Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880

“Not at all,” the youth replies. “There are but few of the first party who would not vouchsafe to give you a full account, and might even in their courtesy embellish the narrative with flowers of rhetoric. But it is unnecessary. They will print a detailed and full description of their exploits. It has all been said before, but so has everything else, I think.”

“That is true,” the old man murmurs to himself; “it was even so in my time, and two hundred years before I lived a French writer commenced his book with the remark, ‘Tout est dit.’ But what of the other, the dejected survivor? does he not too write?”

“Yes, indeed, but not in the same strain; he will but pour out a little gentle sarcasm and native spleen, in mild criticism of the fulsome periods he peruses in other tongues.”

“Ah me!” thinks the old man, “in one respect then I need not prove so much behind the time. If the memory of the Alpine literature of my day were still fresh, I could hold mine own with those I see around.”

May I be permitted, in conclusion, to come back to our own day, and to say a very few words on the subject of mountaineering accidents? Most heartily would I concur with any one who raised the objection that such remarks are out of place in a chapter on the mountaineering of the future. But perhaps we have been looking too far ahead, and there may be a period to follow between this our time and the future to be hoped for.

Dangers of the Alps

It has sometimes been stated and written that no one desires to remove from mountaineering all danger. The dangers of mountaineering have been divided by a well-known authority into real and imaginary. The supposed existence of the latter is, I grant, desirable, especially to the inexperienced climber; but I shall always contend that it ought to be the great object of every votary of the pursuit to minimise the former to the utmost of his ability. Now, it is only by true experience – that is, by learning gradually the art of mountaineering – that the climber will achieve this result. Few of those unacquainted with the subject can have any idea of the extraordinary difference between the risk run on a difficult expedition (that is, on one where difficulties occur: the name of the peak or pass has little to do with the matter) by a practised mountaineer who has learned something of the art, and an inexperienced climber who has nothing but the best intentions to assist his steps. The man of experience bears always in mind the simple axioms and rules of his craft; if he does not he is a bad mountaineer. If the plain truth be told, accidents in the Alps have almost invariably, to whomsoever they befell, been due to breaking one or more of these same well-known rules, or, in other words, to bad mountaineering. That such is no more than a simple statement of fact a former president of the Alpine Club, Mr. C. E. Mathews, has abundantly proved.¹⁴ Numbers of our countrymen, young and old, annually rush out to the Alps for the first time. Fired with ambition, or led on by the fascination of the pastime, with scarcely any preliminary training and no preliminary study of the subject, they at once begin to attack the more difficult peaks and passes. Success perhaps attends their efforts. Unfit, they go up a difficult mountain, trusting practically to the ability of the guides to do their employers’ share of the work as well as their own. They descend, and think to gauge their skill by the name of the expedition undertaken. The state of the weather and of the mountain determine whether such a performance be an act of simple or of culpable folly. For such the imaginary dangers are the most formidable. If they had taken the trouble to begin at the beginning, to learn the difference between the stem and stern of a boat before attempting to navigate an ironclad, they would have recognised, and profited by, the true risks run. As it is, they are probably inflated with conceit at overcoming visionary difficulties. They may make, indeed, in this way what in Alpine slang is called a good “book;” but by far the greater number fail to perceive that there is anything to learn. It is a pastime – an amusement; they do not look beyond this. But these same climbers would admit that in other forms of sport, such as cricket or rowing, proficiency is not found in beginners. It is in the study and development of the amusement that the true and deeper pleasure is to be found. A tyro in cricket would make himself an object of ridicule in a high-class match; the novice in the art of rowing would be loth to display his feeble powers if thrust into a racing four with three tried oarsmen; and yet the embryo climber can see nothing absurd in attacking mountains of recognised difficulty. Inexperience in the former instances at least could cause no harm, while ignorance of the elementary principles of mountaineering renders the climber a serious source of danger not only to himself but to others. There is no royal road to the acquirement of mountaineering knowledge. It is just as difficult to use the axe or alpenstock properly as the oar or the racquet; just as much patient, persevering practice is needed; but it is not on difficult expeditions that such inexperience can be best overcome.

The real mountaineer

A man of average activity could, probably, actually climb, without any particular experience, most of, or all, the more difficult rock peaks under good conditions of weather and the like. But how different from the really practical mountaineer, who strives to make an art of his pastime. Watch the latter. First and foremost, he knows when to turn back, and does not hesitate to act as his judgment directs. He bears in mind that there is pleasure to be obtained from mountaineering even though the programme may not be carried out in its entirety as planned, and realises to the full that

 
’Tis better to have climbed and failed
Than never to have climbed at all.
 

His companions are always safe with him, his climbing unselfish; he never dislodges a loose stone – except purposely – either with hands, feet, or the loose rope; he is always as firm as circumstances will permit, prepared to withstand any sudden slip; he never puts forth more strength at each step than is necessary, thus saving his powers, being always ready in an emergency, and never degenerating into that most dangerous of encumbrances, a tired member of a united party: not, of course, that the vast majority of amateurs can ever hope, with their imperfect practice, to attain to the level of even a second-rate guide; still, by bringing his intelligence to bear on this, as he does on any other amusement, the amateur can render himself something more than a thoroughly reliable companion on any justifiable expedition.

Conclusion

Let the spirit of competition lead young climbers to strive after excellence in this direction, rather than, as is too commonly the case, induce them to take “Times” as the criterion of mountaineering proficiency. There are instructors enough. Even from an inferior guide an infinite amount may be learnt; at the least such a one can recognise the real danger of the Alps, and in this respect possesses a faculty which is one of the chief the mountaineer has to acquire. Let the spirit in which the Alps are climbed be of some such nature as that I have attempted to indicate, and accidents such as those recorded in Mr. C. E. Mathews’ grim list will be of such rare occurrence that they will never be called up to discredit mountaineering. If, perchance, any words here written shall prompt in the future the climber to perfect his art more and more while frequenting the old haunts, and to extend and utilise mountaineering still more, then at least the writer may feel, like the mountain when it had brought forth the ridiculous mouse, that his labour has not been wholly in vain. Yet more: his gloomy forebodings shall be falsified, and with respect to the future of mountaineering the outlook will be bright enough.