MOUNTAIN CRAFT.•
THE new "mountaineer's Bible" which has been so long expected by a large circle of British and foreign climbers has at last appeared. Mr. Young is nominally the editor, but an editor whose personal contribution amounts to four hundred pages of carefully written matter may well claim the full honours of authorship.
In several short concluding chapters, the recognized leaders in mountain exploration have placed at the editor's disposal just the practical information that will enable the intending climber of the great ranges of the world, whether in arctic or tropical zones, to avoid the errors that so easily change antici- pated pleasure into vexation and disappointment. Price lists are, alas ! pre-war. Will the visitor to the Caucasus ever again, as in 1913, buy sheep for 3 roubles or eggs for l j kopecks ? Mr. Arnold Lunn's long article on " Mountaineering on Ski " will be invaluable to-the rapidly increasing number of those who visit the Alps in winter or in spring, and who are not content to leave unexplored the remoter solitudes that lie above the crowded precincts of their hotel.
The technique of olimbing is much the same all the world over. Rock-walls may be vaster and ice-slopes larger and steeper as the scale of a range increases, but the methods of scaling them can all be learned in the Alps. It is the art of raising our bodies with the maximum of safety and of elegance up slopes that present the maximum number of all but impossible obstacles that is Mr. Young's theme. " Three things only," he says, " are necessary for the salvation of a mountaineering holiday : good health, good fellowship, and good climbing." Much depends on the manager and leader of a party. Apart from being a faultless climber, he must be an expert in hygiene and psychology, and at times an autocrat. " Care in the choice of food and insistence upon a regime to get the subconscious stomach working by its new time-table " are indispensable. He must be able to counteract the effects of over-excitement, of boredom, of emotional relationships. He must be able to deal with hysteria in amateurs or guides. He must remember that "Personality is tried by the realities of mountains in deadly earnest," and that " Temper is the one permanent peril to all • Mountain Crap. 111 eeoffrey WEI:dhow Young. London : Methuen. 1231. net.1
climbing parties " ! A child (not belonging to any of the party) may be taken as an effective mascot against this peril. What
climber will be able to read without pricks of conscience the pages on " walking manners," or will feel himself sufficiently free from physical and sartorial deficiencies to agree that " it is well to remember that in all mountaineering we are to form the foreground of our companion's holiday views of great scenery " ?
With his body and his social capacities trained to the highest pitch, it only remains for the climber to equip himself with the well-tested armour of Captain J. P. Farrar or with the silkier options of the editor. He is then ready to attack the mountain walls. He may increase his chances of success by taking a siege-train in the shape of guides, but he must not reduce him- self to tourist level by handing over to them the reins of manage- ment. A more academic style of climbing has replaced the rough and ready methods of the past. The development of " balance climbing " and the perfecting of " ice-claws " enable smooth faces of rook and ice to be surmounted with graceful ease by those whose ankles are sufficiently flexible and strong. The variety of " cling-holds," of " push and press holds," the tactics of " rib riding " and of using an ice-axe as " an extra hand " are rather bewildering at first for any but a graduate of Montanvert or Pen-y-Pass. But the older type of climber, who cared little about style and belonged to the happy bourgeoisie " of mountaineering that succeeded the pioneers, will discover that he has himself employed many of these strange-sounding devices, and he might exclaim as M. Jourdain did to his professor : " Ma foi : it y a plus de quarante ann que je die de in prose sans que j'en 8114386 rien ; et je V0118 814i8 is plus oblige du monde de m'avoir appris cela." All that is required for avoiding the fatal stage of the " deciduous " condition a climber shares with other loosely attached objects on the mountain side will be found under " The Corrective Method."
The book is so complete and is the result of such a minute, analytical study of expert methods, the standard of climbing that it assumes is so near the limit of what is not only safe but possible for exceptional men, that it must remain a final work of reference for a generation. In the pages of Alpine literature Mr. Young has often appeared in the romantic nature, even with the panache of a Cyrano de Bergerac. In this classic upon mountain craft he is sternly practical, while always interesting from the freshness of his point of view and the individuality in his choice of words. Once or twice only do we get a glimpse of the man who has " almost heard the strange expectancy that fills great encrwfields before dawn with questions never uttered and never answered," and who " when the first rose ray quickens the first high summit " has known " the lassitude of odd illusion vanish and the summons of good sunlit action thrill every fibre from toe to finger-tip." The arming of the adolescent generation for great adventure is the task that Mr. Young has set himself. He knows, better perhaps than any other mall, that youth needs no stimulus beyond the challenge of the frowning rocks, and that the remembered radiance of the silent snows is enough to shed upon our later years " an everlasting light of calm aurora in the north."
Previous page
