Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880

But still, if properly qualified men are to be forthcoming to meet such a want, which undoubtedly seems to exist, the old training-ground must not be deserted; the playground of Europe must be regarded in relation to serious work in the same light that the playing-fields of Eton were regarded by one who was somewhat of an authority. The Great Duke’s remark is too well known to need quotation. English folk may find it hard to hold their own against their near relations in athletic pursuits, such as cricket and sculling, but in mountaineering they undoubtedly lead, and will continue to do so. In one phase indeed of the pursuit their supremacy is menaced. In the matter of recognising the practical value to be obtained from mountaineering in surveying and the like, they are already behind other countries. The roll of honorary members of the Alpine Club comprises a list of men, most of whom have utilised their mountaineering experience to good purpose in advancing scientific exploration. In this department it is to be hoped that we shall not suffer ourselves to be outstripped, nor allow a store of valuable and laboriously acquired experience to remain wasted. The threatening cloud may pass off; the future of Alpine mountaineering may not prove to be so gloomy as it sometimes seems to the writer in danger of gradually becoming. The depression is, possibly, only temporary, and a natural consequence of reaction; and the zigzagging line on the chart, though it may never perhaps rise again to the point it once marked, yet may keep well at the normal – better, perhaps, at such a level than at fever heat. The old cry that we know so well on the mountains, that meets always with a ready thrill of response, may acquire a wider significance, and men will be found to answer to the familiar call of “Vorwärts, immer vorwärts!”

After all, a century hence the mountaineering centres of to-day will perhaps still attract as they do now. It may be possible to get to Chamouni without submitting to the elaborately devised discomfort of the present Channel passage, and without the terrors of asphyxiation in the carriages of the Chemin de Fer du Nord. Surely the charm of the mountains must always draw men to the Alps, even though the glaciers may have shrunk up and sunk down, though places like Arolla and the Grimsel may have become thriving towns, or radical changes such as a drainage system at Chamouni have been instituted. If the glaciers do shrink, there will be all the more scope for the rock climber and the more opportunity of perfecting an art which has already been so much developed.

An Alpine Rip van Winkle

A Rip van Winkle of our day, waking up in that epoch of the future, would for certain find much that was unaltered. The same types of humanity would be around him. Conceive this somnolent hero of fiction, clad in a felt wideawake that had once been white, in knickerbockers and Norfolk jacket, of which the seams had at one time held together, supporting his bent frame and creaking joints on a staff with rusted spike and pick. He descends laboriously from a vehicle that had jolted impartially generations before him (for the carriages of the valley are as little liable to wear out, in the eyes of their proprietors, as the “wonderful one-hoss shay”). He finds himself on a summer evening by the Hôtel de Ville at Chamouni, and facing the newly erected Opera-house. He looks with wondering eyes around. A youth (great-great-great-great-grandson of Jacques Balmat) approaches and waits respectfully by his side, ready to furnish information.

“Why these flags and these rejoicings?” the old man asks.

“To celebrate the tercentenary of the first ascent of Mont Blanc,” the boy answers.

The veteran gazes around, shading his eyes with his shrivelled hand. The travellers come in. First a triumphal procession of successful and intrepid mountaineers. Banners wave, cannon go off – or more probably miss fire – bouquets are displayed, champagne and compliments are poured out; both the latter expressions of congratulation equally gassy, and both about equally genuine.

“Who are these?” the old man inquires.

“Do you not see the number on their banner?” answers the youth; “they are the heroes of the forty-fifth section of the tenth branch of the northern division of the Savoy Alpine Club.”

“Ah!” the old man murmurs to himself, with a sigh of recollection, “I can remember that they were numerous even in my day.”

Then follows a sad-looking, dejected creature, stealing back to his hotel by byways, but with face bronzed from exposure on rocks, not scorched by sun-reflecting snow; his boots scored with multitudinous little cuts and scratches telling of difficult climbing; his hands as brown as his face; his finger-nails, it must be admitted, seriously impaired in their symmetry.

“And who is this? Has he been guilty of some crime?” the old man asks.

“Not so,” the answer comes; “he has just completed the thousandth ascent of the Aiguille…; he comes of a curious race which, history relates, at one time much frequented these districts; but that was a great while ago – long before the monarchy was re-established. You do well to look at him; that is the last of the climbing Englishmen. They always seem depressed when they have succeeded in achieving their ambition of the moment; it is a characteristic of their now almost extinct race.”

Mountaineering in the future

“And what about the perils of the expedition?” the old man asks, brightening up a little as if some old ideas had suddenly flashed across his mind. “I would fain know whether the journey is different now from what it was formerly; yet the heroes would mock me, perchance, if I were to interrogate them.”

“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 failedThan 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.

1

Franz Andermatten died in August 1883. His name is mentioned elsewhere in these sketches, but I leave what I have written untouched: for I do not hold with those who would efface the recollection of all that was bright and merry in one taken from us.

2

In the old house, be it noted – not the modern luxurious combination of a granite fortress and a palace.

3

Travels in the Alps, p. 119.

4

Described in anatomical text-books as forming the swelling of the calf.

5

It has transpired since that our judgment happened to be right in this matter, and we might probably have saved an hour or more at this part of the ascent.

6

Hector Berlioz.

7

This is Mr. Edward Whymper’s measurement. Humboldt, as quoted by Mr. Whymper, gave 21,460 feet as the height. (Alpine Journal, vol. x. p. 442.)

8

The Frosty Caucasus, by F. C. Grove, p. 236.

9

Travels in the Air, edited by James Glaisher, F.R.S., p. 57 (2nd ed.).

10

Op. cit. p. 9.

11

I understand that the expedition has since been accomplished in a much shorter time.

12

In Messrs. Coxwell and Glaisher’s ascent from Wolverhampton the balloon when at the height of 29,000 feet was mounting at the rate of 1,000 feet a minute.

13

I am aware of M. Paul Bert’s researches; but these questions are not to be settled in the laboratory.

14

Vide Alpine Journal, vol. xi. p. 78. “The Alpine Obituary,” by C. E. Mathews.