MODERN MOUNTAINEERING.
DURING the last ten years, Mountaineering has not only in some respects changed its character, but has become more generally recognised than before by the public as a legitimate mode of physical recreation. On the one hand, ascents of the greater peaks, which used to be confined to a small band of ex- perts, are every summer made by persons in their first "season ;" on the other, some ascents of importance have been made without guides. It may be useful, therefore, to discuss the extent and causes of this changed aspect of things, and to endeavour, in passing, to throw as clear a light as may be on a subjecton which we believe that many misapprehensions exist.
That the mountains are ascended with much greater facility than they formerly were is evident to all visitors to Switzerland. Ten years ago it was considered a proof of some training and skill to ascend the Weisshorn ; now, at most, the ascent speaks to two or three weeks' walking in the Alps. It is a fact, belong- ing to the same early period, and perhaps in danger of being re- garded as a myth by some of our readers, that a pair of gentle- men who, towards the end of their second season in Switzerland, were arranging an ascent of the Jungfrau, were warned by an accomplished mountaineer against the difficulties of that moun- tain, and recommended to try the Finsteraarhorn in preference. Now-a-days the ascent of both peaks without guides is hardly considered worthy of remark. In point of fact, as things are at present, the one requisite for success in the case of a young man of average health and walking-powers who wishes to try the ex- citement of or get a name for the loftiest Alpine climbing is money. The mountains have become so hackneyed, and the guides are so eager for their fees, that it is hardly likely that the latter would de- cline to accompany a party of inexperienced persons on any first- class expedition, provided a sufficient number of them were engaged. All the humility of the earlier aspirants has vanished. In former times there were many men who would be too modest to attempt the harder peaks in their first season ; now a youngster will rush out from England for the first time to do the thing, and " bag "
as many peaks as would have crowned a veteran career of yore. With such men all is business ; the poetry and beauty of Nature are for them idle sounds. To them universally, as formerly it was to a few Americans and others, it is a mere waste of time to turn off the path to some noble and unique point of view, which in their eys is but a summit of no importance, and that does not "pay." The glacier world impresses them with no awe, and con- veys but a slight sense of grandeur, which hardly survives the first day's experience. Its phenomena are passed by unnoticed, be- cause unknown, its magnificent proportions are unsuspected, be- cause viewed with eyes and mind untrained. It has no present interest for them but as a farrago of "agenda," its past associa- tions are pleasant or the reverse as its " acta " appears to them to be superior or inferior to the performances of others, in respect to the time taken and other points of comparison. Nor do these would-be mountaineers trouble themselves with maps, except, perhaps, as part of the conventional mountaineering equipment. It is enough for them to have pointed out to them by their guides the more prominent mountains that the day's course presents to their notice ; and so vague sometimes are the impressions they have derived from the same often precarious source of the names of the passes they have been traversing, as completely to baffle, by their subsequent description, a person well acquainted with the district. Not long ago a gentleman "doing the high-level route,' arriving at a place whence several passes of varying interest were open to him, and being asked at table delatite which of these he was going to take, replied that he really did not know ; the guides had pointed him out some chalets he was to pass next morning. The mountain talk of these inexperienced 'climbers might be misleading, were it not easy to apply to it a readily. ascertained law, by which the necessary transmutations of mean- ing may be made. It must be borne in mind, for instance, that the original ideas of these gentlemen on the subject being of a limited nature, their descriptive remarks are not to be held to have any value, except as repetition of a conventional standard. The need, however, of a key to their language is most urgently apparent, when they come to discuss the easiness or the reverse of their expeditions. The rule here is strictly to dissociate such ex- pressions as " easy " or " difficult " from any personal et-perie,nce on the part of the speaker. If it is patent that their language is not merely used to reflect the opinions of the last well-known mountaineer who made the expedition in question, an intelligible and approximately correct signification may be obtained by con- sidering the terms used in immediate relation to the amount of difficulty experienced by the guides in assisting _their travellers up or down the mountains or passes referred to. It is time that the comparative virtues of that much - abused class, the British Tourists, should be recognised. They at least do not affect an odious nil admirari, or pretend to be above the study of their guide-books. They at least worry and fret themselves, good, honest folk ! in their pursuit of pleasure. And, best of all, they rarely flourish above the level of the pines, while they have the good-sense at table d'hôte to sit listening open-mouthed while the spruce young gentlemen opposite with peeled faces are inter- changing congratulations in loud voices on having done the Weisskamm in 2 hrs. 57 min. less time than Matfield, of the Alpine Club. But canvassthe opinion of the latter gentleman and his confra- ternity as to which class of persons has the prior claim to be regarded as the Philistines of the Alps, and they would interrogate you in turn whether it was the holiday costermonger on his donkey or the dapper cockney on his steed, with whose presence at the meet the suburban huntsman was most disgusted. These mountain skipjacks should no more be ranked among mountaineers, than the tyro at cricket or the undergraduate in his first term of boxing lessons should be considered masters of their respective arts,— unless it be assumed that mountaineering is the only manly pur- suit to be picked up, like lawn-tennis, in a season. To acquire a sufficiently cool head to make the most of bodily proficiency is not a thing of a day. Several seasons may be required to impart respectable steadiness on an ice-slope. The flashy dexterity which a ready man will acquire in a single season by constant imitation of his guides does not necessarily guarantee steadiness V' or coolness, should he be thrown by emergency on his own resources.
One evil is the natural consequence of this rush to the Alps. To do the thing in the best style, the best available guide must be procured. With first-rate guides, not only may more am- bitions projects be entertained than otherwise, but lustre is =reflected by their distinction on the travellers who have been fortunate enough to secure them. But the first-rate guides are few in number, nor are the other guides of repute a large class. The inevitable result is a competition between what we may call the old aristocracy of the Alps and the moneyed upstarts, and a consequent rise in prices. A temptation to desert their regular -employers of the old school is thrown in the way of the guides by large offers, to which, in some cases, we believe, they have been known to succumb ; and in any case, the old employers find it necessary to increase their payment. It has now become quite -out of the question for a man whose means little more than per- mit the summer outing, to adopt the ordinary mode of successful mountaineering, viz., the continuous employment of a guide, or a guide and porter, for a series of weeks. A rate such as has lately come under our notice in the case of an ordinary guide-50 fr. for peaks, 25 fr. for passes, and 8 fr. for intermediate days—can clearly not be extracted from a scanty margin. Proud, as we have reason to be, of the exploits of our countrymen, the truth
til remains, that they and a few well-to-do individuals from other countries have for years had a monopoly of the services of the competent guides. The genial and enthusiastic temperament of many of the writers in the Swiss Alpine-Club Jahrbuch can- not but inspire the candid mind with regret that such meritorious persons in their own country should only have had access, as a rule, to inferior professional assistance.
The real cause of the facility and frequency of ascents in recent Tears is to be looked for, not in any alteration of the mountains themselves, for though difficulties come and go, and change with cvery year, in the main the higher Alps remain the same as of old ; hut in the gradual accumulation of general and particular know- ledge of mountains on the part of the Guides as a class. Within the period we are discussing, confidence has taken the place of hesitation, security that of a dread of risk ; the nature of the work, its dangers and difficulties, are better understood than formerly. Not that the skill and sagacity of the first-rate guides of the present day are superior to those of the old men, but the science then confined to a few is now distri- buted, by training and imitation, among a larger number. It is now a well-recognised fact that ordinary mountaineering, under ordinary circumstances, and with settled weather, is free from appreciable risk.
A well-known Professor not long ago expressed his opinion that under present circumstances, real mountaineers would only he able to differentiate themselves by going in parties without guides. Certainly, our Professor has successfully differentiated himself, for be is one of two distinguished mountaineers who have ascended Monte Rosa entirely unaccompanied. As, however, no one can cross the upper snows alone without a certain amount of risk to his life, not even the best guide being able to eliminate altogether in so doing the chance of falling helplessly into a cre- °nese, it would not be easy in this case to meet the charge of fool- hardiness. Parties of experienced mountaineers, no doubt, can perform easy expeditions without laying themselves open to such a charge ; and this summer the ascent of a mountain, usually considered formidable, has been made by three such gentlemen under favourable circumstances. It may fairly be a question whether the aspect of mountaineering we have been discussing is not partly responsible for such attempts, and whether an influential motive with the persons making them, may not be -an honest desire to "differentiate" themselves from pseudo- mountaineers. Apart from the special attractions which moun- taineering without guides may be presumed to have for them, discontent at finding themselves in common estimation no better than the upstarts may, rightly or wrongly, have weighed on such persons' minds, and tended to dissatisfy them with the conven- tional mountaineering. The public, however, are more concerned with the results of their actions than with the motives which led to them. Are we likely to see a "furore for guideless climbing?" is Mr. Cook likely, within the next ten years, to advertise a cheap trip to the top of the Matterhorn ? We greatly fear, if he does do so, that, till the railway is made, at least as far as the "shoulder," with slow trains stopping at the "hut," that -enterprising gentleman's office will be besieged by persons demanding back the price of their coupons. In our opinion, neither spurious nor real mountaineers are at present likely to take to mountaineering without guides. The first class would miss their object in coming out, which is to " do " peaks. Such mountaineering, to obtain even a moderate amount of suc- cess, must in the nature of things require, in ordinary cases, years of training, at first with and afterwards by small degrees without guides. The results, moreover, that may be expected are at best of quite a humble order. The passage of the Col d'llereus, or of the Adler, may cause a thrill of pleasure that will be remembered for life, but to our upstarts these excursions are mere beggarly elements. A real love for the thing can only com- pensate a man for the attendant discomforts, such as the burden of provisions and knapsacks, the comparative length of time con- sumed, and the chance of failure, and for the mortification of finding himself, after all, a nobody, compared with others who are meantime skipping lightly from one first-class peak to another. As to the second class, they are too much wedded to their favourite guides and old asso- ciations, they are too hopeful of accomplishing some pet novelty, to make it worth their while to turn to what is equally barren in results and contrary to the received conven- tionalism, except in a few cases here and there, where special fondness for it has been accidentally originated. The mere fact that with guides ladies now can ascend mountains that no ama- teurs without guides would even attempt, at any rate, without previous knowledge of the route, is sufficient to justify the above comparison of results. The reason is as humiliating in a sense as it is obvious. Really good guides are so superior to the best ama- teurs, that they can convoy even non-climbers over difficulties which the others could not even pass, though not so impeded. It is as absurd to compare a first-rate amateur with a first-rate guide, as to compare the champion of a University gymnasium with a Tom Sayers. There are some amateurs who are superior to the best professionals in general or geographical knowledge of the Alps, but no amateur even approximates to the latter in the instinct, grown into a second nature, by which they can thread their way among difficult rocks, and afterwards retrace the same. There are amateurs whose surefootedness, like that of many a common peasant of the higher valleys, is not likely under any circumstances to fail ; but in difficult ice-work, in step-cutting and the like, the first-rate guide is without a rival in the world. It was once sagely remarked by a mathema- tician, himself one of the boldest and most accomplished of English mountaineers, that the difference between one amateur and another was so slight, in comparison with the difference be- tween all amateurs and good professional mountaineers, as to be practically inappreciable. What a first-rate guide can do for a traveller in case of emergency was shown, in striking contrast with the recent occurrence on the Felik Joch, by J. A. Carrel, when escorting a Scotch lady across one of the most bewildering snow- fields in the Alps. Beset by a snowstorm, the route and the hope of a safe descent lost, he set to work, aided by the porter, to build a snow hut for his charge. An air-hole only being left, the party, though wet, maintained their warmth and comfort from the afternoon till eleven o'clock the next morning, and reached their destination afterwards none the worse.
On the Matterhorn, eleven years ago, a warning was conveyed that ought never to be forgotten, and cannot be too often reiterated. A promising specimen of a climber in his first season made the slip ; and a gentleman, reckoned by many the first amateur of his time, allowed the slip when made to assume disastrous proportions. The first had grown so demoralised as to fall in an easy place ; the second was letting the rope hang in a loop of ten or twelve feet behind a struggling man. We cannot conceive a guide so to have omitted to observe the most essential rule of security in such circumstances.
After all, the old style bolds its own. It is the true moun- taineers, as a rule, those who return again and again to the Alps, who achieve whatever there is remaining of difficult or new. Not only are the best guides generally engaged by their old friends, but the parvenus are seldom taken by their guides off the beaten round of "first-class peaks." A reserve of a certain class of expeditions is maintained for well-known names and well- tried feet.
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