be mentioned. Apart from preventable physical exhaustion,

and the languor and ill-humour produced by boredom, there are several

conditions of mind which may evilly affect the power of a party, and

for varying lengths of time.

[Sidenote: Reaction.]

On the first splendid glow of success, when the difficult ascent has

ended triumphantly on the summit, there follows a phase of complete

relaxation, of surrender to the simple realization of rest and physical

enjoyment. It is a period of indescribable sensations, of imagination

run riot, and of will and self-control alike in abeyance.

When the subsequent descent is begun it is at first, for many men,

a matter of real difficulty to recover complete control of their

machinery, and for the leader to reconstitute the different individuals

into a single working unit. For a time the pace must be diminished, and

the care redoubled. Precautions, of remonstrance and doubled ropes and

moving singly, none of them possibly necessary in the same place with

the party in working order must be put into force, until the normal

condition is regained. The assumption that the state of mind makes no

difference, and that a party can descend as securely the final slopes

that it raced up light-heartedly in the bracing moment of success, is

all too commonly made, and only too frequently regretted.

[Sidenote: Disappointment.]

If success has its short following period of danger, disappointment has

a longer and more insidious effect. However necessary or admittedly

correct the decision to turn back may have been, the disappointment

works afterwards, often unconsciously, upon each individual, as he

realizes his wasted effort and envisages his fatigue, with now no

excitement or bracing of hope to counteract it. So come discouragement,

and careless treading, and a resentful attitude towards precautions and

manœuvres which no longer have any triumphant object as their excuse.

Any weakness in condition or humour will grow doubly apparent at such a

time; and as the disappointment is equally present in all minds, it is

impossible to pretend unconsciousness of it, and often vain to attempt

to raise the atmosphere by a counterfeit of cheerfulness. Mental and

social tonics are for the time alike useless. The condition has to be

accepted as an indisputable lowering of tone, which in its effects will

prejudice the physical capacity of the party in many subtle ways. Since

in this one case he cannot check the evil influence at its source in

the mind, the leader must employ every concrete mountaineering device

to prevent its endangering the actual safety. He must bring out all

his reserves of spirit and technique to keep the party concentrated

on the momentary details of their descent, and redouble his own

activities in order to anticipate or correct any slip or mistake that

the lowered tone may induce. On such occasions he can look himself for

no relaxation of effort or release from anxiety until the rope is off

at last and the safe path regained, no matter how little conscious his

party may like to show themselves individually of any depreciation in

their skill or good-will.

[Sidenote: Over-confidence.]

Equally difficult to deal with, and far more frequent in its

appearance, is the state of mind to which most mountaineers are

subject--and guides also--who have accomplished a great climb

successfully and are retracing the comparatively easy passages of the

lower ridges, glaciers and tracks. Conscious of their successful

performance, confident in their skill and unwearied muscles,

intoxicated by air and effort and fortune, they are unaware of

fatigue, and the easier ground lulls their judgment into a condition

of fatalistic confidence, almost of exaltation. Danger, obvious and

immediate, has become familiar, and has been safely avoided; they can

neglect its threat when it is not so present. They jump the bergschrund

rather than look for the bridge; they chance the unseen rock foothold

rather than lose time in using the doubled rope; they glissade the

loose snow slope and scorn its possible avalanche; the rope hampers

them, it is taken off; and recklessly self-reliant, a reliance that

success has fooled them into thinking justified, they rush the risks of

hidden crevasses on the glacier, of false steps or loose stones on the

easy ridges, with an abandon that it will make them shudder the next

day to recall. Even the lower zigzag path to the valley is a danger

in such a condition of mind. Safe as Rotten Row for the sure foot,

it has a dozen times proved a fatal trap for the stumble of fatigue

or the careless swing of over-confidence. Few men can look back on a

long mountaineering record without remembering some such evenings of

mountain madness; and while they blush (let us hope) even in memory

at their folly, they may wish they had had some cool leader to call

them, grumbling, to their senses. For while reaction and disappointment

reflect at once upon the vitality, lowering the tone and, like a flat

liquor, offering little chance of reanimation, over-confidence is

an effervescence, an overflow of spirits, which can be more easily

regulated by apt manipulation. The leader must take control, sharply

and steadily. He has little to fear from the effect of his interference

upon a party in such spirits; any resentment will be temporary, and

his own labour, of repressing and directing a surplus of energy, will

be far less than in the cases where, as has been shown, he may have to

provide a stimulus or even a substitute for its absence.

There is an insidious danger common to all these mental states. As one

of a party working together, a leader must remember that he himself is

subject to infection from a collective mood. He may consider that his

confident action on occasion is entirely individual and calculated; or,

again, he may be certain that his resolution to retreat represents

only his own unbiased judgment; and in either case he may be puzzled

later to account for an obvious error. He must learn to allow for his

‘atmospheric’ error, the unconscious perversion of his saner judgment

by some collective mood of his party. The risk is very subtle. A leader

has no defence against it except to keep its possibility constantly

in mind. He must acquire the habit of challenging, mentally, his own

opinions of the moment, and of confronting them, detachedly, with the

sternest of mountain precepts and rules of thumb. The habit will stand

him in good stead in moments of more dangerous decision, of excitement,

and, therefore of more probable collective infection. It will at

least check him from joining, even in his most ecstatic moments, in

an unroped glacier stampede or in a ‘go-as-you-please’ skelter down a

buttress; it may save him some of the lasting regrets of the leader who

afterwards recognizes that he has turned back prematurely; and it will

certainly protect him on many long tramps from that curious infection,

hours of united, unreasoning mountain gloom.

[Sidenote: Hysteria.]

From a fourth state, actual hysteria or hill-shock, a leader is

presumably exempt. It occurs more frequently among mountains than

anywhere else off the battlefield, since their conditions may put

an excessive strain upon unaccustomed nerves. Old climbers are

inoculated against most of its risks. If a type of danger has once been

experienced, on any subsequent recurrence, even faintly resembling

it in character, the consciousness flashes out at once to meet it,

in all its possible reactions; the mind takes control of the nerve

communications and blocks the way against any evil effects resulting

from the sudden shock to the subconscious nervous system. Only an

entirely unfamiliar form of danger or an unduly prolonged strain

can rout the presence of mind of a tried climber. But it is well to

remember that every man has his ‘cracking point,’ and that this is

sooner reached in the case of an uneducated guide, however experienced,

than in the person of an expert amateur, whose imagination will widen

his experience.

It may originate in three ways. Firstly, from exhaustion, irritating

brain and nerves until self-control is lost and any slight shock may

cause the hysteria to break out, either in the usual violent symptoms,

or, more intimidating because less anticipated, in silent tears.

Exhaustion, not fear, is the basis. If it has not been possible to

anticipate the crisis by precautionary rest or distraction, immediate

inaction and quiet reassurance, without remonstrance or contradiction,

are the best assistance to recovery.

Or, secondly, it may result from sudden shock, the realization of

completely unexpected danger in a placid moment before the mind has

time to assert its control over its own group of spinal nerves. This

is the moment of panic which is the terror of all who have the charge

of collections of human beings, in a theatre or on shipboard. If

the shock can be anticipated by even the briefest of introductions,

if a collective instantaneous realization of the danger can only be

prevented by any method of more gradual communication of the news,

half the risk of panic ensuing is gone. For if only the mind has the

chance to realize the meaning of the news before the physical shock

to the group of subconscious nerves has time to react, it takes

command; and the man begins to act, and even to overact, for his own

benefit if for no wider audience, in accordance with his conception of

suitable gentlemanly behaviour under the circumstances. In climbing,

indeed, there is often no time for such a gradual introduction. But in

climbing, wherever danger is not cumulative, and therefore gradual, in

its approach, the peril is over and past almost as soon as the shock is

felt: for instance, the rock has fallen--and missed the party; the slip

has occurred--and not pulled them down. So much the leader has in his

favour in meeting its after-effects of fear. The crisis being over, it

is best, if possible, to pretend to ignore its existence altogether,

and to find some reason for a halt and for continued inattention until

the nerves have had time to settle down. If this fails, the incident

should be cheerfully recalled and discussed until its idea has become

familiar, and so harmless. It is useful to remember that no individual

panic, and for that matter no form of extreme emotion, can long

survive the bland disregard of its existence by some one else in the

same circumstances. But if a repetition of the peril still threatens,

as might be the case after a rock or snow avalanche, and therefore

immediate movement is desirable, the orders for action should be sharp

and decided, but quite impersonal: they should neglect any individual

more particularly affected, and apparently be addressed to the whole

party. Personal attention only tends to increase the self-consciousness

and the self-pity which, in the frightened man, will be militating

against the recovery of his self-command.

The third and most difficult manifestation, that of hysterical

obstinacy, may be the outcome of a long-continued state of nervousness

or of, often, groundless fear, accumulating and indulged by

self-compassion until it gets beyond control. The hysteria takes

the form of a refusal to move up or down, and, without any violent

symptoms, remains impervious to reason or direct remonstrance. A halt,

and a deliberate disregard, emphasized by general talk about some

unrelated matter, will often result in a gradual loosening of the

tension, mental and muscular, and the beginnings of unwilling movement.

Once the rigidity is past, the rope and quick and not too gentle

impulse will do the rest. But if the situation does not allow of even

so much delay, stronger measures are necessary. I have seen a guide use

a startling slap on the cheek in an extreme case with good effect; or a

jerk on the rope, that forces the victim to scramble to recover his own

footing, may break the spell. In any case, if the leader is unfortunate

enough to suffer such inconvenience with a beginner, he will be wise

not to risk the like chance on a mountain a second time, in both their

interests.

[Sidenote: Vertigo.]

What is called giddiness, the paralysing effect of sheer height,

suddenly revealed, sometimes produces unexpectedly a similar condition

of immobility. Fortunately, in this case it is not accompanied by the

same objection to being moved into security by others.

Habit also will remove the inclination, sometimes felt on the edges of

sheer walls or cliffs, to ‘throw oneself over.’ This is another of the

symptoms of slight vertigo. In spite of its frequent and sensational

appearance in narrative, the inclination would seem invariably to

confine itself to remaining merely an inclination.

Giddiness, the inclination to fall and the impulse to throw oneself

over, is the result of the inability of the eye at the moment to

obtain an assurance that the body is upright or in balance. When a

child is learning to walk it tumbles all over the place. Then it learns

to fix some point on a level with its eye, and it can retain its

balance in walking just so long as it can keep its eyes moving towards

this point more or less on a level plane. Gradually it learns to get

the same assurance from some distant point on the floor ahead: its eye

has been educated to reason from a diagonal as much as from a level

glance; and the ‘semicircular canal’ has been taught to interpret the

message, and convert it into automatic balance. As it moves forward it

shifts the point ahead, unconsciously obtaining that the third side

of the triangle thus formed by its glance shall always demonstrate

that the other two sides, the line of the floor and the vertical line

through its own centre of gravity, are forming an approximate right

angle. Still later it learns to apply the same principle to uphill

or downhill gradients, where the line of gravity makes, not a right

angle, but an acute or obtuse angle with the visible surface. That

is, it learns to take the constant line of its own centre of gravity

as the base-line of its triangle and not the fickle flooring; and it

still keeps in balance in movement by measuring the third side with its

eye, in order to be assured that whatever angle its body in balance is

making with the ground, be it uphill and acute, or downhill and obtuse,

shall remain the same during its next movement.

Even as men we cannot be sure that we are upright, that is, in

balance--for our muscles permit us a few degrees of sway either way

from our line of gravity--unless we are somehow in contact with the

visible surface at two successive points in the line of direction in

which we are moving, be the contact maintained by the touch of our

second foot, by the hand, or by the glance of our eye. Shut your eyes,

stand on one foot, and you will have proof of this. Men accustomed only

to walking on the level make a habit of selecting the rest-point for

their eye some distance ahead. Consequently, when they find themselves

on a steep hillside, where the fall of the ground below makes a wider

angle with their line of gravity than their eye has been trained to

estimate, their glance wanders helplessly, they lose their assurance of

balance, and they become ‘giddy’ or feel that they ‘must’ fall over.

But habit will correct this. 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.

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 are cases,

however, where the hands cannot or should not be used, and where the

eye is so far confused that it must divide its responsibility for

the second point of contact with some other agent; and for this we

learn to use the second foot. Take the case of traversing along the

summit of a narrow rock ridge, or across a knife-edge of ice. The

hands are useless, and the eyes, unable to remain focused upon the

narrow edge, wander away into the depths. The inexpert man will get

giddy, and will only save himself, on the rock, by crawling across on

hands and knees, thus forcing from his hands the assurance that his

eyes refuse; while on the ice he will get giddy and--not get across

at all. But the expert can step across either, rapidly and securely.

In the first place he learns to focus his eyes undeviatingly upon the

thin edge ahead, or upon some fixed point on the same line with it

beyond; and in the second place he learns, since an expert’s eye is

human and embraces a large field, to divide its balancing duty with

his second foot. This foot, advanced in the direction of progress,

provides a second rest-point for the assurance of balance quite good

enough to complement the eye. He strides out rapidly, so as to shorten

the doubtful interval while this foot is in the air, and for assurance

in this doubtful interval he trusts again to his fixed glance. A

blind-folded tight-rope walker balances on the same principle, only he

obtains his assurance from two points of contact even nearer together,

from one foot only just in advance of the other, or even from one foot

alone, the two requisite points being then represented by his toe and

his heel. Loose-wire walkers, who apparently deprive themselves of all

fixed points for their estimate, substitute the pole or the parasol in

their hands. This their trained sense continues to adjust at such an

inclination to the shifting but relatively fixed point of their feet as

may always give their hand a second relatively fixed point of judgment

by which they can estimate the angle that then body is making, at any

instant of rest or motion, with the line of gravity; and its leverage

enables them to correct this angle whenever hand plus foot give warning

that the body has so far departed from the line as to be entering upon

the ‘forbidden degrees.’

The normal mountaineer, however, need never expect to have to do with

less than two stable points of judgment, for foot and hand or eye, and

these at least a few inches apart. It is entirely incorrect, therefore,

for anyone to assume that, because he feels ‘giddy’ looking down from

the top of a wall, he is disqualified from high mountaineering. Some

degree of giddiness would be excusable in any mountaineer, however

expert, who might be asked to look down off the edge of a sheer wall,

where there was no handhold, no room to shift a foot forward or

backward, and which was too vertical to afford any rest-point below for

the eye. If he were asked to walk along the wall, he would probably do

it cheerfully. In mountaineering, also, we may count upon handholds

when the eye is obstructed or the assurance of a second foot denied

us. We need only train our sense of balance to assure us of security

upon a basis of narrowly spaced but still quite natural points of

judgment. And in the process of learning we shall find that we lose all

inclination to giddiness.

[Sidenote: The Effect of Height.]

There remains one state, of whose nature and origin we at present know

very little. It is generally called the ‘psychological’ effect of

height; which it almost certainly is not. It has none of the bodily

symptoms of mountain sickness; and I know no remedy for it, mental or

physical. It is simply that certain men above certain heights appear

to lose some portion of their nervous energy. Training or habit seem

powerless to restore it. They become incapable of moving with the

certainty or rhythm which are theirs at lower levels. You can watch

the effects in tentative, slower movements, a visible effort in

balancing, clumsiness with the rope, insecurity in steps, sometimes

a vagueness or absence of mind, as if the vitality were running low.

And yet the men will be most vigorous and competent mountaineers up

to their limit of height. Liability to suffer from it appears to

depend on no question of physique or of probabilities. As its result

many fine climbers on lower hills never achieve marked success in the

Alps, and many fine alpinists, including most guides, are failures,

relatively, in the Himalaya. If we were to go high enough, we should

probably find that every man has his limit of height, above which no

training or habit would enable him to climb with his normal vigour or

efficiency. But what concerns a leader in the Alps, or an explorer in

higher ranges, is to discover which of his party is subject to it,

and at what heights, and make his dispositions accordingly if he is

planning an expedition or series of expeditions which will exceed this

limit. Otherwise, just at those heights and in those situations where

the greatest individual skill is called for and the least attention can

be spared to others, he will find that the symptoms will begin to put

in an unwelcome appearance. The mountaineer himself is rarely aware of

his weakness; he probably explains it to himself as a touch of passing

mountain sickness. It is only when he, or more probably his leader,

notices that it recurs at the same height and that the symptoms are

not physical or mental, but affect the mysterious half-way region that

we must call ‘nervous,’ that the true cause suggests itself. A leader

must watch every new member of his party, and if he finds that he has

such a height limit, he must not take him above it, if the ascent is

severe, or he must be prepared to give him much increased attention and

shepherding until the limit is repassed on the descent.

SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PARTY

The social and psychological conditions that regulate the relations

of any collection of human beings associated for a common effort or

pursuit are seldom taken sufficiently into account. The interaction of

individual temperaments in mountaineering and the reactions of common

mood under the stress of elemental conditions or of great physical

effort have, in consequence, seldom been allowed for in anticipatory

organization or made a matter for previous agreement, or for the

acceptance of precautionary control. When the crises have arisen, it

has been often, consequently, too late for remedy or for the exclusion

of the dissonant elements. This must be my excuse for sketching

these superficial classifications of nervous and mental states that

are as positive in their influence upon the success or harmony of

a mountaineering holiday as the possession or lack of a developed

trapezius major or a sound digestion. Explorers of experience sometimes

recognize the importance of choosing men for temper and temperament as

much as for physique, and make their arrangements with this in view, in

practice if not in their printed records. Mountaineering is done under

much the same conditions; but its temporary, holiday character leads us

generally, as we sit at home in the comfort of pleasant prospect, to

overlook in our arrangements the almost primitive conditions of temper,

health and fierce struggle under which we shall be living during our

mountain association.

A mountaineer, in the composition and management of his party, cannot

afford to neglect the action of health and condition upon temper,

or of temperament and mood upon achievement. He must select men,

therefore, not by their promise of the plains, but by what he knows or

concludes will be their conduct under the harder test of the heights.

If he has to take anyone on chance, he must be on the watch from the

first, and, if he finds he has made a mistake, content himself with a

less ambitious programme. In big mountaineering no man has more than

a momentary margin. In less exacting work no man has a continuous

margin of will-power, nerve and temper, to say nothing of skill, for

more than himself and one other. Every party of more than two should

contain two men of tried nerve--that is, of an experience that has

learned to control the effects of shock or of fatigue upon the nerves.

Every party, for its own peace, should contain one expert rock climber

and one reliable iceman. A good second-man, or ‘backer-up,’ and a

weight-carrier are invaluable assets. These parts may, of course, be

doubled in a single individual. The ability to heal, or cook, or

sing may be allowed to outweigh some minor defects--but not temper,

clumsiness or a sluggish vitality.

A manager has also to remember that that party earns the best success

which works with the most collective good-humour and good-will. With

the object of maintaining the genial atmosphere that best resists local

disturbances, mental or physical, one member of a party of three or

four may well be either younger or less experienced than the rest.

Rowing eights in training have discovered the merits of a mascot or

protégé, whom the rest can look after and laugh with or at. No party of

men or women can quarrel if there are children (not belonging to them)

of their number. One considerably younger member of a party, or one

younger in the sense that he or she is a novice to the work, and in so

far is a child, gives the climbing group the pleasant sense of centring

round some one as a common care. He is a permanent distraction. In

moments of excitement, pleasure or fatigue, every member of such a

party unconsciously puts himself first into the new-comer’s attitude of

mind, and speculates how the sensation will present itself to him. The

process provides our individual consciousness with an external interest

that diverts us from the oppression of absorption in ourselves.

In a holiday party of four, which is the best number for serious

guideless climbing, enabling the break into the ideal pairs for rock

climbing, and the safer combination for glaciers, one member may well

be an ‘infant’ or beginner of this sort; but if such an element is

included the ‘breaking’ must be confined to very safe passages. In

a party of three, provided that two are thorough experts, and one

of these possibly a first-class guide, and provided that no severe

climbing is contemplated, maleficent psychic influences may be combated

by the inclusion of our less responsible third. If serious work is in

prospect, the third must be at least strong and efficient; in fact, in

parties of less than four, considerations of skill or experience must

always take precedence of purely social qualifications. In a party

of two, for rock climbing, both must be, primarily, expert, and our

social selection must be confined to this class. For glacier work any

party of two, even though, socially, they speak with the tongues of

angels, must always be unsound. The popularity of the party of two

as a rock climbing combination compels us continually to reconsider

its suitability under new aspects. As a social companionship the

association of two friends, equally expert, is ideal. The association

of two friends, one of them less expert but equally competent to share

in the responsibility for a joint decision, is quite defensible. But

it must be remembered that any external feeling strong enough to

interfere with the complete concentration of a leader upon his climbing

reduces the efficiency of his normal standard and still more of his

standard of the day. His feeling of a particular responsibility for

an individual, other than his general responsibility to a party, may

act as a dangerous distraction. A man, therefore, who climbs alone

with a novice, a younger person or a pupil, towards whom he is in

a position of personal trust, handicaps himself to an extent that

should forbid him to attempt any but absolutely safe and elementary

climbing. The usual risks, even of merely external chance, which

he may take lightly for himself or for a second companion of equal

discretion, he may not take for his charge; and the cheerful consent of

an inexperienced comrade to ‘share’ in taking such a chance cannot be

considered as relieving the single expert of any part of his exclusive

responsibility. If he has the sense of it constantly in mind, the

feeling turns to anxiety in moments of crisis, and interferes with his

coolness of judgment and with the nervous harmony upon which his skill

depends; at more ordinary times its presence materially biases his

ordinary mental and physical climbing habit. If, on the other hand, he

undertakes such a charge, and then does not keep it in mind in all his

decisions and actions, no one will consider him to have been a happy

choice for the responsibility entrusted to him.

Where the sense of responsibility is further complicated by an

emotional relationship its debilitating effect is increased. It

is a commonplace of all active undertakings that relationship is

irreconcilable with cool command and undisturbed performance.

Similarly, a father climbing alone with his child or children,

a husband climbing with his wife, cannot preserve the nervous

concentration or the emotional detachment indispensable for an

unsupported leader. Whatever their normal ability as mountaineers, in

such a companionship both their discretion and their execution must be

subject to a hundred distracting influences. The disturbance, even the

danger, of an emotional state in a member of a party has already been

indicated. In these cases, however, it is the leader, whose business it

should be to correct, who is the man affected; and, further, in a party

of two so constituted, where the leader alone is morally or by nature

responsible, no other can compensate for his abnormality or qualify the

effects of his state or of his action. In my view no mountaineer should

ever climb alone with anyone less competent for whom he must be held

responsible either by relationship or by delegated authority; unless

the climbing is so short and so safe that he can be sure of always

safeguarding his charge against the ill consequence of any and every

form of ‘accident’ however remote or unlikely. Practically this means

that, except for simple ‘bouldering’ or elementary, separate ‘pitch’

climbs, without the addition of a second fully competent mountaineer

all parties of this description are unsound.

In larger parties it is wise to give full value to social

considerations in selecting the members, since we can always secure,

by addition or subtraction, that any element of weakness introduced

by relationship or private responsibility is balanced by a greater

proportion of mountaineering skill. But for combinations of two our

first business is to make absolutely certain that each man is equally

competent, in his own and his friend’s eyes even more than in the eyes

of the world, to take his full share of _responsibility_. We may then,

if we will, treat the separate contributions of skill as a collective

whole, and not quarrel with an expert who takes a less expert

companion, provided he be competent and responsible, if by so doing he

secures a wider field for his social choice.

WALKING MANNERS

There are several points of what may be termed walking manners, common

to all types of long mountain walking and not only to climbing, whose

observance contributes a great deal to the individual peace of mind

during the early and late hours of a long alpine day. Men when they

are off the rope, or who have never been on a rope, almost universally

neglect them, and are blind to the cumulative effect upon a tired

companion’s temper or upon their own humour. Every one thinks he can

walk, and most men never bother to discover why the excellent companion

of the Sunday afternoon ramble proved a failure on a long walking tour.

The first point of manners for the man in control is that of pace. Most

climbers suffer from the weakness of increasing the pace the moment

they take the lead on a path, slope or glacier. This is trying to

the party, consciously or not, and wasteful. A manager should either

block the way himself, or, if he is behind, keep consistently to what

he considers the right tempo. It is better he should be thought to be

getting old or lazy than that the party should be rushed inopportunely.

A second and frequent failing is the ‘half step’ trick. Some fifty per

cent. of fast walkers, whenever they walk abreast on road or path or

hill, persistently keep half a stride in front, their shoulder just

clear of their companion. It may be due to some half-formed feeling

of satisfaction in setting the pace and having a margin to turn round

and talk from. Its effect is that the friend is perpetually straining

to catch up, and the pace thus steadily accelerates till both are

practically racing. Then one gives up, and both lag, until the game

starts again. The habit is often unconscious, but it is extraordinarily

irritating on a long tramp, or to a tired companion.

A third breach of manners, all too common, is passing ahead in the line

of march. Over most broken country, glacier, snow or rough hillsides,

men naturally fall into single file. Cattle tracks or man tracks

are rarely wide enough for two abreast, and if it is a question of

selecting a line, it saves reduplication of the effort to leave the

task to one and to drop in behind him. There are few inexperienced

walkers who do not take advantage of the slightest error in the choice

of route on the first man’s part, to break off and pass him on the

shorter line. In doing so, they take the responsibility of taking all

the rest who follow off the line also. On an ordinary hill walk, when

the going is all free and easy, this is excusable,--no one is compelled

to follow another longer than suits him; as also in the case when the

first man is obviously mistaken, and to cut his line is a distinct

saving of effort for those who follow. But, done as by one of a line

of men either tired or with a big day before them, where one has been

taking the extra burden of route-selecting for the rest, it is a

serious breach of mountain manners. The gain is probably only a yard or

two, and the front man may justly resent having been left the labour of

choosing the route at a hundred points, only to have advantage taken

of his single doubtful choice in order to displace him. He either

runs ahead to regain his place, and the rhythm of the party is broken

in a silly competition none the less irritating that it is rarely

acknowledged in words, or he plods behind with a slight sense of injury.

A more debatable occasion, where the same point comes into prominence,

is on the ascent of steep slopes or open hillsides. An experienced

front man will probably take these on a zigzag. To a less experienced

walker, and to all beginners of energy and leg muscle, it is generally

a temptation to cut the zigzags on the direct line, and so pass ahead.

This is bad walking, but there is the more excuse for it in that on

such slopes men rarely do follow each other exactly, and most of the

party will probably be preferring each to take his zigzag at the most

comfortable angle to himself. The best rule of manners to remember is

that, while every man is free to choose any line and pace he likes on

such places, yet, if one man has been definitely leading and choosing

the line, the others ought to drop into their places in the line behind

him again so soon as the single-file formation is resumed. It is more

politic to be considered a well-mannered tramp than to assert one’s

powers as a limber hill-rusher.

Another blunder, from which many a good walker is not free, is the

inclination to hurry the pace if the line or short-cut he has chosen

takes the party for a while over worse ground, or proves, for other

reasons, not to have been the best route. His almost unconscious

acceleration is due to some impulse to get back quickly and unnoticed

to good going, and so to slur over the mistake, or the momentary

disagreeability of the route for which he is responsible, as much to

himself as to those who follow. It is a trick to notice and avoid. It

forces the rhythm and pace over just the ground where it should, if

anything, be eased. Men who walk much with parties which are afflicted

with the ‘racing’ or ‘passing’ manias, are particularly liable, from a

sort of nervous self-defence, to develop this failing also.

A leader must not walk carelessly or break the rhythm of step

arbitrarily. The man who forces a plodding following to change feet

unexpectedly does not know his business. Again, when walking in single

file, or any way but comfortably abreast, men inexpert in acting as

guides do not realize that although the man in front can hear all

that is said behind him, yet that, unless he turns his head over his

shoulder and throws his words out, he himself is inaudible down the

line behind him. As the remarks from the leader on a long tramp, and

when men are tired, have usually some direct bearing on the way,

those behind him crowd up to hear; they break step, and are often put

irritably on the strain. The complaint of many a young mountaineer,

that his elder companion will never answer at all while walking,

usually finds its explanation in the fact that the young man’s energy

carries him ahead, and as his remarks are addressed to the scenery,

his companion prefers consistent silence and inattention to the strain

of trying to hear, or to the irritation to himself and his friend of

continually repeating, “What d’you say?” These matters may seem too

slight to mention, but neglect of their observance brings many a party

home with some member or other out of harmony and unappreciative of the

sunset.

In the grumpy morning start or during the evening tired return it is

for such details that the manager has to be most on the look out.

He should, if possible, set the pace himself, and keep it without

questioning or remark to what he judges to be the best pace of the

laggard of the day. He should never let himself be pressed by some

one at his heels, race ahead, or allow others to do so, except for

some specified and universally beneficial reason (such as ordering

tea ahead!), merely because the difficulties seem to be over and the

way plain for the stronger members of his party. There is no pleasure

in being left behind; it provokes a tired man and generally makes him

obstinately slower.

It used to be said, and by the best authorities, that with a tired

or tramping party it is essential to keep the pace always the same,

or they will lose the rhythm that alone can keep them going. This

is a mistake. In the first place, variations in pace are a rest in

themselves, provided that the actual effort put into each step does not

vary. In the second place, it is definitely more fatiguing to be held

back to a fixed pace on a sudden downhill gradient; and it is vexatious

to pass from a long uphill grind on to a level stretch without the

relief of a ‘swing out.’ Similarly, it is futile to change from a level

to an uphill gradient and attempt to keep a party to the same rate.

The mistaken teaching has been due to a confusion between actual rate

of movement over the ground and the amount of effort required for each

step.

Rhythm is essential to ensure good tramping, and to minimize fatigue.

To secure rhythm the amount of effort put into each step, and not

necessarily the pace, should be kept constant. Thus, in changing from

uphill to level ground, the pace can be pleasantly quickened and the

step lengthened, without any increase of effort in the stride or any

change of rhythm. A longer stride is often a positive relief. In

changing from level to uphill the length of the step shortens, since

a lifting step is always more fatiguing, and the pace should be taken

more slowly, though the output of effort is kept the same. On a change

to a downhill gradient it is possible to change to a longer stride, or

even a run, without altering the rhythm or increasing the amount of

effort exacted of the muscles or of the lungs.