ICE AND SNOW CRAFT
[Sidenote: The Age for Glaciers.]
Rock is the framework of mountains, and for those who discover their
enthusiasm or train their activity among our western hills, rock craft
must always remain the basis of mountaineering. Many of us would not
be dissatisfied if the chances of time and leisure offered us no wider
field. For our performance, there is more than a lifetime could hope
even to examine between the precipices of our mounting uplands and
the descending cliffs of our long sea coasts; and for our æsthetic
pleasure, nature, through the medium of a soft and variable atmosphere,
shrouds the settled lines of our hills with a delicacy of interrupted
and changing colour, and a grave reticence of shadow, sun-break and
mist, that leave nothing incomplete for the fulfilment of that sense of
power and wonder whose realization gives something of the quality of
religion to our feeling for great mountains. These ancient hills are at
peace with their neighbours the fields, and rest tranquilly among them;
content to contribute with their waters and pasture to the fertility,
and with their mists and rocks and seclusion to the holiday pleasure of
the land which in youth they were wont to cumber with the fragments of
each fiery insurgence, or bury under the white burden of their glacial
defeats.
In other lands, to modify the harshness and to order the exuberance of
younger ranges, whose ambition would yet challenge the stars, nature
has still to avail itself of the sterner and more primitive discipline
of ice and perpetual snow. With this veil, constant but always
renewing, it subdues the barrenness and the aggressive angularity
proper to their period of immaturity and change, and preserves for
them the aloofness that is at once the protection and the charm of
free-growing childhood. It is a mistake to think of the Alps or the
Himalaya as venerable because their heads are white: theirs are all the
irrepressible impulse, the uneven humour, the unconscious cruelty and
the overflowing vitality of froward but jolly children.
A mountaineer may be satisfied to nurse his athletic infancy upon home
rocks, and he may be happy to pass the later years of his experience
among the more elusive impressions and more subtle romance of our old
and quiet hills. But in the storm years of his strength he should test
his powers, learn his craft and earn his triumphs in conflict with the
abrupt youth and warlike habit of great glacial ranges.
Snow and ice are permanent upon the high hills, and consequently ice
and snow craft are essential departments of greater mountaineering.
To treat them as decorative adjuncts, cultivated by a certain set of
rather old-fashioned folk, or to say, as I have heard more than one
promising climber say in effect, “Rock is good enough for me: snow and
ice only mess it up; _I_ shan’t bother with that sort of Alp!” and then
rush off to the Dolomites as a relief from the Fells, is equivalent to
refusing to exchange the foil play of practice for the rapier play of
real contest with the best champions of the mountain realm: it means
the repudiation of the better half of mountain knowledge, and the
renunciation of almost all its rewards.
The higher craft of mountaineering begins above the line of perpetual
snow. A rock climber who leaves his rocks at that level can never
discover even all that rocks may offer of difficulty and variety.
The refinements of climbing develop out of the modifications that
rock and ice and snow produce in one another. It is among the elastic
extensions, the frequent exceptions, which their combination imposes
upon our grammar rules for rock or snow, that the mountaineer is
evolved out of the climber.
[Illustration: ROCK AND ICE [SYDNEY SPENCER]
Our strong years are the years in which to learn the complete craft
of greater mountaineering. And it is also in these years, while the
senses are keen and the imagination undimmed, that the entries and
illustrations most worthy of assembling in our book of memory can be
collected from among the daring sights and hazardous incidents of
high mountaineering as from no other region of adventure. Never
to have broken too soon with sleep, and issued up on to the grey
coldness of night-frozen glaciers; never to have felt rather than seen
the loneliness of frosted grey peaks, oppressed with a sanctity of
reluctant seclusion; never to have endured the enchantment of solitary
space, an intimate but hostile fascination that is found elsewhere
only in the desert and among arctic silences; never to have almost
heard the strange expectancy that fills great snow fields before dawn
with questions never uttered and never answered, and whose insistence
is only veiled under a livelier and more visible remoteness at the
inquisitive approach of light; never to have watched the night widen
and the edges of the world draw closer round, as the peaks begin to
darken and the glaciers to pale, and the vague shadows of mystery and
of elusive presence shrink and harden into form and line and colour
with the nearing of sunrise; and, at the moment when the first rose
ray quickens the first high summit and day pours in about us, never to
have known the lassitude of odd illusion vanish and the summons to good
sunlit action thrill every fibre, from toe to finger-tip, with a rush
of human mastery in each stout blow of the axe and each fresh shock
of the driving heel;--never to have known something of only this one
hour of an alpine morning would have been to have missed the most vivid
moments of living, and to have deprived our working and our evening
hours of their most faithful comrade memories.
ICE CRAFT
For snow and ice as for rock we study primarily balance,--balance in
motion, and above joints flexed as well as straight. The elementary
movements and practice are identical. Rock is the substructure of
mountains, and ice and snow are its accretions. Similarly, rock
climbing is the groundwork of mountaineering technique; and for ice and
snow we employ the same principles, availing ourselves of the mechanism
of axe and claw and ski so as to render them equally applicable to new
conditions of surface and texture.
For balance climbing, footwork is all-essential. On rock, only where
angle or unsound texture makes footwork alone insufficient, do we help
out with the hands. On ice or snow, only where angle or a texture too
soft or too hard denies our feet their assurance, do we supplement
them with ice-axe and ice-claw, or to a certain extent with ski. While
a man remains a grip climber, he will never make an iceman; and he
had better go back and learn first how to climb in balance on rocks,
rather than set himself the twofold task of learning balance and axe or
claw technique simultaneously and painfully on ice. Most of the early
mountaineers learned what footwork they knew upon ice first, and it
was therefore very natural that they should in their mountaineering
precepts give the larger share of space and attention to elementary
movements and exercises in stepping on ice and snow. These movements
are now learned more easily and perfectly on rock, sound and unsound,
and transferred, when we go to the Alps, to snow and ice, following a
more logical and certainly more safe order of study. In recent years I
have taken some of the very best of the new generation of ‘continuous’
rock climbers for their first climbs in the Alps, and have found
that their balanced footwork took only a few hours to adapt itself
to snow or ice surfaces, skipping all the elementary stages hallowed
by tradition. Consequently they could start upon the more recondite
branches of ice and snow craft with a rapid assurance that left the
guides frankly interested.
Largely because it was the only type of mountaineering that they really
studied as a craft, and consequently could fully enjoy when they
mastered it, ice and snow craft came to be considered by many of our
predecessors as the only true mountaineering, to the supersession of
all other branches.
After the possibilities of rock surface began to be appreciated, and
while rock climbing was working through its successive and isolated
stages, the swing of the pendulum went all too far the other way. Ice
and snow came to be regarded by all except the old alpine school as
intrusions upon ascents, to be got over as best one could. Their study
was proportionately neglected by guides and amateurs alike, who chose
the ribs and rock faces for their routes, and were apt to be bothered
if they had to come off them. The lack of any advanced technique became
painfully apparent when mountaineering ambition progressed to the point
of attempting great new alpine ridges and faces, where a knowledge of
ice and snow craft is indispensable. Many a failure and even accident
revealed what a large lacuna our rock climbers had been nourishing in
their alpine understandings.
During the development of balance climbing, whose basis is footwork
upon any angle and any kind of surface, the scale has been steadily
readjusting itself. Simultaneously with, or possibly as a result of,
the unification of our several climbing methods upon rock, ice and
snow into a single technique of balance, has come the new interest in
foot-attachments, the popularizing of the use of ice-claws and of ski.
While balance in climbing movement was still only rudimentary, it was
more comfortable to climb on a material like snow or ice, where the
human could make holds and steps of the shape and at the angle that
best suited his standing or his ‘walking’ balance. He preferred this to
making a series of awkward bodily adjustments in order to fit himself
on to existing accidents in the surface of rock. But as climbers
learned to master balance during any movement and in every attitude,
and to depend less and less upon the hand, they became naturally alive
to the advantage of adopting footgear which secured safer and more
continuous progress by adapting the feet to the surface, and saved
them the time and rhythm lost in stopping to alter the surface to suit
their feet. Hence the increase in our use of soft soles and scientific
nailing, on rock, and the perfecting of ice-claws, which allow our feet
to walk on ice at whatever angle we find it, and of ski, which make a
royal progress of the most voracious snow.
A man who is a good continuous balance climber should be able, as I
have said, to transfer his footwork easily and quickly to snow and ice,
and to move safely upon moderate mountains, satisfactorily managing the
rope and cutting the occasional steps that such ascents demand. Here
many climbers stop learning, even among those who write books; and just
about here the real delights of icemanship and snow craft begin faintly
to suggest themselves. From this point on our rock technique cannot
help us, and may, if persisted in, merely embarrass and delay us. Ice
and snow, conjoined or apart, with all their significations of colour,
texture and angle, and in their local or ephemeral counter-changes,
form a study by themselves. As it is certain that we cannot do much
route inventing or advanced climbing upon rock without knowing
something of the different sorts of rock and their meanings, so is it
far more certain that in really big mountaineering no one will get far
or go secure whose knowledge of ice and snow is limited to the mere
physical ability to climb upon them.
It is impossible to do more than suggest a few lines which training
might follow, in order to attain to a point of experience where the
specialized study can be begun.
[Sidenote: The Nature of Ice.]
To start with, it is as well to know something, sufficient for the
working purposes of practical summer mountaineering, as to the
different sorts of ice which we meet with in the mountains. There are
three principal varieties:
Firstly, ‘_grainy ice_,’ or ‘_blue ice_’ as it is usually called from
its colour. This is formed chiefly from snow, by regelation. Nearly all
glacier ice is of this character; whence we also know it as ‘_glacier
ice_.’ It is glacier ice with which we have by far the most to do in
the Alps, and its successive stages have to become familiar to us as
names, and recognizable from their appearance, if we ever wish to
lead a party. In the first stage pressure makes the fallen grains of
snow cohere, and an opaque white mass is thus formed, a fine-grained
solid, containing a lot of imprisoned air. This stage is usually but
incorrectly named ‘_frozen snow_.’ Under the further action of pressure
these grains coalesce, by regelation, and larger grains are formed;
part of the entangled air escapes, the solid becomes coarse-grained
and less opaque and assumes a bluish tinge. This is called _névé_
(or _firn_). Under the continuation of the process ultimately all
the imprisoned air escapes, the solid becomes transparent and very
coarse-grained, and its larger masses have a distinctive, blue colour.
This is called ‘_ice_.’ As the process is a continuous one, it is
impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between the different stages,
or always to be sure of saying with certainty that our feet are on the
one or the other.
Secondly, there is ‘_black ice_’; ice more or less continuous and
generally in layers, formed by the freezing of water. This is
comparatively rarely encountered in the Alps, or in mountains, but more
often in winter than in summer. Where it intrudes, it is very exacting,
as it calls for a different type of claw technique and a different sort
of blow with the axe.
Thirdly, there is an intermediate, and intermediately attractive and
frequent, class of ice, produced by the infiltration of water with
snow, and by their subsequent freezing. This is called ‘_snow ice_.’
In route designing and in climbing we have to be able to recognize
these types and stages. Each has its own right method of treatment. But
grainy or glacier ice is the characteristic alpine ice, and most of the
suggestions made as to ice technique apply to ice of this description,
where it is not otherwise expressly stated.
A large, dry glacier introduces us to almost every normal type of ice,
from hard blue to _firn_, and is the best practice ground for finding
our ice feet and transferring our rock balance to ice angles. A week’s
good practice devoted exclusively to ice craft on a glacier, under a
good mentor, will set our feet on the way of better icemanship than if
we trust for our training to the hours of sporadic ice work, generally
of some difficulty, which we may meet year after year, and muddle
through, on our big climbs. Few men are systematic enough to devote all
their first alpine enthusiasm to a restricted training of this kind;
but any man who hopes at some date to become a mountaineer should
begin early to give his ice some intensive study. Even a mountaineer
of experience has to allow for personal variations when he returns
each season. However well attuned he may keep his sense of touch on
rock by practice in Britain, he takes some days to recover the feel of
his feet on ice, and his ice nerve; very much as a skater or a skier
has to do each winter. Some of us make a habit, in theory at least, of
giving the first day of a tour to work of all sorts on a dry glacier;
the second day to some short climb, combining both rock and snow work;
the third, probably an off-day, to going up to a hut, and the fourth
to a big climb, which must embrace as much varied ice as possible. But
this is for resumptive practice in technique. It is not sufficient for
a commencing season, or for a grounding in common ice law.
[Sidenote: Ice-Claws.]
Any man who wishes to make big ascents is well advised if he begins
early to learn how to use ice-claws (or crampons). It is not that
we cannot climb without them, even as we could without nails in our
boots, but that we can learn to climb more securely, and go faster and
farther, with them.
Claws have been used by individuals for something like a century, but
the conservatism of mountaineers long refused to recognize them as
more than an individual eccentricity. It found itself able to draw a
nice distinction between the ‘sporting’ character of the assistance
given by a number of long spikes separately and laboriously screwed and
unscrewed on the boot, and that of a similar number of spikes affixed
by a single simple mechanism. It was not until the guides finally
capitulated that the practice could grow at all general or that its
extra security could become recognized as workmanlike. Claws were
formerly assumed to be useless unless worn by every member of a party;
an assumption that prevented their use by many amateurs who failed to
carry their guides’ conviction with them. As a fact, even one expert
furnished with claws can do much to assist the security and lighten the
labour for his clawless party on difficult ice, by preceding them and
helping or protecting them with the rope. Let no amateur, therefore,
ever be discouraged from taking his own where he expects ice work.
He will always be the happier himself, and may on occasions be able
to point a prolonged moral to his party. Up to the present they have
still been looked upon as an experiment, and men have been apt to get
discouraged if they have taken them out once or twice and had no need
for them. Sometimes they have then dropped carrying them; found that
they could ‘get on all right without them’--as who cannot?--and so
begun to exaggerate the labour of their portage and minimize their use.
The habit has to be formed. It can become as natural to take them on a
big ascent as to carry the axe, spare rope and shoes upon a rock climb.
I must premise, that claws postulate precise footwork. A slovenly habit
they cannot correct, and may only confirm.
If we use claws neatly, we need no longer cut steps upon all the easier
angles of ice or hard snow. We can walk straight ahead, up, down or
along, without check for step-cutting or loss of rhythm. We can take
foothold just as is most convenient for our balance as we move. Thus a
good balance climber from the first moment gets all the advantage of
the footwork he has learned upon rock: the labour of ‘finding his feet’
upon ice is reduced to a minimum. Again, claws increase our security,
if we step accurately, when we are moving upon angles where, for
reasons of steepness or other difficulty, steps may still have to be
cut. In using slippery steps they permit of a confidence of movement,
firm and continuous, similar to that which previous experience will
have taught us contributed most to our security upon rock. In so far
claws, even while we are learning, make for safer progress.
Their fashion has been fully dealt with, under Equipment. As to the
character of claw which may be of greatest service, there exist
divergent schools of thought; and each finds justification for its
belief in the greater usefulness of its particular claw for some
particular type of ice work.
In general, heavy claws are better for a heavy man, light for a
light. Ten-point claws are better than eight for a large foot, and
six-point claws are hardly worth their weight in carrying. A heavy
claw, with long, sharp points, which suffer in contact with rock, is
worth its extra weight if some big ice expedition is in prospect. At
the same time, a good climber can, if he is prepared for the extra
labour and for the more careful technique which their use requires,
accomplish with safety all the ice work to be found on normal climbs
with a lighter claw of slightly shorter points. This lighter, rougher
type will be more useful to him for mixed ice and rock climbing, as
he will be able to sacrifice its shorter and inevitably more blunted
points with less regret, while he can retain the claw over every kind
of surface. The necessity of constantly putting off and on the long,
sharp claws on mixed climbing, to avoid turning their points, has the
drawback of losing time, and, still more important, of changing the
action of the leg and the feel of the feet. Consequently the rhythm
of foot and leg has to adjust itself, after each change, to the new
character of surface and movement. Whereas the claw which can be worn
all day if the conditions demand it, regardless of rock or blunting
surface, and which can be thrown away or resharpened when it has
suffered sufficiently, while it may call for more skill and effort
for its secure use on long, steep passages of hard ice, possesses the
compensating advantage of keeping the action constant, without change
to the feel of the feet, to the rhythm, or to the greater or lesser
security of the tread.
On the other hand, the finer, heavier claw, by which I mean the claw
of the Eckenstein pattern, has the merit of being the only claw at
the present time in which both the metal is rightly wrought and the
points are shaped and placed under the foot with any scientific regard
for their use. It is also the only type which it is safe to wear on
hard ‘black ice’; which, even if rarely, is occasionally found on big
summits in the Alps or on sunless northern faces.
Of course the claw must be made exactly to fit the boot on which it is
used, and it must fasten and take off easily and securely.
The theory of the use of the claw, with all the various positions of
the feet required, can only be dealt with in a monograph to itself, and
this has been already more than adequately done.[13] It is sufficient
for the commencing mountaineer to know that he has to learn how to
use claws, and that he cannot do so effectively without preliminary
practice. This practice should be on a glacier, and under direction;
no man really discovers what the claw will enable him to do until he
has seen what confidence and skill can accomplish in the conquest of
angle and of natural nerve revulsions. The movements are not entirely
natural or self-suggesting, more especially those of descending or of
traversing on very steep slopes. The masters of the art can walk, and
sustain weights, sideways or straight upon their feet, up to angles of
70 degrees or more. An ordinary climber can learn to move with comfort
on angles, of good surface, between 55 and 60 degrees.
When we are on claws, the snow-shuffle and the normal forward swing
of the walking foot, heel and toe, have to be forgotten. The foot is
lifted rather higher, and is planted cleanly on the ice, without the
usual forward scrape. The high, clear lift of the foot must become
mechanical, otherwise the points will catch on boot or puttie, and a
nasty trip or fall may result. The downward pressure or thrust of the
foot varies in force according to the angle and the hardness of the
surface. To prevent the points working loose in the holes they make,
the foot has to be placed at once in the position and at the angle in
which it will have to sustain the weight of the body passing across
it. A balance climber who has mastered the tense, dancing action of
the foot as it is set upon a rock hold will have to learn little new,
except the habit of the higher lift and the more vertical plant.
In ascending, our object is to keep the feet pointing forward and
straight as long as the angle will allow us to; only turning the
toes outward when we can no longer get the heels down. On most ice
it is sufficient if we get hold with two points of the claw alone;
and on a fair surface we can walk straight-foot up very steep angles,
trusting only to the two points on the toe. Up softer steep surfaces,
or literally precipitous angles, we adopt a crab or sideways walk. We
descend steep angles with the knees bent and the toes forced down.
The ankles have to, and soon do, acquire an increased suppleness and
strength, in claw practice.
Perhaps the most difficult task for the beginner is to learn the art
of walking and balancing upon flexed ankles, while traversing across
steep faces. To strike all the points in neatly and strongly sideways,
and with a flexed ankle, so that the flat of the sole may meet the
surface cleanly and without a scrape, takes some practice; but slab
climbers, who have suppled their ankles by foot-clinging upon steep
rock angles, will find themselves a day or two’s frog-marching to the
good on ice.
Practice alone will bring us confidence in the new adjustments, or
allow us to feel as securely in balance above a foot inclined at a
high angle, over a bent ankle or a curved leg, as upon a right-angled
hold of rock or ice. Once confidence has come, the sense of security
in the attachment of the claw to the ice enables a freedom of movement
astonishing at first to anyone accustomed only to the feel of the
ordinary boot-nails on ice steps.
This additional and confident security, which the claw gives to our
foothold, almost eliminates the chances of what are wrongly termed
‘accidents’ on ice; the breaking foothold, the faultily placed foot,
or the slide of the sole on a bad surface as the transference of the
weight produces a change in the direction of the leg-thrust. We can
balance, therefore, on steep angles far more boldly, and keep our hands
free for better purpose. A strong party on claws, in a couloir of
uniform surface or on a sound ridge of mixed ice and rock climbing, is
often free to do without the rope at all, if it so pleases. The rope
is to guard against the results of ‘accidents’ to individual members;
and competent icemen, if they are released from the distraction of the
rope, and able to concentrate on their own good progress and safety,
have all the less temptation to commit ‘accidents.’
Once we have mastered the movements and become confident, we begin
to distinguish between varieties of ice, and to vary our claw craft
accordingly. For instance, in alpine ‘grainy’ ice there are three
ordinary varieties: hard, soft and rotten. ‘Rotten’ ice does not lie
in the Alps to more than the depth of an inch or two, though it is
found of a greater thickness in other continents; when we find it in
the Alps, we clear it away with the axe, to leave a firm tread for
the claw on the good ice below. Hard and soft grainy ice have their
several adjustments, whose differences have to be learned by practice.
Hard ice will usually be found lying at high angles, so steep that we
shall sometimes be unable to get more than the hold of a single claw
point. Experience alone can make us feel as safe upon the one talon as
we have learned to feel upon a single boot-nail on sound rock. For work
of this advanced character, for which the heavy, long-pronged claw is
better suited, the best practice can be found upon the big fall-ice
of dry glaciers. We soon discover, in such practice, that balance is
easier when we are confident to move fast, a resuscitated platitude;
and that, while moving, we are satisfied with a single point where the
whole ten would not have seemed superfluous, had we halted to admire
the panorama. But holds, on ice as on rock, are not intended to be held
in perpetuity.
The claw is not only useful upon steep ice: on hard repellent snow it
spares us the penance of stamping or scraping steps. It is equally
reassuring to foothold and nerve on ice-lacquered rocks, or on broken
rock surfaces coated with wind-snow or glaze. In a bad season--that
is, a season during which snow has been frequently falling, and the
rocks are surpliced in various blends and qualities of snow, frozen and
refrozen--the claws are often retained for the whole day, and become
as natural to the feel of the feet as the more usual boot-nail. It
is sometimes even difficult to remember if they are on or off, until
they are removed, when the feet become as helpless as they do when
skates are first detached. In a snowstorm, for a descent, they should
always be put on; and even in clear weather and on good footing it
is an immense reassurance to the leader of a tired party ascending
or descending a couloir or slope of suspicious or ‘mixed’ surface,
if he can count upon the extra security that claws will give to the
deteriorating footwork of his party.
Again, on those early, fasting, glacier crawls by lamplight, with which
most of us are familiar, when we are expected to balance, with cold
joints and often without the protection of the rope, along crevasses
and walls which may be easy enough by daylight but seem pulsing with
danger and dread in the darkness, claws come as a great safeguard;
their tactile value is a reassurance to eyes and to feet still leaden
with insufficient sleep and superabundant cold.
The evening descent of a glacier, dry or partly snow-covered, with its
crevasse jumping, wearisome for tired legs, and its balance traversing
on ice too slippery for jaded feet or day-polished boot-nails, becomes
again a delight if it can be taken directly and at a rush, with the new
surety of foothold and the change of muscle movement that follow the
putting on of our claws. Straight and time-saving lines through glacier
falls can then be ventured, even with men dragging heavy sacks or heavy
legs, if they have once the new feel of dancing security under their
feet.
It is worth while putting claws on even for the short but offensive
descent of the snout of a glacier. They crackle crisply down its
pebble-pimpled wrinkles and make light gliding of its glassy
declivities.
A belated party returning crossly at night down the breakers of a
big glacier whose surface has thawed only to be refrozen later to a
polished, leg-racking ice-slide, will save temper and re-roping and
time if the men stop to put on their claws. Two midnight descents of
the Mer de Glace in this condition, without claws, are among the most
penetrating and undignified of my remembrances.
On the steep sides of moraines, or on new snow lying on grass, claws,
if they happen to have been brought, save much back-sliding. On
slippery rock surfaces, such as snow-slimed slate and the like, I have
found light claws of constant use.
Finally, we need not take off our claws, if they are light ones, for
every rock section of a climb where rock and ice are alternating. On
much easy soft rock they are of assistance; and even in steep climbing,
if once the novelty of the feel is mastered and the foot has got
accustomed to the precautionary tread that protects the points, claws
have often a positive value greater than the mere effort we save by not
removing them.
To learn how to use claws, however, does not relieve us of the
necessity of learning how to make and to walk in ice steps. Nor
(although this is a matter of more personal opinion) do claws in my
view justify climbers on big expeditions in substituting the small
ice-axe recommended by some of the great authorities upon claws, and
only intended for making an occasional step or for holding on, for a
good step-cutting axe, which has also the potentiality of the third leg
on general climbing.
In practice on dry glaciers it is both profitable and amusing to
experiment in manœuvring on exceptional angles, or in walking up
between the vertical walls of crevasses. Such practice is good for
confidence and for training, and it is even of use to discover how
comparatively easy claws make it to get out of crevasses, or similar
impasses, without relying on the rescue of the rope alone. A climber
on claws, for this reason, can take a measure of liberty in solitary
climbing that would be folly for a man without them to allow himself.
No doubt, if amateurs were able to keep constantly in practice, and
had not each season to stop climbing when they have barely reached
their best, they would learn to move with equal freedom on angles
of this character at great heights. But as a matter of experience
no holiday mountaineer can entirely acquire the same feeling of
confidence and security if his ice slopes are subtended by dangerous
mountain walls or are situated on exposed tracts. Fatigue, diverse
air-pressures and, above all, the psychological effect of height
contribute to handicap him in venturing on claws risks which he would
laugh at on a twenty-foot wall on a glacier. Consequently we find that
most mountaineers on very steep, hard ice at great heights prefer to
cut steps to aid their claws. In mountaineering on a big scale we
usually begin to feel this need when the angle of the ice approaches
anywhere near to our limit of average performance upon claws in
glacier practice. It is more our sensation than the angle of the ice
slope which forces step-cutting upon us. And there is yet another
common occasion for steps. On ice which is covered with snow, where
without claws we should clear away the snow and make a step in the
ice, it is of course similarly open to us to clear it away and step
simply with the claw on the exposed ice. But, as a matter of fact, it
is generally the practice in such case to make a nick for the claw.
Unless the nick is made, the mass of snow round the clearing prevents
the foot from being placed conveniently and from providing a sense of
security commensurate with the sensational situation. Thus to secure a
good reassuring claw hold we should have to clear away an additional
quantity of snow, and we may just as well make a nick-step at once. A
step in ice when claws are worn need only be a nick for a proportion of
the prongs. It takes less labour and art to fashion than a step for a
boot.
Again, ice at great heights is occasionally covered with a rotting
coating, or crust, through which the prongs cannot reach to the good
surface below. Here clearing the rotten ice will in any case be
necessary, and, for the reason given above, it is more comfortable and
as quick to cut through it and make a step at once.
Where, also, ice is really hard ‘black ice,’ it has an iron quality of
surface, through which the prongs have to be driven with real force;
and they make clean, hard holes from which we have the feeling they
might slip out, as if from smooth metal sockets. Without steps, at
steep angles, balance on such ice is a very delicate matter, as this is
a branch of claw technique in which the Alps give us little practice.
The nerve of most men will call for auxiliary steps. But whether steps
are made or not, on such ice the rope must always be retained.
For the average man, therefore, it is still needful to know how to
fashion and how to walk in ice steps; both for use on the brief
intervals of ice and snow on climbs where the amount of difficult rock
and the small proportion of ice in prospect have suggested leaving the
claws behind, and for occasions, of which some have been mentioned,
that arise out of exceptional mountain or personal conditions.
[Sidenote: Cutting Steps.]
We have then to learn how to cut and use steps on ice, at high angles,
in awkward places, or when complicated by certain conditions. Claws
cover the rest of the ice field.
A man who sets himself to learn how to cut steps well must begin by
practising on ice. Theory can only help him to avoid certain false
positions. A word from a mentor on the spot will save aching shoulders
and blistered hands, and be of far more use than many books. Book-lore
has rather hindered than helped us by some of the theory it has set
down.
It is natural that amateurs who had the example of golfing and
other ‘arm-movement’ sports on free angles before them should have
been attracted by the idea of a step-cutting ‘swing.’ This has been
therefore recommended as a saving of strength and an ideal in style.
Possibly many climbers besides myself have formalized their style and
retarded their acquisition of ease and security by practising the
acrobatic feats of balance which an attempt to swing from the hips
in step cutting necessitates. On ice slopes of an easy angle, where
we need no longer cut steps at all if we use claws, the swing may be
graceful. But on steep ice the swing from the hips is irreconcilable
with a secure balance. The most we can attain to is an interrupted
swing or ‘follow-through’ with the shoulders alone, to ease our pure
armwork. It is not unlikely that the appearance of body movement which
this shoulder swing gives to the whole coat of a master iceman, as
seen from behind, misled early students of the art, who were following
in ice steps, into the belief that they were watching their ideal
swing from the hips. But such a swing on steep ice is impossible. The
step-cutter is balancing in many cases on one foot, supposing him to be
cutting steps at wide ‘mountaineering’ intervals, or on the downgrade;
at best he is on two feet set in the same straight line. He cannot,
therefore, risk any swinging movement which would disturb his balance
above his single base line or point. Let anyone try the hip swing
standing thus on a single foot, or on feet alined at a wide interval on
the ground, even without the complication of the narrow ice step or the
obstruction of the side wall. He will begin to doubt the advisability
of our classic swing. Nor may a step-cutter let his swing travel
inward with the axe on to the slope; because it is the essence of good
step-cutting that the axe shall stop with a jerk, releasing itself from
the ‘stick’ of the point in the ice while it jars loose the section of
ice that it has split. The hip swing, therefore, if we attempt it, must
be checked at both its ends; and very little space remains between the
two checks to get the swing going. The steeper the ice the shorter the
axe-strokes, and the less and less the opportunity of introducing the
swing. As a further difficulty, no one but a craftsman trained in the
workshops could swing the whole body so exactly as to strike with his
point within a fraction of an inch of the spot required. In chopping
wood, which is done with the feet spread, an amateur can achieve this;
but if he is balancing on feet alined, it is beyond the skill of most
experts to swing from the hips, strike absolutely true, and at the same
time remain in secure balance.
Even the shorter shoulder swing, which we use on slopes of easier
angle, where we can get some support for our balance, when standing
on the outside foot, by pressing the inside foot or the inside knee
against the ice wall, becomes impracticable when we are standing, as we
must be for half our cutting time, on the inside foot, with the outside
foot in a line behind us or swinging free to our poise. On steeper
slopes, where we have no margin of balance for any outward swing and
no room to get a support for the inside foot against the ice, the
shoulder swing becomes impracticable even when we are cutting off the
outside foot. On such slopes we are only free to use the short play of
the arms, and cutting becomes simply accurate ‘chopping.’ Not only on
these steep angles of ice, but on all awkward passages where we are not
placed comfortably for free cutting, but where we have to aim our steps
at cramped angles with bent arms or with one hand alone, our cutting
can be no more than chopping from the elbow, or sometimes only from the
wrist. Since, for men who wear claws, these are the only passages on
which much step cutting should be really needed, the body and shoulder
swings may be safely dropped out of the category of desirable ideals.
The characteristics of a good cutter are accuracy of aim in making
the stroke, with the right inclination of the pick and the right jerk
of the point; good balance upon both feet or on one foot; and an easy
but restrained arm movement, so that he can continue the strokes
with smooth precision for an indefinite time. A man who has acquired
these will naturally use any easing of the slope in his favour, or
any facilities it may offer him for better foot balance, to lighten
his armwork by means of a follow-through with his shoulder. But if a
mountaineer begins to learn with the idea that he has to ‘swing’ in
order to cut well, he will expend most of his energy upon easy angles
where claws make it unnecessary to cut steps at all, or in recovering
his balance and making very bad steps upon steeper slopes--for the
short spells that his strength and nerves will stand.
A good step-cutter need not ‘swing,’ but he also may not ‘press.’ It is
mechanically obvious that if a man is not swinging, but has his stroke
under muscular control throughout its duration, he will gain nothing,
and merely fight against himself, if he tries to force the stroke or
‘press’ before he arrests his point with the final jerk. Once the
stroke is started, a good cutter lets the axe fall of its own weight;
that is, he follows the stroke through with only just the amount of
control needed to direct the point until its contact with the ice.
Each man must discover his own fashion of sketching out a step. The
sequence and arrangement of his strokes will vary with the quality of
the ice and with his position for cutting.
Every step should slope slightly inward. The angle of the tread is of
more importance than the size of the step. On steep ice the inside or
back wall just above the step should be cleared away, to allow the shin
room and to let the leg stand upright above the foot.
The outside edge of the step should never be cleared entirely or
flattened. The ice dust or fragments, if not too large, should be left
there, to pack under the foot and give it a further prop inwards. A
good step looks like a rough notch before it has been used; but after
the first foot has passed over, it should have taken the shape and size
of the sole, and look like its mould.
Large steps or ‘buckets,’ such as the guides provide as the beginner’s
joy, are useless to men who wear claws, and more dangerous than small
steps for those who do not. A large step has a large uneven, or a large
smooth floor, upon which the sole is apt to slip about as the weight is
transferred. Its suggestion of moral reassurance is a poor compensation
for a spoiled balance.
A step should be small, just fitting the foot and gripping the side of
the boot; the back wall should just prop the ankle for better balance.
It should be comfortable to leave as well as comfortable to step on
to. An experienced step-cutter will always prefer to make small steps,
not because of the saving of time, but because, on all but exceptional
passages, the small, close step gives him a better basis of balance for
his next reach-out and cut. Large buckets only become necessary when
the angle of the ice wall is so steep that there is no room for the
shin and knee to stand upright above the foot. A big slice has then to
be cleared away above the step, and this generally involves enlarging
the size of the floor of the step, especially if the cutter is not
expert.
A man has to learn to cut off either shoulder. He must also be able to
cut steps with either hand alone, in order to have his other hand free
to take handholds on the exceptionally difficult passages or traverses
where these are found necessary. To aim a step with one hand needs
practice. To keep a firm grip on the axe shaft, more especially as this
gets iced, makes it important to secure a shaft that is well balanced
and easily grasped. It may well have some protuberance or collar which
prevents the hand slipping. For the same reason the sling is a sound
precaution.[14]
To cut handholds in ice calls for a very fine touch. The best that can
be usually formed is no more than a steadying nick, over the edge of
which the glove can be hooked. The hand shapes the edge of the nick
to the curve of the fingers by pressure, and in the process the glove
freezes slightly to the ice. The hand can rarely give more than a
balance hold on ice. Security and anchorage must be given by the feet.
Similarly, the hand or rather axe hold that we make by driving in
the pick above us, in order to help us over a bad step, is usually
inadequate. The pull that comes on the shaft with our weight must
always be from a direction different to that in which we drove in the
point, and the strain will either loosen the point or lever out the
section of ice which the blow has in part detached. To drive in the
pick straight and not on a swinging arc, so that it may remain firm
at an angle to take the pull of our weight in transference, requires
a kind of arm stroke very difficult to make with sufficient force in
hard, steep ice.
For men without claws the scrambling method, which some leaders risk to
save labour in cutting, of alternating one good ice step with a scratch
for the other foot, covered by an axe hold, can only be excused by rare
circumstance. It is far better to take the little extra time required
for making sound steps under both feet. Men on claws, however, are
better able to use handholds and pick holds in ice. Their feet are firm
so long as the angle and their nerve allow them to stand upright in
balance. All they require is a balance hold, to cover them in starting
the next movement; for so much assistance a hand nick or a driven pick
can well be trusted.
The step for the foot which is passing inside and next to the ice slope
can, to save time, be made smaller than that for the outside foot. For
a good party, without claws, the step for the inside foot need only be
a nick for the side of the boot, provided always that it is inclined at
the right angle. To use such steps it is obviously important that the
whole party should follow with the same foot. For men with claws there
is no need to make this differentiation. Wherever steps are needed for
claws, they may all be made of the same small size--just a sufficient
nick to take the side points of either claw.
In cutting on a diagonal uphill, for men without claws, it is better
to make the interval between the steps shorter when the rising step is
to be made from the inside foot on to the outside foot. In rising from
the outside foot on to the inside foot a longer stride can be made in
balance, and the interval between steps can be made longer.
In cutting diagonally on the downgrade, the contrary is the case. In
dropping from the inside foot on to the outside foot a longer stretch
can comfortably be made than from the outside foot on to the inside
foot.
In cutting horizontally, a longer stretch can be made from the outside
foot on to a step for the inside foot, than vice versa. Trifling
distinctions; but a good cutter who remembers them will save the inches
on his alternate steps; and many inches saved on long ice slopes mean a
number of steps spared and minutes, even hours, economized.
For men without claws, or not very expert, it is better to make steps
too near together than too far apart. Safe progress is the best
progress. This applies especially to cutting downhill. Until a climber
is thoroughly practised in lowering his weight on the bending of a
single knee, he will always find one instant of delicate balance in a
descending stride; and the longer the interval between steps, the more
difficult the balance, until the point comes at which he is reduced to
axe scraping, or shuffling himself down the ice leaning against his
hand. When he finds either help necessary, the step cutter should be
given warning at once that the intervals are too long.
Cutting on the downgrade is usually found more difficult than cutting
uphill. At the same time, the securing of the right fashion and
inclination of the step is even more important on the downgrade than
on the up, since the balance in taking a down-step is more difficult,
not only for the cutter but for his following. The steeper the angle
at which steps have to be made downhill, the more awkward becomes the
balance; until, in descending at a very steep angle, the cutting has
practically to be done with one hand. For this reason, on very steep
slopes it is better to cut short descending zigzags of an easier angle,
even in narrow couloirs where economy of time and labour would point to
a vertical ladder.
Where there is no room for a descending or an ascending zigzag, it
is better not to attempt to make steps for the side-length of the
foot, but to descend or ascend face inward, cutting with one hand a
perpendicular ladder of ‘pigeon-holes,’ or steps shaped like small
church apses, to be used both by the boot-toes and the hands. For men
on claws a vertical ladder of nicks, for the fingers and the two front
points of the claw, is all that is needed.
In cutting zigzags for men without claws, besides making allowance
for the different size and length of step and interval needed for the
inside and outside feet, the turning-step at the corner has to be made
of different size and shape. It should always be larger in size and
semicircular at the back, so that the climber can pivot round in it on
his toe, without hitch, until he faces the other way. It is well to
provide a good hand-nick or an obvious hold for the pick, conveniently
placed above the turning-step.
Steps upon hard, overhanging ice, or upon ice near the perpendicular,
are practically impossible to make or use with any real security.
The chief difficulty is to make any sound hold for the hands, such
as may keep the body in balance above the feet. It is also generally
impracticable upon perpendicular or overhanging ice to cut away
sufficient ice in the slope at the back of the step to allow the leg
to stand erect above the foot, especially if the tread is slanted
downward and inward at a safe inclination. When _tours de force_ of
this character are performed, it is usually upon ice which has frozen
in ‘waterfall’ fashion, coat over coat, so that it becomes possible to
cut through one coat and get a downward handhold between the strata of
ice. Such holds, of course, cannot be reckoned upon as dependable for
more than a balance lift with the hand. Claws will help us for such
nice feats; but they are best only attempted on practice glaciers, or
where the rest of the party is soundly anchored.
On high exposed ridges we have often to deal, in traversing across the
faces of towers, with a mixed coating of snow and ice, in reality a
snow cake in process of transformation into ice by infiltration. The
snow has to be cleared away, and enough ice hacked from the rock to
leave us on the lower sill of the gap, so formed, a sufficiently firm
and broad ice edge for a step. This is fine engraving for a leader:
if he cuts too roughly, the whole plate may flake off and leave him
smooth, vertical rock to traverse; and if he stops too soon, the flake
below may similarly peel away when his weight comes on the step formed
by its upper edge.
On glacier ice, any rib, crack or flaw in the ice will naturally
suggest itself as the groundwork of, if not the substitute for, an ice
step. A stone on the ice, or the pocket which it leaves when cleared
away, makes generally an adequate toehold,--certainly a hold for the
point of a claw.
In cutting across ice flakes, or along narrow bridges through _séracs_,
if the bridge is solid enough it is best to make side-foot nicks along
one side of the crest. If it is not solid enough and the steps have to
be made along the actual edge of crest, it is well to remember that the
fit, and especially the exact length of the step, are very important.
The boot sole slips about on the top of a flat ice surface, and a step
on a narrow crest which is made too short or too long for the boot
renders the balance precarious. If claws are worn, the steps will be
unnecessary, and the party will use the side or truncated crest of the
bridge according to its solidarity and their own convenience.
On glaciers, the flaking ice that we meet with on the faces of big
_séracs_ demands great nicety of touch. The steps are difficult to
make, as it is difficult to check the fracture at the right point. They
are difficult to use, because our weight may continue the work, and the
whole flake surface below our feet may come away. Claws are of real
service, as they grip without starting a line of downward fracture. If
we are without them, a deep pick hold must be secured, driven through
into a deeper stratum of ice, to protect the precarious foothold on the
flake surface or edge. Large flakes that boom or sound hollow to the
axe are best left alone.
On ‘crusted’ snow, snow that has melted and refrozen to an icy
surface, which is often too hard to permit of footholds being kicked,
steps are best made by a dragging stroke with one corner of the
adze-blade along the face of the snow. Any attempt to swing or to cut
with the pick will result in the point sticking at every stroke, and
thus in very slow progress. On very hard, sticky surfaces, where the
pick sticks monotonously and does not split the snow-ice, and where
the drag stroke of the adze-blade will not penetrate, the corner
of the adze should be struck lightly in, and the axe shaft levered
sharply in the direction away from the step-maker. This will burst
out a small cube of ice behind the blade. Two such blows and jerks
are generally enough to clear a sufficiently long step for a boot. On
softer, sticky surfaces a single well-aimed jerking blow of this sort,
made by a single motion of the one hand, followed by a sharp, driving
kick with the boot, usually forms steps rapidly enough to allow of
the maintenance of a slow walking rhythm. Of course, to a party on
claws, such surfaces, which cannot lie at very steep angles, present a
pleasant ballroom or billiard-table vista of indulgent promenade.
[Sidenote: Using Steps.]
We learn to use steps before we are, usually, allowed to make them. But
we cannot use them until they are made. Hence the order I have followed
here.
To use steps rightly calls primarily for good balance. A man must learn
to walk in steps upright, merely resting his hand or axe point against
the ice as he moves up or down from one step to the other. If he leans
inward, or hangs on to axe or handhold, he becomes a danger to his
party. The steps are not cut for the angle which his foot then makes
with the ice; he may easily slip, and the faintest jerk of the rope
will snatch his foot from the step. A man upright and balanced on his
foothold at the right angle can take a considerable weight or jerk if
he has but a second’s warning. A man on claws has double this power.
In using a step a climber has not only a duty to his own balance
movement, but to every following member of the party. He must use it
exactly as it is made, and leave it as he found it. The foot must
arrive neatly and leave cleanly. A fractional mistread leaves for
the next man an uncertain or blurred step, if it does not ruin its
security. There may be no overtreading, and no twisting or turning of
the foot on any step, except on the turning-steps which are designed
for that purpose.
At the turning-step of a zigzag the climber twists round face inward
on his toes. If the step is only cut for one foot, he must only use it
with the one foot, pointing it in the direction in which the imprint
indicates that the leader used it. Otherwise he will spoil the step and
get the sequence of his feet wrong.
On steep ice our main difficulty is to pass the inside foot from
behind to in front, between our outside foot on its step and the ice
wall. Beginners and bad icemen are inclined to avoid this difficulty
by shuffling from step to step with the outside foot always leading,
protecting each change of foot with an axe hold. This is dangerous
and ruinous to the steps. On the very rare passages where it may be
found necessary,--for instance, on the few feet of traverse across
the face of an ice-glazed rock wall, or across a vertical ice bulge
in a couloir, where passing the foot is impossible,--the leader will
have cut a continuous ledge, on which he intends the feet to be thus
shuffled and without risk. Otherwise the inside foot must always be
passed in front, whatever the difficulty; and the better a man balances
and the less he leans inward and clings to the slope, the easier
becomes the passing of the foot. Where the wall is so steep that to
pass the leg and hip-bone means really a movement out of balance, the
leader may be trusted to have made some handhold above, if only for his
own protection.
On steep ice, men on claws have to be very careful in passing the
inside foot, so as not to catch the prongs in the puttie or fastenings
of the firm foot. On the other hand a man on claws, secured to the ice
by his prongs and not merely by the friction of his sole, can flex his
firm ankle far more freely outward and allow his inside foot room to
pass.
In descending a very steep ice staircase, it is important not only
to follow with the proper feet but to notice how the leader used the
steps. Steps on a descending ladder are not infrequently cut with
the intention that the inside foot should be dropped _behind_ the
outside foot as we stand sideways on a slope, and not passed in front
of the standing outside foot and then dropped, as in the more usual
movement for easier angles of descent. Step cutters should remember
the device. It is not only easier, on occasion, to cut a step in this
fashion vertically below and not on a descending diagonal, but it is
mechanically an easier movement of descent, on a steep wall, to lower
the inside foot thus behind the standing foot than to pass it in front.
On a diagonal descent, if the shorter legs of a following man find the
steps are made too far apart for his descending balance, and he has no
time to make fresh ones, he will sometimes find it safer to turn right
round and descend the steps backwards, turning his other cheek to the
wall. His outstretched toe can reach farther in this attitude. It is
not sound for more than a few steps, and not dignified; but dignity
must be sacrificed to security if the steps are already made and it is
too late to protest, and it is better to arrive cleanly with the toe
on a step, even the wrong way round, than to scrabble down insecurely,
leaning against the ice with thigh or hand.
It is often asserted to be the business of the second man to ‘finish
off’ the leader’s steps and enlarge them. This has grown out of the
mistaken belief that large steps are safer than small, well-shaped
ones. The bettering may, on occasion, be done by deliberate arrangement
between two men. A return by the same route may be intended, when the
larger steps will endure better through the heat of the day. Or if
there are weaker icemen in the party it may save time to divide the
labour of making the specially good and numerous steps they need.
Otherwise the alteration is quite unjustifiable and improper. The best
cutter presumably is leading, and he will have made the step of the
right shape to start with. If it has been good enough for him to stand
upon and cut ahead from, up or down, it is good enough for the party
to follow upon. A second working-over of the step risks spoiling it. A
patched step is never as good as a clean step, cut just to the right
point and left raw for the kick of the foot to finish and to mould. If
he does not spoil it, a second man by re-cutting postpones his real
business, which is to emphasize the mould of the step still further
by the right planting of his foot. If he has time to spare from his
functions of anchoring the leader or the men behind, he can employ
his hands better elsewhere. He may make additional handholds for
balance on bad passages, or, by arrangement with the leader, introduce
intervening steps, to save the leader time and to favour a weaker
following. If he introduces steps, he must be careful not to upset
the sequence of feet for which the leader is cutting the main line of
steps. He may, also by arrangement, devote himself to breaking up and
dispersing any large fragments of ice left about the steps, though not,
of course, to clearing out the small stuff which is expressly left to
take the imprint of the foot. He thus incidentally relieves his party’s
bottled-up emotions by offering a fair target for the abuse from below
which follows such clearing up, but from which the leading step-cutter
must always be exempt. It is a graceful concession on a leading
step-cutter’s part if, when he is doing his own clearing as well as
cutting, he recollects that his following have heads as well as feet.
Men following on claws, in steps, nicks, or only claw-tracks, are freer
to vary their sequence of feet or their fashion of using steps; the
good hold of the prongs is more than a substitute for the nice fit of
the correct foot to the mould of a step. But both for retention of
rhythm and for security it is better as a rule to follow the leader’s
tracks and save the time which must be spent in selecting new treads.
This applies more especially to exposed hard ice where the rope is
retained. Men moving without the rope may prefer to digress from the
actual treads and find unbroken holding surface for their own claws.
The leader’s general line should, however, be followed.
[Sidenote: The Rope on Ice.]
On ice, if the rope is retained, as it will be on exacting slopes by
all parties without claws and by many parties with claws, it is worn
in its normal fashion, with the waist-knot under the left shoulder and
on the side towards or away from the slope according to the direction
of the zigzag. One hand, generally the right, holds a short length of
slack, as a precaution against jerk and to leave a margin for a longer
or shorter stride in our own or our front man’s advance. The rope
should never be quite taut. If both hands are required for a moment, to
use the axe or to take a handhold, and the slack has for the time to
be dropped, we must regulate our distance carefully, step by step, from
the man in front, so that the rope to him continues to hang in an easy
curve, which will neither catch on the ice nor be jerked by an extra
length of stride on his part. We expect the same care from the man
behind us.
On hard grainy ice it is useless to attempt to belay the rope with the
axe, as is possible on snow where the rope can be looped round the
driven shaft. Corrective measures must be left to the firm balance on a
good step or on fast claws, and to the spring that the arm, holding the
slack, may be able to give to the rope before the jerk of a man sliding
comes upon our waist. If a man slips, our natural inclination to lean
inwards towards the slope and get some clamp with the axe or hand must
at all costs be unlearned and avoided. Once the body is no longer in
balance, nor weighing upon the steps, the feet are easily snatched from
their hold.
On soft grainy ice it is sometimes possible to make a belay by striking
in the pick at a sharp downward inclination above us, and looping the
rope round the pick and close to the ice. The shaft must then be held
rigid in its first position. Unless the footholds are exceptionally
bad, this anchor is not more secure than that given by good balance on
the feet alone. And men are very apt, when a friend slips, to throw
their own weight inward upon the shaft in a clutch of security, thus
pulling the shaft down and loosening the pick from the one angle at
which it could have been of any service as a belay.
On zigzags it is of no use trying to keep at even distances on the
rope, no matter how even the pace. The intervals must alter as the men
pass to and fro on the bends. The rope has to be taken in, as slack
in the hand, and again paid out, as we cross below or above our front
man on zigzags ascending or descending. The turning-step is usually
made face inward in ascending and face outward in descending, though
occasionally it is safer to make it face inward on a descent also. The
face-inward turn has two advantages: one, that we make the turn on the
toes and not on the heels; and two, that if we are using a pick hold
at the turn or balancing with our axe touching the ice, we have not to
make either the change of hand on the shaft of a fixed axe, or the
awkward swirl round of the whole axe outside us and back again on to
the ice, which a face-outward turn demands. During either turn the rope
should be held high, and clear of the feet.
Balance is always easier when moving in steps at a fair pace; and
steps of stationary comfort for turning or special anchoring, and
large enough for both feet, are only made at intervals, generally at
the end of the zag. Consequently it is not always best to follow step
for step with the step-cutter’s necessarily slower progress. If we do
so, we are constantly having to wait standing on one foot, or with
our legs straddled apart on two steps. It is better to pause in the
turning-steps and make up time on the series between them. For example,
the second man secures his leader from a turning-step, and can wait
until his rope is nearly out. He then follows more rapidly up or down
the staircase. He gathers up the rope as he goes if his leader is
still cutting, or, on worse passages, the leader takes it in as the
second ascends. His natural halts will be at the turning-step of a zag
or at his leader’s last anchor step. This method is of particular use
when, as often in a couloir, it is safer and more comfortable to make
our longer pauses under the rocks at the sides, and not all to move
harmonically in criss-cross up the centre. Men on claws may prefer
to be without the rope in such places; in this case they make their
advance when they please, and are free to halt on any more comfortable
nicks to allow for the leader’s slower advance.
For continuous following up steps, the rope and axe are usually held
together in the outside hand, the inside hand being left free to take
balance touches against the ice or to take in the slack. For slower
movement, advancing one at a time, the axe is used for the touches or
for resting against the ice during the pause on each step; this saves
the chill to the fingers. The axe is at these times held across the
body with both hands, the outer of the two hands also holding the slack
of the rope.
On very steep or otherwise dangerous ice we shall only be moving one at
a time. In this case the leader cuts a large anchor step to which he
brings up his second; and the halts will be made by the party only at
the recurring large steps. If the ice, and party, are sound enough for
continuous progress, we shall generally be pausing on steps made only
for the one foot: it is clearly of advantage, at such times, to have
the freedom which claws allow us--especially if we are unroped--to move
on until we have found a really comfortable nick to wait upon.
On traverses or zigzags, unless we can reach a very good turning or
anchor step from which to pull in the rope of the man following, we do
better to divide our stance between two steps. Our feet are then well
planted to resist a pull coming diagonally or from straight behind us.
On a traverse, if we are facing forward, standing either on one or two
steps, it is best not to turn and watch the man following, which will
prejudice our balance, but to trust to the feel of the rope to tell us
what is happening. The rope on ice with its smooth movement is even a
surer telegraph than on rock. Moreover, in the event of a slip behind
us, we have not only the sound of the slide as warning, but the time
taken by a slide down ice, perceptibly longer than by a fall over rock,
gives us extra seconds to brace at our strongest. We are more prepared
to do this if we keep our body and head turned in the same direction as
our feet, than if we first turn round and then have to recover the best
holding position.
[Sidenote: Glacier Work.]
On glaciers, besides the task of making and using steps, there is the
more serious mountaineering business of finding the best route, up or
down, or even any route at all. The climber may or may not have been
able to help himself by preliminary reconnoitring. If not, and he finds
himself upon an unknown glacier, he has one or two general principles
to keep in mind.
The shady side of the glacier--there is usually one more sheltered from
the sun--may offer the best chance of finding closed-up crevasses: or
of discovering bridges, connecting flakes, etc., such as may help him
through any system of open crevasses which extends right across the
glacier.
On a curving glacier, the concave side may present to the eye
the steeper and more threatening waves of surface ice, since the
retardation will be greater on this side. Actually, the ice on this
concave side, of slower movement, will be less intricate and the
crevasses more contracted. Often the steep crests of ice will be
merely surface survivals of crevasses, and their bases will be merged
continuously in one another, forming broad glacier dimples easy to
negotiate.
On the convex side, the ice crests of swifter movement may appear to
be more negotiable, but the crevasses will be open and deep; and on
this side there is always more possibility of finding a secondary
or tertiary system of edge-crevasses intruding upon the normal
side-system. These crevasses are produced by the friction of the
glacier against its containing walls, and, like other crevasses, by
the unevenness of the rock bed; but being on the convex curve and
unsubjected to compression they not only open but stay open. Most
edge-crevasses are usually much covered with moraine and stones, on
lower glacier, and by many treacherous forms of rotting snow on upper
glacier, and they are thoroughly unpleasant to work through. It is best
to avoid them by turning out towards the middle of the glacier, until
the side-rifts run out in harmless cracks.
On a glacier of approximately straight descent the ordinary systems
of crevasses are three in number: these various marginal crevasses,
transverse crevasses, and crevasses running lengthways down the fall.
The transverse crevasses are caused by the falls in the rock bed of the
descending glacier. They are best crossed on a direct line of ascent
or descent of the glacier. According as the glacier is humped in the
middle, or flat and even hollow, these crevasses will be found, in
the first case, less open nearer the sides of the glacier, and in the
second, less open towards the flat or concave centre.
The third system, of lengthways crevasses, is due to the opening out
of the containing walls of rock, or to long ‘hog-back’ elevations in
the rock bed below, which thrust up the centre of the glacier. This is
the more dangerous system to negotiate. Crevasses, especially those
whose edges are concealed, must be approached, for crossing, at right
angles to their run. A party ascending or descending the glacier
lengthways will have constantly to be swinging its whole length on
the rope, wheeling until at least two of the party at a time will be
approaching the crevasse at right angles to its line and their former
line of march. So long as the glacier is clear of snow, the crossings
can be thus safely, if tiresomely, managed; but when the crevasses are
snow-covered, or where we meet lengthways and transverse crevasses
interlinked, it calls for fine icemanship to prevent sometimes all the
party finding themselves moving along the same line as the crevasse
they intend to cross, or even over its snow-covered length.
Where a glacier, straight or crooked, has one of its sides unsupported
by a rock wall, and is therefore falling away at its own edge, or where
its marginal and transverse crevasses have joined hands, a disagreeable
system of curving crevasses must be expected. This is difficult to
prospect, and dangerous to unravel if it is under snow. To locate the
direction of a ‘scimitar’ crevasse at one point, and avoid it or cross
it correctly, does not protect us against its later loop of unexpected
trespass upon our route. The side of the falling away of a glacier
should as far as possible be avoided, in spite of the temptation of its
easier-looking surface ice.
On large glaciers, where two systems of big crevasses, each equal and
still active, have met, we find the worst problem of all: that is,
separate ‘cubes’ or islands of ice with crevasses on all their four
sides. It leads only to disappointment to attempt to get through a big
system of this character. Fortunately it is generally recognizable
from a distance by its upstanding squared summits. For a space, also,
round the junction of any two glaciers these turbulent effects of
cross-pressure must be expected, and the area entered with caution.
On high snow-covered glacier, the huge rotund depressions or mills
cannot be disregarded. But they can usually be skirted closely with
confidence. They are the result of strains that, fortunately, do not
create subsidiary or flanking clefts. They resemble mammoth ice sea
urchins, not glacial star-fish.
On glaciers of rapidly changing angle and surface, a disagreeable
phenomenon is the formation of an upper crust of ice, or frozen snow,
over lesser depressions of the mill type. The crust gets separated from
the fall of the surface below it, and while it continues to present a
harmless appearance to all but very close inspection, it may surprise
a whole party by letting them down simultaneously into a sufficiently
startling hollow. The situation is generally more sensational than
serious. Similarly, in winter, pools are formed in glacier hollows and
frozen over. Then they are covered with snow, and the water drains from
under the crust. Thus ice-traps are formed very difficult to detect by
the eye, but which sound hollow under the testing tap of the axe point.
On covered glacier the axe may never rest idle.
Glaciers in general, like rivers, alternate between distinct falls and
more level slopes of smooth shoot or broken rapid. The routes through
the smooth sections are easy to trace out from above, more difficult
from below. The falls are more difficult to unravel from above, on a
descent. In coming down large dry glaciers we can assume that a fall
rarely extends equally broken right across the glacier; and that there
will be a long bending eddy of smoother surface dallying close round
the edge of the more broken section, which may afford us a passage
through or round the rapids. On a small or steep glacier, where the
fall visibly occupies the whole breadth of the glacier, and there is
no eddy round it, it is useful first to discover if there may not be
a direct central line which appears to force through the fall a long
arrow-point of lazier, more level flow, such as we look for when we are
canoeing down rapids. Failing either of these, on a small steep glacier
the fall is often best skirted on the concave, or on the shadowed
side of the glacier. Only in rare years, of hot seasons following
mild winters, do alpine crevasses, or more often one great crevasse,
sometimes extend right across a narrow steep glacier, and offer no
through route, or bridge. As a last resort then it may be necessary to
take to the rocks at the side of the glacier and circumvent the fall.
To get off a glacier at the right point in the evening, and also to
lose no time and patience when we turn down on to the big glaciers in
the early morning, it is our business to have noted beforehand from
above the lie of the crevasses, and the points where it will be best to
start crossing their trend. Many glaciers tempt us with long sloping
lines of good going where their crevasses slant inward and upward from
the margin. If we follow these without pre-examination, we either
find our entry carried out and across to where the systems meet and
produce difficult ice, or our exit balked of a landing-place. A few
resolute traverses of the side crevasses, based upon observation, will
often take us on to the master-diagonal, that launches us clear of the
central fall or lands us on our chosen marge.
It will be seen that it is of value to train the eye to read a glacier
from above, and mark out the best route, before we descend upon it.
This inspection should be made not only of the glacier on to which
immediate descent is intended, but of all the glaciers commanded by the
ridges upon which we are climbing in a given season. The information
may be invaluable for a future day, and the practice will serve
conveniently to develop glacier prescience and glacier instinct. In
addition, we secure a general idea of the condition of the glaciers in
a particular season, or in a particular locality, which will assist by
analogy to the unravelling of other glaciers which we may have been
unable to prospect. A good iceman not only notes from afar, but retains
his recollection of the route he noted when he is actually on the
glacier and exposed to the constant temptation of following lines of
deceptive least resistance. A number of mountaineers learn to observe,
but few to remember; and fewer still will uphold memory against the
evidence of the moment.
Conversely, it is valuable practical training to note, when we are on
a glacier, the character of its rock walls, and the points at which
the ice could be reached on a descent of the last rocks from the
surrounding peaks. The rock wall just above a glacier is like a sea
cliff, smoothed below, and presents a perpetual problem, of ascent
or descent. Long returns may often be avoided by our recollection of
inspections of a particular wall, or by deductions from our memory of
the fashion of rock finishes found on the local glaciers.
Glaciers vary from year to year, and change slightly from week to week,
and even on familiar ground it is wise to keep ourselves up to date by
using all points of observation for the rediscovery of their annual or
local variations.
With a few general principles as guide, the instinct that comes with
experience as our aid, and backed by the usual allowance of climbers’
luck, there may be said to be scarcely a glacier, in the Alps at least,
which cannot be traversed by patience and skill in all but exceptional
seasons. An additional measure of precaution must of course be
conceded, if we are following a line after noon or after sunshine which
we could take on trust in the frozen hours before sunrise. And even
before sunrise, in negotiating steep glaciers, dry or snow-covered, a
very careful eye has to be kept upon the chance of ice avalanches or of
the fall of a _sérac_. For this risk is not confined to the afternoon
hours, when they are most likely to fall. A warm night, or frost, tepid
wind or rain, will put the last touch to the career of many vagabond
pinnacles depraved by the sun of previous days.
Where we can command the distant glacier above us, it is not difficult
to mark the dangerous pinnacles and _séracs_, and to calculate their
direction of fall should they choose for it our moment of passage.
Otherwise, if we are launched in the morning, without prospect, into
the blind intricacies of a big ice fall, the traces of previous falls
must be our signals. They will be either scars, from which we draw
conclusions according to their appearance of age or newness, or, more
frequently, the remains themselves of a past fall, shattered fragments
of ice. From the surface of the blocks we know whether the fall was
recent or not. If the surface is blue and new in the morning, it has
been a recent or night fall, and another may be expected; the same if
it has only the rime of frost upon it. If the surface has melted at all
and been refrozen since the fall, it is the fall of the day before or
of still older date, and it need not be especially regarded in making
an early morning traverse. The differences are notable, and a practised
eye, backed by knowledge of the weather immediately preceding, can say
within a day or a night when the fall took place, and whether it was
a day or a night fall, and judge accordingly, with some probability
of correctness, when a similar fall may be expected. Again, if there
are traces of several falls of different dates, the passage is exposed
to the raking of more than one periodic _sérac_ mass, and it must be
avoided. If it is but a single old fall, of a complete _sérac_, which
no expert will have difficulty in discovering, it cannot fall again and
may be disregarded.
After the sun has once risen, all commanding and large _séracs_,
even if there is no trace of previous falls, must become objects of
suspicion, if we have to pass below them. Their period of decline and
fall is proceeding, and its close cannot be calculated nearer than
within a few hours.
But a skilled party, with claws and experience, need not be afraid
of adventuring on to a crossing of the wettest, bluest, and
nastiest-looking _séracs_, provided that they can work out a route of
safe footing and that the threatened zones are visible, and therefore
avoidable. So long as snow does not conceal the cleavages or muffle the
frailties, the difficulties of ice, as such, are a delight to master.
With a good axe, good claws and a good friend, to set one’s feet on the
crisp spring of morning ice and feel battle joined with the white, blue
and silver giants of a glacier fall, I know no excitement so sanely
joyous; and no sound so thrilling as the clean hollow smack of the axe
and the bell-like rustle of the falling ice-chips returning from the
deep crevasse; and yet again, no exultation more healthy than to look
back through the glittering labyrinth of turquoise and grey precipice,
of sapphire chasm, fretted spire, and lucent arch, flake and buttress,
and see the little serpent of our blurred blue steps, edged with the
tiny winking prisms of sunlit ice-dust, soaring, dipping, circling,
hazarding on its absurd adventure: surely a connected thread of very
happy human purpose, asserting its gay consequence triumphantly through
the heart of the wildest and most beautiful of the conflicts between
nature’s silent armies.
[Sidenote: Snow-covered Glacier.]
Higher glaciers, and the higher reaches of glaciers covered with snow,
are the most complex of all mountain problems, and their unravelling
is the final test of mountaineering. They demand for their duality
of difficulty the mastery of snow and ice technique in combination;
and for their associated risk a fourfold measure of precautionary
skill; for on them we expect to encounter the ordinary risks of snow
superimposed upon the hidden, and therefore magnified, possibilities
of danger on ice. The great icemen, those who can disregard a late
descent after a long day, and by memory, or by the ice instinct which
is the emanation of recollected experience, are able to lead a tired
party unerringly through the fantastic, often invisible entanglements
of a snow-covered glacier system, intensified by sunshine, their own
faculties unimpaired by darkness, fatigue or danger, are masters of the
craft; and they are few enough for us to give them ungrudgingly the
title of genius.
The peculiar risks of snow glaciers force upon us a reconsideration of
the numbers proper for a party.
Solitary climbing is never justifiable on any type of expedition which
involves either snow or ice; in fact anywhere where the increase
in the so-called objective risk makes it impossible to observe the
super-precautionary conditions which must always limit a lonely
climber’s performance,--as elsewhere enumerated.[15] An expert on
claws may pass a day alone on a dry glacier, with the knowledge that
he is taking some definite risk. But anyone who ventures alone on
snow-covered glacier, whatever his skill, is giving to everybody,
except himself, a proof that he lacks the most important part of a
mountaineer’s mental equipment.
The question as it affects a single climber is simple. With the
consideration of the justifiability of a party of two venturing on
snow-covered glaciers, the complications begin. A party of two, I have
said elsewhere, if they are experts, is the ideal party for most rock
climbing. For most normal mountaineering which includes straightforward
ice work the addition of a third to a strong party adds little except
a moral security, and diminishes the complete harmony in rhythm and
pace. On clear ice slopes the additional protection is small. If, as
between two men, one has not been able to check the other’s fall, the
third man will very rarely be able to stop the slip of both the others.
On snow slopes, except to share the mechanical labour or in certain
exceptional cases, already mentioned, to participate in the corrective
anchoring, two good mountaineers should not need reinforcement. But on
snow-covered glacier, where hidden crevasses come into question, not
only are two insufficient but even three may find themselves hard put
to it if two of them have to pull out the third from a bad crevasse.
Some mountaineers have maintained, and in print, that it is never
necessary to fall into crevasses; that in every case a man with good
eyesight, knowledge of glacier signs and unfailing observation (all
of which the leader of a party of two must possess for _any_ type of
climbing) can always distinguish their unseen presence and locate their
line. This view is nearer the truth than the large number of climbers
who have never learned or never cared to use and train their senses
would be prepared to admit. In nine cases out of ten the crevasse is
really perceptible. But there is the tenth case, with which all men who
climb must on occasion have to deal, where there has been no visible
sign, and where the crevasse is discovered too late or is only escaped
by accident. And further, there is also the supernumerary case when the
crevasse _is_ visible, but when its crossing must yet be risked, as the
milder of several critical alternatives, and the consequences accepted.
As the matter must still be considered one for discussion, and it is of
real moment to clear the ground for a sounder tradition than at present
regulates our diverse doctrine and chameleon practice, I shall mention
a few instances of what I have called the tenth case.
In a recent alpine season a mild winter and a long hot summer produced
conditions of snow sub-surface entirely unfamiliar. Crevasses had
opened below long-established snow slopes of unimpeachable aspect.
Their coverings had become tenuous and fragile, but until mid-August
the upper surface of old snow presented no appearance of subsidence
or change. No eyesight could have prevented the falls that resulted.
Such a state of snow cannot be unique, or confined to the Alps; and,
in fact, the same phenomena, in a less subtle form, may entrap less
experienced mountaineers almost any season--guides as well as guideless
amateurs. Moreover, even where the crevasse shadow would normally be
visible, failing light may trick the best eye, a level sun may dazzle,
or low mist may wipe out all sign; and then our expert may go through
as easily as another. Few even of the most experienced guides but have
suffered the experience. Some have been through; others have had their
following drop through where they had passed unsuspecting; yet others
have only averted the break by good luck or corrective gymnastics.
Again, there is the case when the presence of the crevasse may be
visible or suspected, but where its breadth is undiscoverable.[16]
Or, again, where the bounds are discoverable, but where their
criss-crossing may elaborate new risks. Suppose us to be two grave men
making the descent of a hanging glacier. We find ourselves faced with
the alternatives of returning up the peak, of sitting out possibly in
deteriorating weather, or of taking the chance of unravelling one of
those glacier cross-systems of spouting volcanoes, where the ice is
heaped and beaten up into snow-covered vault and dome, and only the
tinkle below our feet warns us that we are walking over the brittle
cupola of some hidden St. Paul’s. One of us might be pardoned for
breaking through here: and how shall one other extricate him?
A more frequent, ‘supernumerary’ case is that of the bergschrund, with
its single bridge which we have to cross to get at our peak at all,
or to get home before night. In the morning it may have been secure;
on our return its security, or the reverse, has to be rediscovered
_ambulando_. The experience is common enough, and few parties of two
will be able to plead not guilty to having at some time taken the
flying chance.
In these and similar cases precautionary and corrective icemanship
can do much to reduce the risk for the party of two. But unless such
a party climbs so as never to cross snow-covered crevasses at all,
which is to postulate absurdity, some risk there must always be of
a break-through. And if that once occurs, for a party of two the
situation is ten times as serious as for any greater number. For if
the fact that a man may excusably fall through may be considered
established,--and I shall assume that it is, sufficiently at all
events for practical mountaineers,--it is only a question of further
fortune whether the crevasse is so shaped that one of the party of
only two can rescue himself or even be helped materially by the second
man. Several corrective devices have been suggested, such as wearing
two ropes, keeping a hand-loop ready near our hand on the rope,
etc.--devices which are now used in the confidence that they form a
genuine safeguard. The intention of the double rope is that if one man
falls through, the other will untie one rope from his waist, and fasten
it to his axe, which he will drive in securely as a belay. The man
below will then pull on this rope, and the man above on the rope still
attached to him; thus securing that the two men will each be pulling
separately to raise the one weight. The effectiveness of the double
rope so used, however, assumes that the crevasse is one with open walls
and clean firm edges, which will allow the second man first to anchor
the one rope round his axe, and then move up and stand close enough to
the edge to be able to pull in the second rope while his friend below
does acrobatics up the anchored rope. But these are not the crevasses
into which any observant leader of a party of two has any right to
fall. Good men, if they fall, are trapped by snow-covered crevasses
of indeterminate edges, or by the midway breaking of a visible but
treacherous bridge. In such crevasses the fallen man will be under
the projection of a lip of snow. He will be hanging free, probably
unable to do more than touch the walls with his axe. The man above will
have all he can do to hold on; he may not be able to find secure snow
within reach into which to drive his axe for the belay; and his hands
will rarely be sufficiently free to untie one waist rope, drive the
axe and fix the rope to it, so that he can move up and clear away the
overhang. The ropes will cut deeply into the snow lip with the weight;
and the friction hold of the snow in which the ropes are embedded will
militate against the effective pulling upon his rope by either man. If
the two ropes are, as usual, tied to the waist, the one will probably
have twisted round the other; both will be jammed in this position in
the snow cut, and neither man will be able to distinguish on which
rope he is supposed to pull. Even if they have been kept clear before,
the cutting through the snow will twist the ropes and jam them, so
that they cannot be used separately for pulling at all. The projecting
snow will interrupt communications and interfere with any simultaneous
action in pulling from above and below. Nor can the man below,
suspended in air, really do much to help. Tie a rope round your chest
and a bough; drop ten feet on it, and then try to pull yourself up it!
And a man in a crevasse is much worse situated for attempting juggling
feats. The constriction of the rope alone will soon make him helpless
and later unconscious. The shock, the imminent peril and the cold will
contribute to weaken him for the strenuous efforts required. Further,
if the rope is tied, as it usually is, under the arm, the knot will
work up under his shoulder and practically put one arm out of action.
All the strength of the arm will be required for merely forcing down
the knot and noose, so as to keep it under the arm-pit; the moment the
arms are lifted to attempt a pull, the knot will force itself up and
half-paralyse the one arm.
It has been suggested, as a partial solution, that the two men should
not rope at the ends of the rope, but keep some feet of loose end wound
round the body. Then if one falls in he can, with luck helping him,
release this slack and make a foot or thigh noose on which the body can
rest while suspended, thus relieving the constriction of the chest.
Anything that _may_ help is worth trying, and I should certainly advise
the method as giving a small extra chance in a bad situation. But this
only deals with one of many difficulties.
Experience has again and again shown me that the man below becomes
incapable of active co-operation, from cold and shock if not from
constriction, before the men above, however prompt and expert they
may be, can arrange and carry out any effective scheme of rescue. I
have known of difficult situations where even two men above proved
insufficient for the complex task of retaining firm fixed anchors,
clearing obstructions and pulling up. In any case no mechanical device
can be equivalent to the power of a third man, and two men can never be
as safe as three.
Once this is conceded, we may admit that a number of good mountaineers
will probably continue to hold the view that two is the best number for
many sorts of climbing; and that therefore parties of two, starting out
with the best intentions, will occasionally find themselves compelled
by the necessity of avoiding even greater risk to hazard the crossing
of snow-covered crevasses or bridges of dubious stability. They should
certainly then put on a doubled or a second rope. One of the two
rope-lengths when tied should be longer than the other. This runs risks
of twisting and is a nuisance, but in case of a fall it secures that
the ropes are at once distinguishable, and it should be prearranged
that the man who has fallen should always do his pulling upon this
looser rope. The second man should have the end of the looser rope
attached, not to his waist, but to his axe shaft. Whenever the leader
crosses an obvious bridge or pauses to probe, the second man should
plant the axe, with the loose rope attached, at once in the snow, and
hold the other, tighter rope in his two hands, ready for emergencies.
It is clear that on this method some practical use is made of the
protection of the second rope. If the leader goes through, the second
man avoids all the enormous difficulty of untying one of two taut
ropes, of fixing it to his axe, and then anchoring it, with the whole
weight of the man below dragging on him. The weight is on the one taut
rope round his waist; he has only to drive in the axe with its slack
rope already attached, and the fixed anchor is ready for the man below
to start pulling upon, while he himself at once has his hands free to
pull on the taut rope. Again, if the rear man falls in--which of course
he has even less excuse for doing--this method has the advantage of
keeping the second rope already loose and distinguishable in his hand,
to cling to or climb upon, and also of saving his axe for him. This
double advantage is some remedy for the fact that the leader, who in
this case will be the man left above, will have both ropes still fixed
to his waist, as on the old faulty system. I do not suggest that the
leader also should have the second rope attached to his axe. He must
have his axe quite free.
It might be well also to adopt the plan of the few feet of loose end
wound round the waist, to make a foot noose with, if the circumstances
and position allow.
When the double rope is worn, the rear man should always carry the
spare rope. If the double ropes are then, as is quite possible, twisted
and jammed in the snow groove, he has yet a third chance of making free
and quick connection with his leader; and unless, as I have said, both
men can begin instantly to use their full strength upon distinct ropes,
there is small chance that one man can get another out of an undercut
crevasse.
In place of tying the looser rope to their axe, some men prefer to
compromise, and make a fixed loop in the second rope near their waist,
through which, in case of the fall of a man in front, they can thrust
the axe into the snow, and so get a provisional anchor. This loop in
the rope close to the hand, to snatch at or thrust the axe through
in emergency, is also used by men in larger parties when linked by
the usual single rope. The method has many objections; and all the
material security it gives is quite as usefully and less objectionably
obtained from the coil or so of slack we are accustomed to grip in the
hand.
In the case of a larger party, if a leader or last man does fall in,
the first care should be to drive an axe, or axes, securely into the
snow, and loop the rope. One man must then approach the edge of the
crevasse and see the run of the rope, the nature of the pull, and the
clearance of overhanging snow, if any, which has to be made. If the
crevasse has the character of a bergschrund, with one lip higher than
the other, it is often easier to pull the man out from the opposite
side to that from which he has fallen. One, or, if the numbers allow,
two of the party must work round cautiously to the far side, taking
a spare rope to let down. A noose should be made at the end of the
rope before it is lowered. The stirrup for the foot can also well be
employed in such emergencies. In a party of three, on a suspicious
glacier, the spare rope should always be carried by the last man, and
not by the first man, as is usually done in guided parties.
With the two ropes pulling from different sides the extrication is
fairly easy. If the farther lip cannot be reached, or overhangs as much
as or more than the near lip, there is nothing for it but to cut back
the lip of snow overhang above the suspended man until the rope is
cleared. This runs some risk of injuring the man below with the falling
masses; but the chance must be taken on occasion. The longer a man
hangs, the more helpless he becomes. Promptitude is essential.
Keen sight is the first quality for a good leader on snow-covered ice;
to be able to remark not only every change of shade or colour or angle
on the surface immediately ahead, but also to be able to read the
surface well to right and left for its betrayal of crevasses that may
be continuing, better hidden, across his path. He must also know all
about glacier structure and the inclinations and aspect of surfaces
where hidden crevasses may be expected. Tinted glasses are, for many
men, an interruption to the reading of ice or snow, and often the
cause of bad leading. The man is fortunate who is able to do without
them when he is leading, or who finds enough protection in the clear
spectacles which best suit his sight. There is an exaggerated idea of
the chances of breaking ordinary clear spectacles which has little
foundation. They can be worn safely on almost all rock and ice; and
even on very severe rock, where they run some risk of smashing as the
head is raised past a ledge, they are as safe on the nose as in a
pocket. Except right up under the arm-pit, and not always there, there
is no contrivable pocket which can be sure of avoiding contact with
rock in some attitude of climbing.
After our eyes--and our experience--we have still another criterion,
that of the hand. The probing with the axe point at every step must
become perfectly automatic, and begin of itself to function as soon as
sight or instinct makes us suspicious about the glacier surface. We
must have the right sort of axe point, one without a large protuberant
collar to the spike, so that we can probe with nicety of touch; and we
must get to know exactly the feel of our axe and the meaning of the
different resistances which its point signals to our hand. For this
reason it is well always to use the same axe or kind of axe.
Where our eye or axe probe has given us reason to suspect a crevasse,
the next test is to flog the same spot lightly with the axe point.
In dealing with sun-soft surface this flick goes deeper, with less
exertion, and practice can make it a very accurate reporter upon the
consistency. This too is its merit in testing the thoroughfaresomeness
of visible bridges. Where also the snow cover is thin, the flogging
stroke tells us more quickly than the prod where sound footing ends and
the crevasse begins.
Snow testing, like walking with the axe, should be shared equally
between the two hands. It is not only exceedingly useful to be equally
dexterous and sensitive with either hand, but the practice keeps
the muscular development even and the general condition of the body
proportionately better.
When we are working through crevassed glacier the second man must
always watch the meaning of his leader’s movements, and halt and brace
at once if the leader checks. The others watch each the man in front
of him. It is essential to follow exactly in the steps on a glacier
of this sort, even though the windings of the leader’s tracks may
suggest many pleasant short-cuts to the tail of the rope. By watching
the men ahead we know when we must be ready to let out rope, so as to
enable the man in front of us, in his turn, to make a long step across
a dubitable crevasse or a short jump, and when we shall have to pause
and protect him with the rope, as his turn comes to start delicately
over a presumed bridge. To hold the rope taut is irritating, to jerk
it dangerous, and to leave it slack on the surface irritating and
dangerous; the correct touch comes with experience.
The leader will always be on the look out; but the men behind will
naturally be following with less close attention. Therefore if the
leader comes upon a small crevasse or other easy obstacle too slight
to cause him an obvious check, he should warn the man behind of its
presence, as he strides on, by beating the spot with his axe; and the
signal should be repeated by each man following.
Again if, when we are all moving together, we have checked in order to
make some awkward step or to test a bridge, we must remember that in
a few seconds the man behind us will be checking at the same place,
and we must slacken our pace at the right second to allow him time to
cross. It is common and aggravating error to hurry on again so as to
get into rhythm with the man in front, forgetting that the man behind
will have slowed up for our pause, and will be jerked or scuffled by
our omission to allow him the same margin.
The same rule applies if we are serpentining rapidly down a glacier,
swinging so as to cross longitudinal or diagonal crevasses at the right
angle. If we resume the normal pace the moment we have swung ‘into
the straight’ again ourselves, we leave no time for the man behind to
finish his parabola or cross his bridge. This is a roguery ingrained in
all but the best of guides.
Glacier craft, the ability to choose in anticipation the easiest line
down or up a volatile succession of semi-visible obstructions, and
to surpass them safely as they become concrete, can only become an
actual possession by long experience and unwearying observation. There
is a family likeness between whole groups of surface configurations
shaped by the same cause, which, however dissimilar their momentary
association, will recall to a recording eye some past occasion of
encounter, and will suggest to a cool head and skilful hands the
proven method of avoiding or defeating them in their new combination.
Glaciers form our avenues of tempting approach, and, as often, of
tedious return. During the hours when human vivacity is on the wane
the higher ice falls are opening always wider eyes of watchful
malice. Towards their confounding not only ice craft but all the
qualities which produce the _collective_ strength of a party, from
temper to the sense of direction, must contribute in concert. Among
glacier ambuscades a party that has not found unity will fall to
pieces. They are yet more demoralizing to one whose leadership is in
commission,--that grievous blunder of divided responsibility, which,
arising out of the sociable conjunction of two or more self-contained
parties for the purpose of a single climb, leads too often through
disjointed action to failure, and even, as our chronicles bear witness,
to disaster.
A really united rope, well led, which can work through disheartening
glacier falls long, and late, and _like_ them, has graduated in
mountaineering; and may be considered to hold the freedom of the great
peaks.
SNOW CRAFT