SPORTING ASPECT
Taking to the Rocks
By ELIZABETH COXHEAD the older generation arises, I believe, from a confusion of thought. To them the British mountain holiday was prepara• tion for the Alps. Some of the weekenders may have their eye on the Alps, or even the Himalaya, but for most the ascent of ever-steeper rocks, from Moderate to Very Severe, is att end in itself, and why not ? To reproach them is as illogical as to complain of the tennis-player that he is not covering as much country as he would playing golf. The surge meant inexperienced people playing about with ropes, and inevitably it meant accidents. Responsibility for proper training was accepted by some of the existing climbing clubs, but by more it was evaded; the attitude too often was " We don't want the rabble on the hills." That did not stop the rabble, and other 'steps were taken. Mountain training centres were set up by bodies like the Scottish Council for Physical Recreation, the Outward Bound Trust, the Derby. shire County Council—this last happening to have as it1 Director of Education the great Longland, ' of Longland's,' who naturally was well able to appreciate the educative value of rock-climbing. But the biggest single contribution t9 training has been made by the Mountaineering Association, a body to which British climbing owes an unparalleled debt.
It was formed in 1946 by seven climbers, led by J. E. Bt Wright, formerly a professional guide, who estimated that if training were established on a nation-wide basis hundrede would apply for it. He was wrong; they have applied ill thousands. The Association now fairly-monopolises the feW professional guides in the country, and has found and trained its own corps of some two hundred voluntary tutors. It hag graded courses, from Beginners to Advanced, mostly in the Lakes and North Wales. This winter it collaborated with the LCC in starting winter evening-classes in mountaineering, and by next winter plans to have them in every big town in the country. Some of its graduates are forming a High Altitude Exploration Party. and there is talk of an expedition to the Andes next year and to the Himalaya the year after. The speed with which today's beginners become tomorrow's tigerS is humbling to those of us who have spent a lifetime's holidays just pottering among the crags. But the chief function of these training bodies has been to feed the climbing clubs, which have thereby grown both in skill and numbers. Every month seems to see the formation of a new one, as a little group of climbing friends finds itself expanding and in need of an organising hand. Many are small- town clubs, a particularly happy feature when the town is near to the hills, for on Sundays they will hire a bus and go off for a day's climbing, independent of public transport. And in or out of the clubs, one finds the hard core of fanatics, who spend every moment on the rocks that can be snatched from office or factory, and who camp or doss down in barns, disdaining even the modest comforts of the Youth Hostel. Nor are they all .of the sterner sex. I have met girl campers who keep their tent--yes, and their skis—permanently in the Lakeland valleys, and have not missed a weekend for years. Naturally, with all this practice, the standard goes relent- lessly up. When Kirkus, Longland and their friends opened up Clogwyn d'ur Arddu we thought the human flies had reached their limits; now one will hear Longland's ' dis- missed as ' just a Mild Severe.' Techniques are changing, too, which is healthy, and there are fierce arguments about the new ' dynamic' belaying evolved in England by Kenneth Tarbuck, in America by Arnold Wexler, in preference to the tilne-honoured rigid belay. Boots with rubber-composition soles are ousting the classic clinkers and tricouni—a bad thing, dangerous on greasy British rock, say the old guard, and they may very likely be right, but it is something you can't stop. And the technique of accident-rescue has made the biggest strides of all.
, For of course there are still accidents, and as by their nature they are usually sensational, they get a great deal of newspaper Publicity, and cause much alarm to relatives unaware of the vastly greater proportionate increase in numbers of climbers. And there are other losses—of solitude, mystery, exploratory illusion. " The Cuillin are suburban now," I have heard it said of the most remote and savage mountain range in Britain, and it is a fact that I have picked orange-peel off the sacred ledges of the Cioch Slab and conducted a salvage drive on the summit of Sgurr Alasdair. But it would be an ungenerous soul that did not set against such minor irritations--some of which will disappear as climbing education proceeds on all fronts—the all-round gain Le Youth in the spread of this enchanting sport. In Glencoe .‘,7",!_no longer talk of massacres, but of Crowberr9 Ridge and Uully Buttress and Murray's new routes on Aonach Dubh. Prom Tel and Dungeon Ghyll there emanates a tingle of 1:IaPiness, as ten or maybe _fifty parties tiptoe their way up tt thousand feet. And though our aim is purely pleasure, we 1,1e incidentally developing more in the way of enterprise and leadership than we could get from any number of self-
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