Chapter I · MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP

A party consists usually of from two to four climbers, exclusive of guides. A larger number inevitably divides into two or more units for mountaineering purposes. The management devolves upon the most experienced mountaineer. His selection as leader, in this sense, is more often than not tacit and unexpressed, especially among British climbers.

Over-management is fatal to the effective co-operation of a party; and a formal selection of a leader[1], or a precise insistence upon the performance of particular duties by individual members, may only disturb the pleasant relationship of friends on a climbing holiday. If a man is not felt to be qualified as leader by personality and experience, no vote will make him so.

Large or democratic parties, of equal inexperience, can carry out very delightful sub-alpine wanderings without leadership. If they attempt serious mountaineering, it is usually at the cost to their friends of sleepless nights and of expensive search parties.

Among men of equal experience, equally able to grasp a situation and to co-operate without words of command, the duties of leadership are slight and their operation never obtrusive. Experience teaches them to accept, as a matter of convenience, the management of their daily routine by some one of their number, and to acknowledge, as a matter of security and of economy of time, the leadership of the most expert in the incidents of the climbing day. In a pursuit so exacting as mountaineering, charged with the unexpected and dependent upon continuous harmony of action for its ordinary progress, some such voluntary subordination is essential. The leader may be only the focus of the collective opinion of an experienced party: like the conductor of an orchestra he may not be equally competent to play all the instruments he directs; but if there is no one to whom to look for the word, in mountaineering as in music the time is lost and the harmony vanishes for easy and for difficult passages alike.

In parties of unequal experience the leader’s responsibility is greater, and his direction has to be the more formally and unquestioningly accepted. A child has to learn to take his elders’ ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as final in the crisis of some new experience: there is often no time to give him reasons, and his experience would be insufficient to enable him to convert them into the immediate action required. But it is more difficult for a man, possibly with a brilliant record behind him upon British rocks, to accept a decision unquestioningly, especially if he has been accustomed in moments of crisis to depend upon his own skill or judgment. To delay, however, or to argue is as fatal as to disobey. The leader may be wrong, but his error will probably be on the side of over-caution, since he will be consciously directing for a party that has not yet learned to work together. To prove him wrong, by the successful issue of our disobedience or disagreement, is as destructive of the future harmony and activity of the party as to prove him right, by its ill-success, may be to the actual safety of the party at the moment. A good-tempered party of beginners, with a mild leader, may continue to climb together on these undefined terms, but there will be hesitation and consultation where there should be decisive action; it will never grow fit for any serious expedition. A leader of greater experience or shorter temper will clear matters up at once. He will know that though his judgment may not be infallible, the fact that it may be questioned at a moment of crisis must be dangerous. A mountaineering party has to establish a habit of friendly discipline. Most young men when first taken out to the Alps have had experience of this discipline in other pursuits; but in moments of excitement the national spirit of independence, or the instinct of self-preservation, is apt to assert itself, and these moments, if they occur before the party is welded into a climbing unit, may be fatal to its constitution. A wise leader will insist on a reasonable discipline or suggest a dissolution as the lesser evil.

If it is the duty of the young mountaineer to learn to accept a constitutional authority for the good of his party, it is that of the leader or manager to see that it is used only for the good of the party, and to make it personally the less obvious, the more it grows to be accepted in understanding.

An early alpine tradition, historically traceable to the isolated and responsible position of the first guideless parties, who had to face the dangers of the mountains, still unfamiliar, and the army of their hostile critics as if going forth against an enemy, made the leader an absolute autocrat, the commander of a forlorn hope. Many leaders of this type were frankly bullies, ordering their friends for their good like old-time schoolmasters. Occasionally, when one man was marked out by experience or personality, the results were effective in climbing. But the tyranny would not now be considered tolerable, and under modern conditions it would constitute bad leadership. Knowledge of the craft is far more widely spread, and the climbing attempted is of a standard that demands an equal share of responsible work from us all. It is now recognized that the strength of a party lies in its collective capacity, not in its leader as one outstanding exponent. But the tradition still survives, and some oppressed parties will still awaken in the casual climber a wonder at the large amount of hectoring they will endure from their leader compared with the little which his methods enable them to achieve.

Management In Anticipation

Three things only are necessary for the salvation of a mountaineering holiday: good health, good fellowship and good climbing. These three conditions are mutually contributory and interdependent; and the last, the declared object of the association, is only attainable when the other two are secure.

It goes without saying that a good leader must be able to design and direct an ascent so far as the actual climbing is concerned; but he will discount beforehand half his chances of successful performance unless he has learned how to bring his party on to the glacier, at four in the morning, fit in health and on good terms with themselves and one another.

Physical Well-being.

Fortunately, in dealing with healthy men, special attention to the first condition of health is confined to the first two or three days of a tour. After these are safely passed, air and exercise and increasing general fitness take over medical charge and deal summarily with the beginnings of any lesser or local ailments.

There is no need to bother overmuch about the party before the tour commences. Of course men, for their own sakes, will come as fit as they can. Attention to the diet and, if it can be got, some regular exercise in the open air—walking, running or tennis—may be suggested; but I have never seen any particular benefit accrue from exercising particular sets of climbing muscles. I return to this elsewhere; and I would only make one exception here, for a leader’s attention. Some men, especially as they get on in years, are liable to cramp in the trunk muscles from the fatigue of general climbing, and in the hands after severe rock-work. In these cases it is well worth while recommending anticipatory ‘local’ exercises for the hand and forearm and for the walls of the trunk, to keep the muscles supple and ‘long.’ Dancing, skipping, fencing and wood-chopping are all worth mentioning to men who cannot get into the open air. And, above all, the morning cold bath!

The first few days of the tour, however, are vital. Mountaineers are sound men, and have usually only two weak points, the feet and the stomach. New boots or overwork attack the first; unaccustomed food, changing atmospheric pressures, and revolutionary hours of sleep, food and exercise upset the second. For the feet precautionary measures are the safest. In ordinary life we accept their constant service unconsciously, and it requires an effort to give our own and, even more, other men’s feet the additional attention they require on the first few days of any tour. To see that the boots fit, on the second day even more than on the first; to make sure that one or even two extra pairs of socks are put on if any boot has become stretched after wetting; to discover if there is any beginning of rub or blister, and to check it by boracic powder or other ointment in the sock at once, even if this means a halt in the middle of a climb; to suggest bracing with cold water in the evenings or whenever opportunity offers; in the case of anyone whose skin is tender, to double these precautions: these are some of the first duties of management.

Internal chill is a constant risk during the first few days of exposure to unaccustomed changes of temperature. Damp clothes next to the skin are principally to be avoided. A spare vest, flannel shirt or ‘woolly’ should always be taken in the sack, for a change at hut or bivouac, even if the other clothes have to be worn wet or slept in. In a hut it is preferable to take the wet clothes off and to sleep rolled in a blanket, even though that may be also damp. During the day it is unwise to sit on damp or cold rocks. A coil of rope may be used as a seat, or a useful habit is to carry a small square of waterproof, in which the spare shirt can also be wrapped. When nearing the ‘gîte’ or hut, it is well to reverse the usual practice, and go slow for the last twenty minutes, so that the perspiration may dry gradually from the body while in motion, and not after it is at rest. By the fire in the evening, during the snooze on the summit, and especially in an enforced bivouac, the stomach is the vital point to protect. In case we get benighted, any spare clothes, or even paper, should be wrapped round the stomach. The coat should be taken off and fastened round the shoulders outside the arms, so as to concentrate all the body’s warmth within it. The feet can be put in a rucksack. If possible, the boots should be kept on, to avoid their freezing hard. If they have to come off so as to save the feet from frost-bite, they should be sat upon, to keep them soft. Wind is another enemy to guard against while resting during the day or sleeping out, and a light wind-cloak is a sound protection.[2]

On returning to the hotel, a hot bath, if procurable, or a hot sponge-down, should always be taken; it not only clears the pores and supples the muscles, but it restores the normal circulation and removes congestion, due to great exertion and changing temperatures, which often produces a general feeling of discomfort, especially in the head.

Food.

Care in the choice of food, discouragement of the inclination to starve during the day and to overeat in the evenings, insistence upon a regimen to get the subconscious stomach working by its new time-table, and, in case of failure, the employment of the simple domestic remedies at once and in time, these are all indispensable during the first days. But their observance cannot be left without prompting to the individual discretion. Especially is this the case in looking after young mountaineers, who are unacquainted with the treacherous dealings of odd meals and broken sleep at high altitudes.

In the matter of the choice of food the leader has to overcome the repugnance natural after a satisfying evening meal to attend himself to all the rather messy details of provisioning for the next day.

No guide or hotel-keeper can be trusted to do this. During the first days of hard exercise the average man will eat but little solid food, and turns from meats and tins such as hotels love to load into the sacks. He has to be tempted with sweet-stuffs, jams (the small tins are irresistible), chocolate, and meat-essences and eggs for support. The disposition to eat little during the effort of the first days, and to eat largely in the reaction of the evenings, has to be countermined by the offer, at not infrequent intervals, of pleasant luxuries that go down easily. It is old-fashioned and entirely wrong, especially with young people, to give them only what used to be termed wholesome, nourishing food. In healthy open-air conditions the body knows what it wants, and the palate interprets the desire. Food that is not palatable or eaten with pleasure is of little benefit, and cloying sugar compounds, the best muscle fuel, become again surprisingly attractive.

After the new regimen has become a habit the air and the exercise will make almost any food welcome, and at any time; but even then the secret of vigour is still plenty of sweet-stuffs. One of the small matters that contribute almost absurdly to maintaining the good spirits even of a trained party is the production at suitable or surprising moments of small indulgences—chocolate, raisins, preserved fruit, honey or sweet-meats. They weigh little, but the body’s appreciation of and response to differences of food is exceedingly fine when it is making great exertions, and their immediate effect upon muscle and spirit is as rapid as that of stimulants in ordinary life. A whole summer tour in a bad season of soft snow has been lightened by a large bag of acid drops reappearing each day at weary moments with a new delight. In the plains I am myself a small and careless eater. But among my mountaineering memories days of fierce sun-glare on interminable white passes still remain rosy with the recollection of ‘a raspberry-jam snow’ or golden with the cool glow of a tin of yellow plums scooped up with ice-splinters.

Good management will consider no such detail of provisioning too small for attention. And it is not sufficient to order: each bag or packet should be opened, to see that the order has been fully executed, before the sacks are packed.

Thirst.

Thirst is another difficulty at the beginning of a tour. To a large extent such thirst is merely feverish; it is impossible of satisfaction, and to indulge it swamps and upsets the human machinery. Some resolute men, to avoid the delicious temptation, train themselves not to drink at all during the day; and then make it up in the evening. But a certain amount of liquid is as essential, in action, as a certain amount of food, and the moderate habit has to be acquired by practice. The exact amount necessary, as distinguished from acceptable, varies with the individual. The merely feverish thirst of the first day can be dodged by letting water run through the mouth, swallowing, as a special indulgence, only a mouthful or so. Sucking a prune-stone, or even a pebble, keeps the saliva flowing and is a consolation on hot snowy tramps. To the same end, of prolonging the pleasant assuaging process, devices such as sipping water slowly from a pearl-shell or cup cool to the eye, chewing orange peel, sucking a lemon or tea or wine slowly through lumps of sugar, or crushing a handful of snow till it becomes an ice-pear in the hand and then sucking the end of it, are all worth remembering.

Meat-fed men do not require strong stimulants. A little wine in the water, chilled by snow, is often pleasanter to the taste than water alone. Mountain water has often a flat flavour of cold stones, or recalls the flask or pouch in which it has been carried. Wine removes this suspicion. Spirits should be kept for a last resource, for cases of injury or collapse, and then used only if the head is not affected. Their stimulus, under the conditions of climbing, is too evanescent to be of any service; the reaction is almost immediate, and the resulting condition worse than before. Cold tea and cold coffee are popular beverages: or the juice of many lemons can be carried in a small aluminium flask, to mix with the chosen blend. Sugar lessens the quenching power. If sugar cannot be dispensed with, a lemon squeezed into the tea restores its effect upon the saliva-ducts of the mouth. Snow, crushed ice or water can be added as the supply diminishes.

The danger of drinking snow water is, in my view, a superstition disproved by experience. Its supposed ill effects are usually to be traced to the amount of cold liquid actually consumed rather than to its character.

Some men prefer to take their liquid in the form of snow sprinkled over any food they eat. This is an excellent way of making food of all kinds palatable in the early stages of a tour, while the disinclination for solid food lasts.

A device that never fails to entice even the youngest mountaineer past the clogged-up ‘can’t eat’ phase of early training, is to make a small hollow in the snow, empty a jam-tin into it, and mix the jam with loose snow into a fruit ice. In colour, flavour and immediate effect it is one of the few undisputed additions that the ingenuity of man has been able to make to the charms of the mountains.

A good manager should never fail to remark a man who is constantly stopping to drink at passing streams. Spartan example in abstinence will do much to check him, but if this fails, he must use his wits to substitute one of the devices mentioned, so as to save the man’s interior without injuring his feelings by direct comment.

Smoking.

Smoking I believe to be a question for personal decision. I have never found the moderate indulgence in pipes or cigars affect wind or training in the slightest degree during the hardest days. The rule that halts should be few and short ensures moderation; for smoking during actual climbing is all but impossible. One famous mountaineer prefers to light a pipe before any particularly hard problem, but experiment suggests that the art is not worth learning. It is uncomfortable for the lungs and costly in pipe-stems. A pipe makes a good temporary substitute for food, drink or sleep. It comforts many cold moments of waiting and makes a soothing counsellor in difficulties. Ability to smoke, and consequently to sustain his part in the effortless silence which characterizes the true comradeship of mountaineering, should be among the qualifications of any climbing companion.

Ailments.

A manager’s functions are precautionary rather than corrective. It is well that he should know something of medical treatment and of first aid. But advice under these headings is best obtained from the many good handbooks. From them he will learn how to use the contents of the pocket medical and surgical cases without which no party should ever attempt to climb.

Without trespassing upon their special province, there are yet certain practical observations and precautions which a manager should make and take as part of his routine.

The readiness or unreadiness for food, and the disposition to drink or abstain between halts, are useful indications of the extent to which a party is coming into condition, and a leader must observe them and take them into account in his choice and conduct of the next climb. The desire to drink early in the morning is a sure sign that a man is slightly ‘feverish,’ or that he has not slept well, and his condition must be mentally noted. A sudden inclination to sleep at odd moments usually means that the nerves are exhausted by some shock or by over-long strain. The desire to sleep should be indulged, and a condition of lower vitality must be temporarily allowed for. The slight trembling of the knee in the tension of climbing that often recurs at the beginning of a tour is, of course, only a purely muscular sign that the leg muscles are out of training. It will pass in the first few days, but it cannot afford to be entirely neglected. While he is liable to it no man should be allowed to lead a difficult passage. Many men suffer at first from violent headaches above a certain height, often with giddiness and an inclination to ‘mountain’ sickness. This occurs more particularly on snow; usually it passes off after the first few days, as the changes of altitude become customary. In these cases, during the initial period, constant supervision is needed in the matter of food, of bodily regimen, and above all of pace. Easy going is the best precautionary treatment. Wet handkerchiefs round the head, and bending forward whilst walking, so as to ease the heart’s action, often afford partial relief; to cough, or hold the breath, gives a momentary respite. Rests are of little use, and often increase the pain. The attack should cease at the particular lower level which suits the individual circulation. If it persists, a hot bath will cure it for the night.

Half the sickness that so often spoils climbing or camping parties during the first few days is due to an interrupted or irregular habit of the body, such as is imposed by the new topsy-turvy time-table and the unfavouring conditions of living. A leader must let no reserve stand in his way, especially with young climbers, in warning against this risk or in securing its immediate correction.

Frost-bite is an insidious enemy: it attacks young people of weak circulation without any warning of pain and at very short notice. Inexperience treats it as just a passing numbness and not worth mentioning. I have known only one hour’s walking over cold autumn snow, on the way up to a hut in the evening, to take all life out of a hand; and it took us another hour’s hard rubbing to restore the circulation. There should always be spare gloves and socks in all of the sacks; and, until he knows his men, a manager should insist upon instant notice of a finger or toe that has ‘no feeling in it.’ Immediate and continued friction with snow or brandy is the remedy; but it must be applied at once. The limb affected should be lifted and kept up. Fires and warm rooms should be avoided. When fingers or toes have once been, if only partially, touched, they are more liable to a return. Extra socks and gloves should then always be worn. A mitten, with or without a glove, is of comfort where the climbing is too difficult to permit of the use of ‘fingerless’ snow-gloves.

Cold is not only a danger as it produces local chills or frost-bite, it also has an immediate deleterious effect upon the general climbing power and confidence. Wind, in this respect also, is the greatest enemy of the climber. The muscles generate their own warmth, which is the body’s energy; but once they get chilled from outside by wind or cold, they lose a great part of their power. A cold limb should at once be rubbed; and, as a precaution, clothes should always err on the side of being too thick rather than too light. The human body can endure great windless cold, but little cold wind. With the chilling of the muscles the nerve and will-power diminish also. For the reactions of cold, local and general, a leader must be always on the watch.

The sun has three dangers for inexperience. Snow-blindness rarely gives warning. It is often only painfully realized on the following day. Therefore until a man knows the power of his eyes he should use precaution and put on coloured or smoked glasses when he sees the first flash from the prisms on glacier or snow-field. But on rock coloured glasses are a great nuisance, where they are rarely needed however strong the glare. Again, in traversing snow-covered glacier such glasses are frequently an interruption to the observation of hidden crevasses. Further, experience suggests that as many as a quarter of those now climbing really require no protection at all. For others it would be sufficient to have their eyes blackened round with burnt cork. For others again it would be enough protection to wear clear glasses over eyes so blackened. Experiment alone will find our individual equation, and, unfortunately, the experiment may often be trying. But it is one well worth making, on suitable occasions, for the sake of the permanent gain if we find that glasses can be dispensed with. If a man who finds he needs glasses has forgotten or lost them, a mask should be made of any piece of paper, with the smallest possible slits for the eyes. He should also blacken round his eyes with cork. If only a single glass is broken, a paper or card, with a minute hole, should be inserted in the empty frame.

Sun-blistering is as permanent and excruciating in its consequences as it is gradual in its attack. It may be produced by the direct sun-rays; more severely by light reflected from snow or water or diffused through thick mist; less severely by wind and reflected light from rock or road. Grease is generally useless as protection; colour salves, as elsewhere recommended, are the only preventive. It is to be noted that the facets of the face most exposed to the reflection from the snow, the underside of the nose, the lips and the cheeks, are usually given an insufficient allowance. Bathing in cold water is deadly, especially to the lips, once the skin has scorched. One compensation for the loss of our complexion with advancing years is the lessening of our susceptibility to this infliction.

Sunstroke in a mild form is constantly mistaken for mountain sickness, for “poisoning at the hotel,” and so on. The surest precaution is to wear a loose handkerchief hanging from the hat, to protect the neck. The coat-collar can also be turned up. It is excellent, on all sun-glaring days, to make a habit of filling the hollow in the crown of the hat with snow, and, when it melts and trickles refreshingly down, of renewing the snow. Until men have got accustomed to being alternately baked and frozen three times a day, they have to be reminded of these and similar small precautions. In the event of slight sun-touches, ice or wet cloths, shade, light food, and no alcohol are the local treatment. Plenty of moisture outside and inside is essential, and, as for all other ailments, rest.

Bathing.

Bathing in lake or stream, or even in glacier pools, is one of the most perfect rewards of mountaineering effort. In the very early morning or at a night-start it is not advisable, as it checks the necessary business of getting the bodily machinery working; nor is it often desired at these hours. During the day, the inclination at great heights fortunately appears to diminish, coincident with the disappearance of the opportunities to indulge it. When the human machine is centring all its powers on the continuance of a single exceptional effort, it has an instinctive shrinking from submitting itself to processes, however delightful, that will interfere with this concentration. Rest is a necessary interruption and must be suffered, but short exposures of the body to hot sunlight upon cold rocks, or in colder water, in most cases do us more harm by producing a general relaxation than they benefit us by their momentary refreshment. But when the main effort of the day is past, and the body has no fear of calling out its last reserves, the bathe on the descent is an indescribable delight and refreshment. We may have still some way to go, but to perform this we shall have, in any case, to summon up our energies afresh; and at such natural moments of interruption the bracing impetus of a bathe will help to regulate our circulation anew and to store mind and nerves with new energy for the new commencement. We climb for pleasure; and when body and mind are working in harmony the pleasures our mind suggests are generally the remedies or relaxations our body needs. If no water is to be found, to get rid of the stuffiness of alpine clothes, and to give all the skin surfaces a bath of air and sunlight, is only one degree less pleasant or stimulating than a bathe in water itself. Caution at the same time is necessary in encouraging men, and especially young people, of whose circulation or heart we may have doubts, to risk the intensely cold shock of glacier water upon baked and sun-congested surfaces. It is perhaps worth remembering that the risk of actual chill is greater during the process of drying in cold air or wind after a bathe (always a lengthy process in the towel-less Alps) than during the bathe itself. It is unpleasant for the time, but far warmer in feel and after effect, to put on clothes without waiting to get dry.

Minute attention to such details of provisioning, health, and regimen can be relaxed as a party of men comes into training and begins to know its business, but it should never be entirely discontinued. One day’s carelessness in revising the food, or the disregard of a cold toe, a blister, or a ‘bad night,’ may at any time upset the plans of a whole tour.

Young Folk.

In the management of boys and girls below twenty-two or so, it is impossible to exercise too much care. Boys especially, whose activity depends upon the impulse of their interest and rarely settles to an automatic rhythm, may ‘shut up’ with startling suddenness, both mentally and physically. Nor can our observation tell us for certain beforehand when they are really beginning to draw upon their reserves of vitality, or when they are only getting bored. They have no conception of economy in their movement, so long as the impulse of excitement lasts. As the interest of a climb diminishes, on the evening tramp or the prolonged snow slope, their mental vivacity may die down, and with it ends their energy. At such times, if they have not been allowed actually to exhaust their physical strength, they will revive as rapidly in response to a new mental stimulus, of talk, or sight, or varied exertion. In their case it is the mind that calls for first attention and first aid.

Girls move less on springs and more by rhythm. Their activity is less reflective of external stimulus, and less dependent upon mental impulse for its continuance. They have not the boy’s natural armour of nervous sensibility against overwork. It is, therefore, more possible in their case to watch the degree of positive physical fatigue in outward signs, and to anticipate more exactly the moment of exhaustion by suitable measures. Though their endurance is on the whole greater than that of boys, or at least fluctuates less in proportion to the amount of mental distraction or interest present in the physical effort, the effects of over-fatigue are more lasting. With both boys and girls, the only safe precaution is to allow very broad margins of time and distance, to select climbs which both in difficulty and length shall be well within the powers of young growing bodies, and above all not to be induced by the suppleness of youth or its momentary enthusiasm to make exceptions ‘just this once’ to sound general rules.

Preventable Humours.

The influence of the mind upon the body has its special concern for mountaineering management. An athletic body, if it be nervously constituted, may be as susceptible of fatigue after two hours’ walking on a dull road as after twelve hours on an exciting ascent. Mental distraction is as important as change of movement for the easy performance of sustained physical effort. Mountaineering owes for this reason to its infinite variety of motion and interest a record of feats of sheer endurance such as no other human pursuit or sport has excelled. But not all mountaineers are conscious of their debt to this peculiar virtue of the hills, or allow sufficiently for its full enjoyment in making their plans. Far more than any muscular strength or even physical fitness, will-power is the dominant force in maintaining normal energy and in subduing abnormal accidiæ, to which reference is made later. The leader is most efficient who can best protect his party against influences that irritate the nerves and so interfere with the power or desire to bring the will into play. Men bored, men irritated, men disappointed, men overwrought, without pleasure in retrospect or prospect to refresh them, lose the wish to throw off their mood. It is against the causes of boredom, the effects of exaltation or of disappointment, that the leader has to take his precautions. If, in spite of him, the moods are created, he must be ready, in anticipation, to provide some remedy of distraction that can release the will from the oppression of the nerves and associate it in the effort to master the mood. External distractions are the most effective. The alarm of fire has been known to banish rheumatism or paralysis; the sound of an avalanche electrifies a twisted ankle into painless activity; the sight of the hotel round the corner cures exhaustion like a cold douche; an ingenious conversational opening will carry a limping band over unconscious miles of extra effort. Anything that for the moment can release the consciousness from its over-mastering nervous affection, nervous in effect however physical in origin, enables the will to recover control of the muscles. These external provocations excite states of anger, interest or alarm wholly different in character and effect from passive states of irritation and obstinacy which are produced by the reaction from an internal consciousness of fatigue. A leader will welcome them, in fact, as antidotes to their apparently kindred humours.

Boredom.

It may be assumed that a modern leader will not make the elementary, although traditional, blunder of taking beginners or young people or women for their first expedition upon the weariness of snow trudges, such as the traditional first tour up the Zermatt Breithorn. But even with an expert party he has to remember that boredom is one of his chief enemies. Monotonous snow slopes, long moraines before dawn, long zigzags on the path when the excitement of the day is over, make an undue call upon the will, such as suggests fatigue to the mind before the muscles are really exhausted. They are part of the day’s work, but they put a strain upon the temper of an untrained party that is more wisely avoided.

With the same danger in view, a leader, while he insists on early starts, should not give his party too much to do before daylight. Men without guides lose endless time, energy, and, worse still, temper and tone in losing their way and their footing on the preliminary paths and glaciers in the dark. It is better to start an hour later, and recover half of it from the easier, surer going of daylight progress. But best of all for a guideless party is to reach the inn, hut or bivouac in sufficient time the evening before to allow them to make thoroughly sure of their next morning’s dark exit from the mazy streets and fields, or of the easy route on to and through the nearer glacier. Men are irritable enough in the dark, and if they cannot get going at once to a sure rhythm on a certain route, their harmony of movement and mood may be impaired for half or all of a day. Of the means of meeting the special boredom peculiar to snow tramps, something is said under Snow Craft.[3]

Over-excitement.

During the early days of a tour, on the other hand, there is always the contrary possibility to guard against, that the mere excitement and novel sensation of meeting difficulty may urge men beyond their strength and conceal from them that the limit of their endurance is already crossed. When the nervous tension is over, physical exhaustion sets in very suddenly. The situation is awkward to deal with; but physical crises are definite and yield to definite remedies. The sympathy and efforts of the whole party are at once concentrated upon the victim. Fatigue is lost sight of in the greater common need and the supreme effort for which it calls. The individual may suffer, but the tone of the party, if anything, profits. The leader may take comfort in this thought, and also in the fact that even if a climb turns out unforeseenly sensational, it has none the less to be carried through, and that there is some cause for his gratitude if undue excitement will help to sustain a weaker member of his party over the serious part of the day, even at the expense of an off-day on the morrow.

The effects of fatigue from mental suggestion or boredom upon temper, will and, ultimately, energy are less preventable. They tend to divide a party socially and to make them irritable, carelessly reckless, or obstinately languid. Mental tonics, distractions and talk are less easily administered than helping hands. But a leader, whatever his own state, has to pull himself together to anticipate or to meet the occasion, and use all his tact to distract attention and create a new interest in anything but the individual consciousness of fatigue.

Leadership in Action

The manager as leader has a special responsibility to himself. He is the stroke of the party. Like a good stroke, while exerting himself to the utmost, he has always to keep some strength, nervous and physical, in reserve, to meet a sudden emergency or to vitalize unexpectedly depressing hours of dull return. As a duty to the party he should save himself by making use of the stronger members, should there be any, to take something of his share of the more laborious and less vital labour. A party which knows his value as reserve and management will save him, for instance, some part of his portion in the work of carrying, of leading in soft snow, or of easy step-cutting. They too must recognize he has always to keep something in reserve for a crisis.

The Collective Confidence.

At the same time, no matter what the crisis or his private doubts, he must never appear, if he can possibly help it, to have called out his last reserves, or to be feeling any diminished confidence in his own ability, or in that of his party, to force a successful issue. He must, too, avoid mystery. Nothing is more nerve-trying in critical moments, to men whose experience cannot measure the extent of a crisis, than tense silence or too obvious self-control on the part of those who can. It is better, if the situation is genuinely serious, to bring it down to a human level by blowing off a few words of violent commonplace expletive, than to leave it in that daunting remoteness of gravity for which words are inadequate. The more crucial the occasion, the more does the nerve of the party centre in the leader. Their confidence in his confidence is a more important asset than their confidence in his skill. The combined ability of a party, each one confident in the others and relieved of individual responsibility by his sense of the general confidence, goes further towards success in the solution of difficulties or the repulse of danger than the brilliant independent success which any one individual in it could achieve by reliance on his single skill and nerve.

For this confidence the leader is the focus, and an important decision, such as the resolve to advance or retreat in a given crisis, should be guided by his estimate of the amount of confident capacity represented by the party at the moment, and not merely by his opinion as to his own power to force the passage as an individual.

If he decides to turn back on a climb, he should take the odium of the decision without fear of later criticism. He knew or felt what the collective ability of the party was at the time in relation to the effort demanded, and it is unimportant what an individual may afterwards think might have been his own chances of overcoming the particular difficulty “had he been allowed to try.” If he continues the climb, with the same consciousness advising him, it must be his object to better the chances of success by stimulating the existing confidence into that cheerful humour in which men do their skill most justice.

Keeping Touch.

To keep in touch with every one of a party of friends, so as to continue aware of the way in which their minds and their bodies are being affected by the circumstances, is not easy. On severe climbs it is all but impossible to prevent the rear men, separated by lengths of rope and interruptions of difficult ground, from remaining in ignorance of what is being done in front, or of what is guiding the choice of problems which they are expected in their turn to surmount. For this reason it is helpful to break the habit of silence which falls upon men dealing with serious work,—and which, like the inclination to whisper in a dark room, seems to have behind it some primitive feeling of fear of provoking further attention from unseen but very present forces,—and talk down the rope occasionally, passing question and answer up and down, and cheering the tail with a renewed feeling of unity and confidence drawn from the confidence of the leader. With the same object in view, wherever the climb allows it, the party should be allowed to collect for a moment and forget in talk the depression or doubt inevitable to solitude, before the leaders start again.

Guides are great offenders in this respect. They have no conception of the extra force given by a single united consciousness to a party, of the means to keep in touch with it, or of the help they themselves may draw from it. They climb absorbedly ahead lost in the sense of their own responsibility. Consequently they often turn back, from a doubt of their party or a lack of confidence to carry a climb through on their single responsibility, on occasions where a good amateur leader, with or without guides, can feel himself justified in proceeding. He is in a position to take the even chance of a turn of weather, of the possibility of a return at a later and more unpleasant stage, of the crossing of an exposed couloir or the ascent of a snow or ice slope down which there may be no safe return, because he is confident in his knowledge of the condition of his party, of their concerted action and reserves of strength and cheerfulness, and feels that these are sufficient to carry them over the possible chances of worse weather or more trying conditions, and to lead them through a longer day to a later descent even by another line.

He has to earn his right to his more confident decision in thus matching his men against the mountain by supplementing his single mountaineering experience and instinct firstly by his precautionary care for their condition and humour, and secondly by his ability to keep in close touch with their collective capacity at any and every moment. His reward will be their increasing confidence in themselves, in him, and in their united strength, and the increasing power which this brings with it.

Temper.

A mountaineering party, when in action, is dependent for its good-humoured and hearty co-operation on more than the external interests of the climbs, however well selected beforehand and sustained, on more even than its good health and food, however well cared for. It has to be welded into a fine instrument: its temper is its strength; and its temper has to be kept at just the right heat. Hot words on occasions will do it little harm. Men in a state of primitive well-being are apt to become elemental in temper. A sudden crisis sets off a shower of sparks of language. These do no harm. No experienced man looks upon them as personally directed, or remembers them when the crisis is past. What has really to be guarded against is the effect of monotony in any form, even the irritating repetition of some small unconscious personal trick. Slight resentments become magnified grotesquely during the long hours of silent effort, especially of monotonous effort, on snow, glaciers or path. Any ordinary mountaineer will probably remember occasions when some trifling habit of a good friend, some unintentional or momentary lack of consideration, has taken advantage of the dull ending of a strenuous day to come back upon him irresistibly, and fill him unaccountably with sullen growing resentment. He may realize its foolishness, but, like the similar insistence of the refrain of some silly comic song, it becomes part of the mechanical movement in which his whole being is for the time absorbed.

If he has been fortunate enough to escape such an attack himself, he must at times have been aware of the dangerous electricity accumulating in some one or other of the members of a tired party. It is the commonest symptom of fatigue. A manager has to look out for this. Its consciousness will disappear with the sight of the hotel door, and be secretly regretted on the morrow, but in the meantime he has to prevent the unforgettable being said. Silence is his chief enemy. It is useless to try and tempt tired men, usually tramping in single file, into agreeable conversation, unless some happy accident of the way rests the mind with a new distraction, but he has to seize any desperate occasion for casual remarks. It does not signify what he chatters, provided he is not inappropriately cheerful, and shows himself at least to be completely and seemingly idiotically unconscious of any strain in the situation. Even if he draws the discharge of temper on himself, he has averted all serious danger. Song is the best outlet since it fits in with the mechanical movement while it withdraws attention from it; but song can only be employed when the ground allows of the feet moving in accord. If he himself is one of the two between whom one of these smouldering irritations is getting ominously overcharged in the silence, he has a harder task. But he will have his reward if he can sacrifice his own humour to his sense of responsibility. There is nothing more refreshing to an irritated man who has succeeded, at last, in forcing himself to make a suitably casual and unconscious remark, than to watch the visible efforts of his friend, suddenly deprived of his sure conviction that the resentment was mutually conscious, to pull himself hurriedly together and answer in the lighter key. Both men are so fully aware that their savage humour is ungrounded and absurd, that neither wishes to appear to be left alone in his folly.

Temper is the one permanent peril to all climbing parties, and it is never allowed for sufficiently, or openly treated in its true character as a largely physical phenomenon. Men who have to live long together at great heights, as in the Himalaya, or in great solitudes, as at sea, know that its outbreaks are practically uncontrollable, and many an expedition has failed on its account alone. It is best to treat it frankly as a necessary contingency, and to take the only two precautions possible: the one, to make sure that the men know one another well enough to accept each other’s abusive outbursts as a sick mood, to be answered in like manner, if they will, but not to be remembered; and the other, to impress on them that it is the keen edge of silent resentment or sarcasm that leaves permanent scars, and that blunt abuse or invective, obviously uncontrolled, clears the air like an electric storm, and can be safely countered by retort as noisy and superficial.

It is superfluous, no doubt, to make these suggestions for what may be called the social conduct of a climbing tour. But friends, because they are good friends, are apt to reckon too little with the severe strain put upon comradeship by the circumstances of their mountain association. Personality is tried by the realities of mountaineering in deadly earnest: your good comrade in the hills is a very different man from your pleasant neighbour at the mountaineering dinner. And just as there is no comradeship that can grow so intimate or lasting as that of men who have climbed long together, and faced death, storm, fatigue, success and failure in company, so there is no compact which should be entered upon, with more precaution, or protected with more sedulous care in the trifles of its daily routine.

Unless it be to men whom he is definitely initiating into the pursuit, a leader should not give advice or make direct suggestions; in fact, the less he fusses or appears to be consciously setting the tone, the better. There is nobody so tiresome, in daily contact, as some one who is constantly being cheerful or tactful or managing. Example is the leader’s medium for correction, in humour as in action.

He must see to it that no loophole is left for discord, in small arrangements as in small talk. For this reason it is helpful to let each man look after some department: one to see to the ropes, another to the drinks, and so on; but it is a mistake ever to remind a man of his duty to the party. Management is the leader’s business in the end; and he should see to any omission himself rather than suggest forgetfulness by a criticism. Similarly, as an instance, in dealing with a foreign language, with a new hotel or with a new guide, the negotiation should be entrusted to one alone. He may be chaffed afterwards, but not interrupted at the time. It is feeble in effect and rather humiliating to see, as one often does, two or more sedate Englishmen effusively answering a head waiter in chorus, or treating any remark that has to be made in a foreign language, say to the guide, as an occasion for a collective assertion of individual capacity to speak with tongues and of equal right to use them in giving orders. Again, as a small instance of what I mean, there should be no question of comparing the weights of respective sacks before a climb. It is assumed that each man will carry what he can. If a man is a poor carrier and intentionally lightens his personal luggage, it is a blunder on all counts to ask him to carry more than he offers to take of the common provisions. It may seriously handicap him, and will certainly hurt his feelings. As an exception, however, since it is no reflection on his comradeship, a man who is found to be constantly carrying more than his share may be checked for his own physical good. There are a few men who by development and disposition are unhappy unless heavily weighted. They may be indulged, especially with the charge of the agreeable extra luxuries.

Once he has got his party started, fit and fed, and with no failure or dispute in arrangement or humour that may give room for later discomfort or irritation, the manager has to be especially on the watch for the different effects on his men of the hours before dawn and of the hours of evening return. The habit of talking before sunrise should be tacitly discouraged. Most men are inclined to surliness in the early dark hours, which will disappear with the sun and improved circulation. Silence at this period is fraught with no dangers which the beginning of active climbing will not remove. During these early hours mind and nerves and muscles have got to rediscover their harmonious working for the exertions of the day. Their process of adjustment should not, therefore, be distracted.

In the morning mechanical action and the automatic reflexes have to be re-established, and the mind has to be induced to co-operate. In the evening, as has been shown, when mechanical action tends to degenerate into monotony, and muscular and nervous fatigue become master of the mind, an exactly contrary line of action in management is necessary, and the mind has to be helped to escape from the infection and to reassert its independence by intentional distraction.

Abnormal Moods.

But there are certain abnormal states, unforeseen but inevitable effects of the direct action of mountain incident upon nerve, harmony and energy, which on occasion must be met, and which should therefore be mentioned. Apart from preventable physical exhaustion, and the languor and ill-humour produced by boredom, there are several conditions of mind which may evilly affect the power of a party, and for varying lengths of time.

Reaction.

On the first splendid glow of success, when the difficult ascent has ended triumphantly on the summit, there follows a phase of complete relaxation, of surrender to the simple realization of rest and physical enjoyment. It is a period of indescribable sensations, of imagination run riot, and of will and self-control alike in abeyance.

When the subsequent descent is begun it is at first, for many men, a matter of real difficulty to recover complete control of their machinery, and for the leader to reconstitute the different individuals into a single working unit. For a time the pace must be diminished, and the care redoubled. Precautions, of remonstrance and doubled ropes and moving singly, none of them possibly necessary in the same place with the party in working order must be put into force, until the normal condition is regained. The assumption that the state of mind makes no difference, and that a party can descend as securely the final slopes that it raced up light-heartedly in the bracing moment of success, is all too commonly made, and only too frequently regretted.

Disappointment.

If success has its short following period of danger, disappointment has a longer and more insidious effect. However necessary or admittedly correct the decision to turn back may have been, the disappointment works afterwards, often unconsciously, upon each individual, as he realizes his wasted effort and envisages his fatigue, with now no excitement or bracing of hope to counteract it. So come discouragement, and careless treading, and a resentful attitude towards precautions and manœuvres which no longer have any triumphant object as their excuse. Any weakness in condition or humour will grow doubly apparent at such a time; and as the disappointment is equally present in all minds, it is impossible to pretend unconsciousness of it, and often vain to attempt to raise the atmosphere by a counterfeit of cheerfulness. Mental and social tonics are for the time alike useless. The condition has to be accepted as an indisputable lowering of tone, which in its effects will prejudice the physical capacity of the party in many subtle ways. Since in this one case he cannot check the evil influence at its source in the mind, the leader must employ every concrete mountaineering device to prevent its endangering the actual safety. He must bring out all his reserves of spirit and technique to keep the party concentrated on the momentary details of their descent, and redouble his own activities in order to anticipate or correct any slip or mistake that the lowered tone may induce. On such occasions he can look himself for no relaxation of effort or release from anxiety until the rope is off at last and the safe path regained, no matter how little conscious his party may like to show themselves individually of any depreciation in their skill or good-will.

Over-confidence.

Equally difficult to deal with, and far more frequent in its appearance, is the state of mind to which most mountaineers are subject—and guides also—who have accomplished a great climb successfully and are retracing the comparatively easy passages of the lower ridges, glaciers and tracks. Conscious of their successful performance, confident in their skill and unwearied muscles, intoxicated by air and effort and fortune, they are unaware of fatigue, and the easier ground lulls their judgment into a condition of fatalistic confidence, almost of exaltation. Danger, obvious and immediate, has become familiar, and has been safely avoided; they can neglect its threat when it is not so present. They jump the bergschrund rather than look for the bridge; they chance the unseen rock foothold rather than lose time in using the doubled rope; they glissade the loose snow slope and scorn its possible avalanche; the rope hampers them, it is taken off; and recklessly self-reliant, a reliance that success has fooled them into thinking justified, they rush the risks of hidden crevasses on the glacier, of false steps or loose stones on the easy ridges, with an abandon that it will make them shudder the next day to recall. Even the lower zigzag path to the valley is a danger in such a condition of mind. Safe as Rotten Row for the sure foot, it has a dozen times proved a fatal trap for the stumble of fatigue or the careless swing of over-confidence. Few men can look back on a long mountaineering record without remembering some such evenings of mountain madness; and while they blush (let us hope) even in memory at their folly, they may wish they had had some cool leader to call them, grumbling, to their senses. For while reaction and disappointment reflect at once upon the vitality, lowering the tone and, like a flat liquor, offering little chance of reanimation, over-confidence is an effervescence, an overflow of spirits, which can be more easily regulated by apt manipulation. The leader must take control, sharply and steadily. He has little to fear from the effect of his interference upon a party in such spirits; any resentment will be temporary, and his own labour, of repressing and directing a surplus of energy, will be far less than in the cases where, as has been shown, he may have to provide a stimulus or even a substitute for its absence.

There is an insidious danger common to all these mental states. As one of a party working together, a leader must remember that he himself is subject to infection from a collective mood. He may consider that his confident action on occasion is entirely individual and calculated; or, again, he may be certain that his resolution to retreat represents only his own unbiased judgment; and in either case he may be puzzled later to account for an obvious error. He must learn to allow for his ‘atmospheric’ error, the unconscious perversion of his saner judgment by some collective mood of his party. The risk is very subtle. A leader has no defence against it except to keep its possibility constantly in mind. He must acquire the habit of challenging, mentally, his own opinions of the moment, and of confronting them, detachedly, with the sternest of mountain precepts and rules of thumb. The habit will stand him in good stead in moments of more dangerous decision, of excitement, and, therefore of more probable collective infection. It will at least check him from joining, even in his most ecstatic moments, in an unroped glacier stampede or in a ‘go-as-you-please’ skelter down a buttress; it may save him some of the lasting regrets of the leader who afterwards recognizes that he has turned back prematurely; and it will certainly protect him on many long tramps from that curious infection, hours of united, unreasoning mountain gloom.

Hysteria.

From a fourth state, actual hysteria or hill-shock, a leader is presumably exempt. It occurs more frequently among mountains than anywhere else off the battlefield, since their conditions may put an excessive strain upon unaccustomed nerves. Old climbers are inoculated against most of its risks. If a type of danger has once been experienced, on any subsequent recurrence, even faintly resembling it in character, the consciousness flashes out at once to meet it, in all its possible reactions; the mind takes control of the nerve communications and blocks the way against any evil effects resulting from the sudden shock to the subconscious nervous system. Only an entirely unfamiliar form of danger or an unduly prolonged strain can rout the presence of mind of a tried climber. But it is well to remember that every man has his ‘cracking point,’ and that this is sooner reached in the case of an uneducated guide, however experienced, than in the person of an expert amateur, whose imagination will widen his experience.

It may originate in three ways. Firstly, from exhaustion, irritating brain and nerves until self-control is lost and any slight shock may cause the hysteria to break out, either in the usual violent symptoms, or, more intimidating because less anticipated, in silent tears. Exhaustion, not fear, is the basis. If it has not been possible to anticipate the crisis by precautionary rest or distraction, immediate inaction and quiet reassurance, without remonstrance or contradiction, are the best assistance to recovery.

Or, secondly, it may result from sudden shock, the realization of completely unexpected danger in a placid moment before the mind has time to assert its control over its own group of spinal nerves. This is the moment of panic which is the terror of all who have the charge of collections of human beings, in a theatre or on shipboard. If the shock can be anticipated by even the briefest of introductions, if a collective instantaneous realization of the danger can only be prevented by any method of more gradual communication of the news, half the risk of panic ensuing is gone. For if only the mind has the chance to realize the meaning of the news before the physical shock to the group of subconscious nerves has time to react, it takes command; and the man begins to act, and even to overact, for his own benefit if for no wider audience, in accordance with his conception of suitable gentlemanly behaviour under the circumstances. In climbing, indeed, there is often no time for such a gradual introduction. But in climbing, wherever danger is not cumulative, and therefore gradual, in its approach, the peril is over and past almost as soon as the shock is felt: for instance, the rock has fallen—and missed the party; the slip has occurred—and not pulled them down. So much the leader has in his favour in meeting its after-effects of fear. The crisis being over, it is best, if possible, to pretend to ignore its existence altogether, and to find some reason for a halt and for continued inattention until the nerves have had time to settle down. If this fails, the incident should be cheerfully recalled and discussed until its idea has become familiar, and so harmless. It is useful to remember that no individual panic, and for that matter no form of extreme emotion, can long survive the bland disregard of its existence by some one else in the same circumstances. But if a repetition of the peril still threatens, as might be the case after a rock or snow avalanche, and therefore immediate movement is desirable, the orders for action should be sharp and decided, but quite impersonal: they should neglect any individual more particularly affected, and apparently be addressed to the whole party. Personal attention only tends to increase the self-consciousness and the self-pity which, in the frightened man, will be militating against the recovery of his self-command.

The third and most difficult manifestation, that of hysterical obstinacy, may be the outcome of a long-continued state of nervousness or of, often, groundless fear, accumulating and indulged by self-compassion until it gets beyond control. The hysteria takes the form of a refusal to move up or down, and, without any violent symptoms, remains impervious to reason or direct remonstrance. A halt, and a deliberate disregard, emphasized by general talk about some unrelated matter, will often result in a gradual loosening of the tension, mental and muscular, and the beginnings of unwilling movement. Once the rigidity is past, the rope and quick and not too gentle impulse will do the rest. But if the situation does not allow of even so much delay, stronger measures are necessary. I have seen a guide use a startling slap on the cheek in an extreme case with good effect; or a jerk on the rope, that forces the victim to scramble to recover his own footing, may break the spell. In any case, if the leader is unfortunate enough to suffer such inconvenience with a beginner, he will be wise not to risk the like chance on a mountain a second time, in both their interests.

Vertigo.

What is called giddiness, the paralysing effect of sheer height, suddenly revealed, sometimes produces unexpectedly a similar condition of immobility. Fortunately, in this case it is not accompanied by the same objection to being moved into security by others.

Habit also will remove the inclination, sometimes felt on the edges of sheer walls or cliffs, to ‘throw oneself over.’ This is another of the symptoms of slight vertigo. In spite of its frequent and sensational appearance in narrative, the inclination would seem invariably to confine itself to remaining merely an inclination.

Giddiness, the inclination to fall and the impulse to throw oneself over, is the result of the inability of the eye at the moment to obtain an assurance that the body is upright or in balance. When a child is learning to walk it tumbles all over the place. Then it learns to fix some point on a level with its eye, and it can retain its balance in walking just so long as it can keep its eyes moving towards this point more or less on a level plane. Gradually it learns to get the same assurance from some distant point on the floor ahead: its eye has been educated to reason from a diagonal as much as from a level glance; and the ‘semicircular canal’ has been taught to interpret the message, and convert it into automatic balance. As it moves forward it shifts the point ahead, unconsciously obtaining that the third side of the triangle thus formed by its glance shall always demonstrate that the other two sides, the line of the floor and the vertical line through its own centre of gravity, are forming an approximate right angle. Still later it learns to apply the same principle to uphill or downhill gradients, where the line of gravity makes, not a right angle, but an acute or obtuse angle with the visible surface. That is, it learns to take the constant line of its own centre of gravity as the base-line of its triangle and not the fickle flooring; and it still keeps in balance in movement by measuring the third side with its eye, in order to be assured that whatever angle its body in balance is making with the ground, be it uphill and acute, or downhill and obtuse, shall remain the same during its next movement.

Even as men we cannot be sure that we are upright, that is, in balance—for our muscles permit us a few degrees of sway either way from our line of gravity—unless we are somehow in contact with the visible surface at two successive points in the line of direction in which we are moving, be the contact maintained by the touch of our second foot, by the hand, or by the glance of our eye. Shut your eyes, stand on one foot, and you will have proof of this. Men accustomed only to walking on the level make a habit of selecting the rest-point for their eye some distance ahead. Consequently, when they find themselves on a steep hillside, where the fall of the ground below makes a wider angle with their line of gravity than their eye has been trained to estimate, their glance wanders helplessly, they lose their assurance of balance, and they become ‘giddy’ or feel that they ‘must’ fall over. But habit will correct this. The climber soon learns to shorten his glance, to accept a reduced distance between his two requisite points of contact. The few inches of visible surface near his feet, be it only the edge of a rock ledge or the curve of a snow wall, projected against nothingness, will serve him, with practice, as sufficient rest-point for his eye, and give him the assurance that his body is upright and his balance secure.

Wherever, in climbing, the angle of the surface is so steep that even these few inches of margin for the eye’s reassurance are lacking,—for instance, on a precipitous rock wall with only minute stances, or on an almost vertical ice slope,—then, by the nature of the case, the climber can use his hands; and from this second point of contact, through his fingers, the climber gets an even more concrete assurance of his balance than from the judgment of his eye. There are cases, however, where the hands cannot or should not be used, and where the eye is so far confused that it must divide its responsibility for the second point of contact with some other agent; and for this we learn to use the second foot. Take the case of traversing along the summit of a narrow rock ridge, or across a knife-edge of ice. The hands are useless, and the eyes, unable to remain focused upon the narrow edge, wander away into the depths. The inexpert man will get giddy, and will only save himself, on the rock, by crawling across on hands and knees, thus forcing from his hands the assurance that his eyes refuse; while on the ice he will get giddy and—not get across at all. But the expert can step across either, rapidly and securely. In the first place he learns to focus his eyes undeviatingly upon the thin edge ahead, or upon some fixed point on the same line with it beyond; and in the second place he learns, since an expert’s eye is human and embraces a large field, to divide its balancing duty with his second foot. This foot, advanced in the direction of progress, provides a second rest-point for the assurance of balance quite good enough to complement the eye. He strides out rapidly, so as to shorten the doubtful interval while this foot is in the air, and for assurance in this doubtful interval he trusts again to his fixed glance. A blind-folded tight-rope walker balances on the same principle, only he obtains his assurance from two points of contact even nearer together, from one foot only just in advance of the other, or even from one foot alone, the two requisite points being then represented by his toe and his heel. Loose-wire walkers, who apparently deprive themselves of all fixed points for their estimate, substitute the pole or the parasol in their hands. This their trained sense continues to adjust at such an inclination to the shifting but relatively fixed point of their feet as may always give their hand a second relatively fixed point of judgment by which they can estimate the angle that then body is making, at any instant of rest or motion, with the line of gravity; and its leverage enables them to correct this angle whenever hand plus foot give warning that the body has so far departed from the line as to be entering upon the ‘forbidden degrees.’

The normal mountaineer, however, need never expect to have to do with less than two stable points of judgment, for foot and hand or eye, and these at least a few inches apart. It is entirely incorrect, therefore, for anyone to assume that, because he feels ‘giddy’ looking down from the top of a wall, he is disqualified from high mountaineering. Some degree of giddiness would be excusable in any mountaineer, however expert, who might be asked to look down off the edge of a sheer wall, where there was no handhold, no room to shift a foot forward or backward, and which was too vertical to afford any rest-point below for the eye. If he were asked to walk along the wall, he would probably do it cheerfully. In mountaineering, also, we may count upon handholds when the eye is obstructed or the assurance of a second foot denied us. We need only train our sense of balance to assure us of security upon a basis of narrowly spaced but still quite natural points of judgment. And in the process of learning we shall find that we lose all inclination to giddiness.

The Effect of Height.

There remains one state, of whose nature and origin we at present know very little. It is generally called the ‘psychological’ effect of height; which it almost certainly is not. It has none of the bodily symptoms of mountain sickness; and I know no remedy for it, mental or physical. It is simply that certain men above certain heights appear to lose some portion of their nervous energy. Training or habit seem powerless to restore it. They become incapable of moving with the certainty or rhythm which are theirs at lower levels. You can watch the effects in tentative, slower movements, a visible effort in balancing, clumsiness with the rope, insecurity in steps, sometimes a vagueness or absence of mind, as if the vitality were running low. And yet the men will be most vigorous and competent mountaineers up to their limit of height. Liability to suffer from it appears to depend on no question of physique or of probabilities. As its result many fine climbers on lower hills never achieve marked success in the Alps, and many fine alpinists, including most guides, are failures, relatively, in the Himalaya. If we were to go high enough, we should probably find that every man has his limit of height, above which no training or habit would enable him to climb with his normal vigour or efficiency. But what concerns a leader in the Alps, or an explorer in higher ranges, is to discover which of his party is subject to it, and at what heights, and make his dispositions accordingly if he is planning an expedition or series of expeditions which will exceed this limit. Otherwise, just at those heights and in those situations where the greatest individual skill is called for and the least attention can be spared to others, he will find that the symptoms will begin to put in an unwelcome appearance. The mountaineer himself is rarely aware of his weakness; he probably explains it to himself as a touch of passing mountain sickness. It is only when he, or more probably his leader, notices that it recurs at the same height and that the symptoms are not physical or mental, but affect the mysterious half-way region that we must call ‘nervous,’ that the true cause suggests itself. A leader must watch every new member of his party, and if he finds that he has such a height limit, he must not take him above it, if the ascent is severe, or he must be prepared to give him much increased attention and shepherding until the limit is repassed on the descent.

Social Composition of the Party

The social and psychological conditions that regulate the relations of any collection of human beings associated for a common effort or pursuit are seldom taken sufficiently into account. The interaction of individual temperaments in mountaineering and the reactions of common mood under the stress of elemental conditions or of great physical effort have, in consequence, seldom been allowed for in anticipatory organization or made a matter for previous agreement, or for the acceptance of precautionary control. When the crises have arisen, it has been often, consequently, too late for remedy or for the exclusion of the dissonant elements. This must be my excuse for sketching these superficial classifications of nervous and mental states that are as positive in their influence upon the success or harmony of a mountaineering holiday as the possession or lack of a developed trapezius major or a sound digestion. Explorers of experience sometimes recognize the importance of choosing men for temper and temperament as much as for physique, and make their arrangements with this in view, in practice if not in their printed records. Mountaineering is done under much the same conditions; but its temporary, holiday character leads us generally, as we sit at home in the comfort of pleasant prospect, to overlook in our arrangements the almost primitive conditions of temper, health and fierce struggle under which we shall be living during our mountain association.

A mountaineer, in the composition and management of his party, cannot afford to neglect the action of health and condition upon temper, or of temperament and mood upon achievement. He must select men, therefore, not by their promise of the plains, but by what he knows or concludes will be their conduct under the harder test of the heights. If he has to take anyone on chance, he must be on the watch from the first, and, if he finds he has made a mistake, content himself with a less ambitious programme. In big mountaineering no man has more than a momentary margin. In less exacting work no man has a continuous margin of will-power, nerve and temper, to say nothing of skill, for more than himself and one other. Every party of more than two should contain two men of tried nerve—that is, of an experience that has learned to control the effects of shock or of fatigue upon the nerves. Every party, for its own peace, should contain one expert rock climber and one reliable iceman. A good second-man, or ‘backer-up,’ and a weight-carrier are invaluable assets. These parts may, of course, be doubled in a single individual. The ability to heal, or cook, or sing may be allowed to outweigh some minor defects—but not temper, clumsiness or a sluggish vitality.

A manager has also to remember that that party earns the best success which works with the most collective good-humour and good-will. With the object of maintaining the genial atmosphere that best resists local disturbances, mental or physical, one member of a party of three or four may well be either younger or less experienced than the rest. Rowing eights in training have discovered the merits of a mascot or protégé, whom the rest can look after and laugh with or at. No party of men or women can quarrel if there are children (not belonging to them) of their number. One considerably younger member of a party, or one younger in the sense that he or she is a novice to the work, and in so far is a child, gives the climbing group the pleasant sense of centring round some one as a common care. He is a permanent distraction. In moments of excitement, pleasure or fatigue, every member of such a party unconsciously puts himself first into the new-comer’s attitude of mind, and speculates how the sensation will present itself to him. The process provides our individual consciousness with an external interest that diverts us from the oppression of absorption in ourselves.

In a holiday party of four, which is the best number for serious guideless climbing, enabling the break into the ideal pairs for rock climbing, and the safer combination for glaciers, one member may well be an ‘infant’ or beginner of this sort; but if such an element is included the ‘breaking’ must be confined to very safe passages. In a party of three, provided that two are thorough experts, and one of these possibly a first-class guide, and provided that no severe climbing is contemplated, maleficent psychic influences may be combated by the inclusion of our less responsible third. If serious work is in prospect, the third must be at least strong and efficient; in fact, in parties of less than four, considerations of skill or experience must always take precedence of purely social qualifications. In a party of two, for rock climbing, both must be, primarily, expert, and our social selection must be confined to this class. For glacier work any party of two, even though, socially, they speak with the tongues of angels, must always be unsound. The popularity of the party of two as a rock climbing combination compels us continually to reconsider its suitability under new aspects. As a social companionship the association of two friends, equally expert, is ideal. The association of two friends, one of them less expert but equally competent to share in the responsibility for a joint decision, is quite defensible. But it must be remembered that any external feeling strong enough to interfere with the complete concentration of a leader upon his climbing reduces the efficiency of his normal standard and still more of his standard of the day. His feeling of a particular responsibility for an individual, other than his general responsibility to a party, may act as a dangerous distraction. A man, therefore, who climbs alone with a novice, a younger person or a pupil, towards whom he is in a position of personal trust, handicaps himself to an extent that should forbid him to attempt any but absolutely safe and elementary climbing. The usual risks, even of merely external chance, which he may take lightly for himself or for a second companion of equal discretion, he may not take for his charge; and the cheerful consent of an inexperienced comrade to ‘share’ in taking such a chance cannot be considered as relieving the single expert of any part of his exclusive responsibility. If he has the sense of it constantly in mind, the feeling turns to anxiety in moments of crisis, and interferes with his coolness of judgment and with the nervous harmony upon which his skill depends; at more ordinary times its presence materially biases his ordinary mental and physical climbing habit. If, on the other hand, he undertakes such a charge, and then does not keep it in mind in all his decisions and actions, no one will consider him to have been a happy choice for the responsibility entrusted to him.

Where the sense of responsibility is further complicated by an emotional relationship its debilitating effect is increased. It is a commonplace of all active undertakings that relationship is irreconcilable with cool command and undisturbed performance. Similarly, a father climbing alone with his child or children, a husband climbing with his wife, cannot preserve the nervous concentration or the emotional detachment indispensable for an unsupported leader. Whatever their normal ability as mountaineers, in such a companionship both their discretion and their execution must be subject to a hundred distracting influences. The disturbance, even the danger, of an emotional state in a member of a party has already been indicated. In these cases, however, it is the leader, whose business it should be to correct, who is the man affected; and, further, in a party of two so constituted, where the leader alone is morally or by nature responsible, no other can compensate for his abnormality or qualify the effects of his state or of his action. In my view no mountaineer should ever climb alone with anyone less competent for whom he must be held responsible either by relationship or by delegated authority; unless the climbing is so short and so safe that he can be sure of always safeguarding his charge against the ill consequence of any and every form of ‘accident’ however remote or unlikely. Practically this means that, except for simple ‘bouldering’ or elementary, separate ‘pitch’ climbs, without the addition of a second fully competent mountaineer all parties of this description are unsound.

In larger parties it is wise to give full value to social considerations in selecting the members, since we can always secure, by addition or subtraction, that any element of weakness introduced by relationship or private responsibility is balanced by a greater proportion of mountaineering skill. But for combinations of two our first business is to make absolutely certain that each man is equally competent, in his own and his friend’s eyes even more than in the eyes of the world, to take his full share of responsibility. We may then, if we will, treat the separate contributions of skill as a collective whole, and not quarrel with an expert who takes a less expert companion, provided he be competent and responsible, if by so doing he secures a wider field for his social choice.

Walking Manners

There are several points of what may be termed walking manners, common to all types of long mountain walking and not only to climbing, whose observance contributes a great deal to the individual peace of mind during the early and late hours of a long alpine day. Men when they are off the rope, or who have never been on a rope, almost universally neglect them, and are blind to the cumulative effect upon a tired companion’s temper or upon their own humour. Every one thinks he can walk, and most men never bother to discover why the excellent companion of the Sunday afternoon ramble proved a failure on a long walking tour.

The first point of manners for the man in control is that of pace. Most climbers suffer from the weakness of increasing the pace the moment they take the lead on a path, slope or glacier. This is trying to the party, consciously or not, and wasteful. A manager should either block the way himself, or, if he is behind, keep consistently to what he considers the right tempo. It is better he should be thought to be getting old or lazy than that the party should be rushed inopportunely.

A second and frequent failing is the ‘half step’ trick. Some fifty per cent. of fast walkers, whenever they walk abreast on road or path or hill, persistently keep half a stride in front, their shoulder just clear of their companion. It may be due to some half-formed feeling of satisfaction in setting the pace and having a margin to turn round and talk from. Its effect is that the friend is perpetually straining to catch up, and the pace thus steadily accelerates till both are practically racing. Then one gives up, and both lag, until the game starts again. The habit is often unconscious, but it is extraordinarily irritating on a long tramp, or to a tired companion.

A third breach of manners, all too common, is passing ahead in the line of march. Over most broken country, glacier, snow or rough hillsides, men naturally fall into single file. Cattle tracks or man tracks are rarely wide enough for two abreast, and if it is a question of selecting a line, it saves reduplication of the effort to leave the task to one and to drop in behind him. There are few inexperienced walkers who do not take advantage of the slightest error in the choice of route on the first man’s part, to break off and pass him on the shorter line. In doing so, they take the responsibility of taking all the rest who follow off the line also. On an ordinary hill walk, when the going is all free and easy, this is excusable,—no one is compelled to follow another longer than suits him; as also in the case when the first man is obviously mistaken, and to cut his line is a distinct saving of effort for those who follow. But, done as by one of a line of men either tired or with a big day before them, where one has been taking the extra burden of route-selecting for the rest, it is a serious breach of mountain manners. The gain is probably only a yard or two, and the front man may justly resent having been left the labour of choosing the route at a hundred points, only to have advantage taken of his single doubtful choice in order to displace him. He either runs ahead to regain his place, and the rhythm of the party is broken in a silly competition none the less irritating that it is rarely acknowledged in words, or he plods behind with a slight sense of injury.

A more debatable occasion, where the same point comes into prominence, is on the ascent of steep slopes or open hillsides. An experienced front man will probably take these on a zigzag. To a less experienced walker, and to all beginners of energy and leg muscle, it is generally a temptation to cut the zigzags on the direct line, and so pass ahead. This is bad walking, but there is the more excuse for it in that on such slopes men rarely do follow each other exactly, and most of the party will probably be preferring each to take his zigzag at the most comfortable angle to himself. The best rule of manners to remember is that, while every man is free to choose any line and pace he likes on such places, yet, if one man has been definitely leading and choosing the line, the others ought to drop into their places in the line behind him again so soon as the single-file formation is resumed. It is more politic to be considered a well-mannered tramp than to assert one’s powers as a limber hill-rusher.

Another blunder, from which many a good walker is not free, is the inclination to hurry the pace if the line or short-cut he has chosen takes the party for a while over worse ground, or proves, for other reasons, not to have been the best route. His almost unconscious acceleration is due to some impulse to get back quickly and unnoticed to good going, and so to slur over the mistake, or the momentary disagreeability of the route for which he is responsible, as much to himself as to those who follow. It is a trick to notice and avoid. It forces the rhythm and pace over just the ground where it should, if anything, be eased. Men who walk much with parties which are afflicted with the ‘racing’ or ‘passing’ manias, are particularly liable, from a sort of nervous self-defence, to develop this failing also.

A leader must not walk carelessly or break the rhythm of step arbitrarily. The man who forces a plodding following to change feet unexpectedly does not know his business. Again, when walking in single file, or any way but comfortably abreast, men inexpert in acting as guides do not realize that although the man in front can hear all that is said behind him, yet that, unless he turns his head over his shoulder and throws his words out, he himself is inaudible down the line behind him. As the remarks from the leader on a long tramp, and when men are tired, have usually some direct bearing on the way, those behind him crowd up to hear; they break step, and are often put irritably on the strain. The complaint of many a young mountaineer, that his elder companion will never answer at all while walking, usually finds its explanation in the fact that the young man’s energy carries him ahead, and as his remarks are addressed to the scenery, his companion prefers consistent silence and inattention to the strain of trying to hear, or to the irritation to himself and his friend of continually repeating, “What d’you say?” These matters may seem too slight to mention, but neglect of their observance brings many a party home with some member or other out of harmony and unappreciative of the sunset.

In the grumpy morning start or during the evening tired return it is for such details that the manager has to be most on the look out. He should, if possible, set the pace himself, and keep it without questioning or remark to what he judges to be the best pace of the laggard of the day. He should never let himself be pressed by some one at his heels, race ahead, or allow others to do so, except for some specified and universally beneficial reason (such as ordering tea ahead!), merely because the difficulties seem to be over and the way plain for the stronger members of his party. There is no pleasure in being left behind; it provokes a tired man and generally makes him obstinately slower.

It used to be said, and by the best authorities, that with a tired or tramping party it is essential to keep the pace always the same, or they will lose the rhythm that alone can keep them going. This is a mistake. In the first place, variations in pace are a rest in themselves, provided that the actual effort put into each step does not vary. In the second place, it is definitely more fatiguing to be held back to a fixed pace on a sudden downhill gradient; and it is vexatious to pass from a long uphill grind on to a level stretch without the relief of a ‘swing out.’ Similarly, it is futile to change from a level to an uphill gradient and attempt to keep a party to the same rate. The mistaken teaching has been due to a confusion between actual rate of movement over the ground and the amount of effort required for each step.

Rhythm is essential to ensure good tramping, and to minimize fatigue. To secure rhythm the amount of effort put into each step, and not necessarily the pace, should be kept constant. Thus, in changing from uphill to level ground, the pace can be pleasantly quickened and the step lengthened, without any increase of effort in the stride or any change of rhythm. A longer stride is often a positive relief. In changing from level to uphill the length of the step shortens, since a lifting step is always more fatiguing, and the pace should be taken more slowly, though the output of effort is kept the same. On a change to a downhill gradient it is possible to change to a longer stride, or even a run, without altering the rhythm or increasing the amount of effort exacted of the muscles or of the lungs.

In resuming, after a halt, a frequent error is to start too fast. Young climbers, like young giants refreshed with wind, rush off at top pace. The re-start should always be slow—if anything slower than the average pace before the halt. Gradually, as the circulation and organs begin to readjust themselves to their work, the previous pace can be recovered. But a halt is definitely making reparation for the past, not accumulating a margin to waste in the immediate future.

When the energy of the party is running out, it is better to avoid halts altogether. To break the rhythm in such case and relax the mechanism is to make the resumption each time more difficult and the recovery of an equal rate afterwards very improbable.

To lead and choose the line is definitely more fatiguing than to follow. To save strength and maintain pace, during a long day, the leader ought to be changed at regular intervals. This is too rarely done.

Some Notes on Hill Walking.

There are one or two further points connected with walking up or down hill which are matters of method rather than of manners, but which in so far as they affect the individual comfort react upon the peace of a party.