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Excerpt from True Tales of Mountain Adventure: For Non-Climbers Young and Old In mountaineering, all the party share the pleasures and the dangers. Every climber has to help the others. Every climber has to rely both on himself and on his companions.
True Tales of Mountain Adventures Chapter 1 WHAT IS MOUNTAINEERING
Mountaineering is not merely walking up hill. It is the art of getting safely up and down a peak where there is no path, and where steps may have to be cut in the ice; it is the art of selecting the best line of ascent under conditions which vary from day to day.
Mountaineering as a science took long to perfect. It is more than a century since the first ascent of a big Alpine peak was accomplished, and the early climbers had but little idea of the dangers which they were likely to meet with. They could not tell when the snow was safe, or when it might slip away in an avalanche. They did not know where stones would be likely to fall on them, or when they were walking over one of those huge cracks in the glacier known as crevasses, and lightly bridged over with winter snow, which might break away when they trod on it. However, they soon learnt that it was safer for two or more people to be together in such places than for a man to go alone, and when crossing glaciers they used the long sticks they carried as a sort of hand-rail, a man holding on to each end, so that if one tumbled into a hole the other could pull him out. Of course this was a very clumsy way of doing things, and before long it occurred to them that a much better plan would be to use a rope, and being all tied to it about 20 feet apart, their hands were left free, and the party could go across a snow-field and venture on bridged-over crevasses in safety.
At first both guides and travellers carried long sticks called alpenstocks. If they came to a steep slope of hard snow or ice, they hacked steps up it with small axes which they carried slung on their backs. This was a very inconvenient way of going to work, as it entailed holding the alpenstock in one hand and using the axe with the other. So they thought of a better plan, and had the alpenstock made thicker and shorter, and fastened an axe-head to the top of it. This was gradually improved till it became the ice-axe, as used to-day, and as shown in many of my photographs. This ice-axe is useful for various purposes besides cutting steps. If you dig in the head while crossing a snow-slope, it acts as an anchor, and gives tremendous hold, while to allude to its functions as a tin-opener, a weapon of defence against irate bulls on Alpine pastures, or as a means for rapidly passing through a crowd at a railway station, is but to touch on a very few of its admirable qualities.
Climbers descending a Snow-clad Peak (the Ortler).
When people first climbed they went in droves on the mountains, or I should say rather on the mountain, for during the first half of the nineteenth century Mont Blanc was the object of nearly all the expeditions which set out for the eternal snows. After some years, however, it was found quite unnecessary to have so many guides and porters, and nowadays a party usually numbers four, two travellers and two guides, or three, consisting generally of one traveller and two guides, or occasionally five. Two is a bad number, as should one of them be hurt or taken ill, the other would have to leave him and go for help, though one of the first rules of mountaineering is that a man who is injured or indisposed must never be left alone on a mountain. Again, six is not a good number; it is too many, as the members of the party are sure to get in each other's way, pepper each other with stones, and waste no end of time in wrangling as to when to stop for food, when to proceed, and which way to go up. A good guide will run the concern himself, and turn a deaf ear to all suggestions; but the fact remains that six people had better split up and go on separate ropes. And if they also, in the case of rock peaks, choose different mountains, it is an excellent plan. The best of friends are apt to revile each other when stones, upset from above, come whistling about their ears.
The early mountaineers were horribly afraid of places which were at all difficult to climb. Mere danger, however, had no terrors for them, and they calmly encamped on frail snow-bridges, or had lunch in the path of avalanches. After a time the dangerous was understood and avoided, and the difficult grappled with by increased skill, until about the middle of the nineteenth century there arose a class of experts, little, if at all, inferior to the best guides of the present day.
The most active and intelligent of the natives of Chamonix, Zermatt, and the Bernese Oberland now learnt to find their way even on mountains new to them. Some were chamois hunters, and accustomed to climb in difficult places. Others, perhaps, had when boys minded the goats, and scrambled after them in all sorts of awkward spots. Others, again, had such a taste for mountaineering that they took to it the very first time they tried it. Of these last my own guide, Joseph Imboden, was one, and later on I will tell you of the extraordinary way in which he began his splendid career.
On a Rock Ridge near the top of Monte Rosa.
The Schallihorn may be seen in the top right-hand corner of the picture.
It is from going with and watching how good guides climb that most people learn to become mountaineers themselves. Nearly all take guides whenever they ascend difficult mountains, but some are so skilful and experienced that they go without, though few are ever good enough to do this quite safely.
I am often asked why people climb, and it is a hard question to answer satisfactorily. There is something which makes one long to mountaineer more and more, from the first time one tries it. All climbs are different. All views from mountains are different, and every time one climbs one is uncertain, owing to the weather or the possible state of the peak, if the top can be reached or not. So it is always a struggle between the mountain and the climber, and though perseverance, skill, experience, and pluck must give the victory to the climber in the end, yet the fight may be a long one, and it may be years before a particularly awkward peak allows one to stand on its summit.
Perhaps, if you have patience to read what follows, you may better understand what mountaineering is, and why most of those who have once tried it become so fond of it.
The Aletsch Glacier from Bel Alp.
The medial moraine is very conspicuous. This glacier is about a mile in width.
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True Tales of Mountain Adventures
Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond
Literature
Chapter 1 WHAT IS MOUNTAINEERING
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Chapter 2 A FEW WORDS ABOUT GLACIERS
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Chapter 3 AVALANCHES
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Chapter 4 THE GUIDES OF THE ALPS WHAT THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY DO
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Chapter 5 No.5
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Chapter 6 AN AVALANCHE ON THE HAUT-DE-CRY
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Chapter 7 CAUGHT IN AN AVALANCHE ON THE MATTERHORN
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Chapter 8 LOST IN THE ICE FOR FORTY YEARS
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Chapter 9 THE MOST TERRIBLE OF ALL ALPINE TRAGEDIES
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Chapter 10 A WONDERFUL SLIDE DOWN A WALL OF ICE
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Chapter 11 AN ADVENTURE ON THE TRIFT PASS
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Chapter 12 AN EXCITING PASSAGE OF THE COL DE PILATTE
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Chapter 13 AN ADVENTURE ON THE ALETSCH GLACIER
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Chapter 14 A WONDERFUL FEAT BY TWO LADIES
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Chapter 15 A FINE PERFORMANCE WITHOUT GUIDES
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Chapter 16 THE PIZ SCERSCEN TWICE IN FOUR DAYS-THE FIRST ASCENT OF MONT BLANC BY A WOMAN.
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Chapter 17 THE ASCENT OF A WALL OF ICE
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Chapter 18 THE AIGUILLE DU DRU
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Chapter 19 THE MOST FAMOUS MOUNTAIN IN THE ALPS-THE CONQUEST OF THE MATTERHORN
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Chapter 20 SOME TRAGEDIES ON THE MATTERHORN
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Chapter 21 THE WHOLE DUTY OF THE CLIMBER-ALPINE DISTRESS SIGNALS
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