enlarge-imageAn awkward bit of climbing.An awkward bit of climbing.
enlarge-imageGuides at Zermatt.Guides at Zermatt.
enlarge-imageA large party for a small hut.A large party for a small hut.
enlarge-imageAu revoir. To face p. 322.Au revoir.To face p. 322.
“Mountaineering by skilled mountaineers is about as dangerous as hunting in a fair country, and requires about as much pluck as to cross from the Temple to the Law Courts at midday. Difficult mountaineering is for the unskilled about as dangerous as riding a vicious horse in a steeplechase for a man who has never learnt to ride. But the tendency in those who speak or write of it for the outer world who are not mountaineers is to conceal a deficiency of charm of style by an attempt to slog in the melodramatic, and I plead guilty at once.
“So we think and write as though to us our passion for the hills were a fancy of the summer, a mere flirtation. Yet no one has lost the first bloom of his delight in Alpine adventure before the element of sternness has come to mar his memory and bind more closely his affections. You find the mildly Horatian presence of death somewhere near you, and that at a moment when, whatever your age and strength, and whatever your infirmities, you are at the full burst of youth; when Nature has been kindest she has been most capricious, and has flaunted her relentless savagery just when she hasbent to kiss you. The weirdest rocks rise from Italian gardens, and the forms of hill seem oldest when you are most exultant—immortal age beside immortal youth. Yet is it not this, ‘the sense of tears,’ in things which are not mortal which must mark your Alpine paths with memories as heavy and as definite as those inscriptions which tell of obscure and sudden death on every hillside, and invite your prayers for the woodcutter and the shepherd? You too will have seen friends go out into the morning whom you have never welcomed home. There is a danger, sometimes encountered recklessly, sometimes ignorantly, but sometimes—hard as it may be to understand the mood—not in the mere spirit of the idle youth, but met with and overcome, or overcoming, in a resolution which knows no pleasure in conquest save when the essay is fierce, and is calmly willing to pay the penalty of failure. While for ourselves we enjoy the struggle none the less because we have taken every care that we shall win, they freely give all; and for such there is surely no law. While by every precept and example we impress the old rules of the craft on our companions and our successors, how can we find words of blame for those who have at least paid the extreme forfeit, and found ‘the sleep that is among the lonely hills’?
“The penalty for failure is death; not alwaysexacted at the first slip, for Nature is merciful and ofttimes doth relent; but surely waiting for those who scorn the experience of others and slight her majesty in wilfulness, in ignorance, in the obstinate following of a fancy, in the vain pursuit of notoriety. The rules are known, and those who break them, and by precept and example tempt to break them those whom they should teach, wrong the sport which they profess to love.
“In this game as in any other, it should be a point of honour for us not to make the sport more difficult for others, and not to bring unnecessary sorrow upon the peasants, who help us to play it, and upon their families. It should be a point of honour to play the game, and, if disaster comes in playing it, we have at least, done our best.”
Alp
A mountain pasture, usually with chalets tenanted only in summer.
Arête
A ridge.
Bergschrund
A crevasse between the snow adhering to the rocks and the lower portion of the glacier.
Col
A pass between two peaks.
Couloir
A gully, usually filled with snow or stones.
Crevasse
A crack in a glacier, caused by the movement of the ice over an uneven bed or round a corner.
Firn
The snow of the upper regions, which is slowly changing into glacier ice.
Grat
A ridge.
Joch
A pass between two peaks.
Kamm
A summit ridge.
Moraine
An accumulation of stones and sand which has fallen from bordering slopes on to a glacier. Medial moraines are formed by the junction of glaciers, their lateral moraines joining.
Moulin
A glacier mill, or shaft through the ice, formed by a stream which has met a crevasse in its course, and plunging into its depths has bored a hole right through the glacier and often into the rock beneath.
Névé
The French ofFirn. (See Firn.)
Rücksack
The bag type of canvas knapsack now invariably used by guides and climbers.
Schrund
A crevasse. (See Crevasse.)
Sêrac
A cube of ice, formed by transverse crevasses, and found where a glacier passes over steep rocks. This part of a glacier is called an ice-fall.
A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,R,S,T,U,V,W,Z
AAbruzzi, Duke of,8Adine Col,108Æggischhorn,257Ailefroide,228,245Aitkins, Mr,162Aletsch Glacier,125Aletschhorn, avalanche on,55Almer, Christian,223,237Almer, Ulrich,55Andenmatten,108Anderegg, Jacob,126,127Anderegg, Melchior,125,212Andermatten, Franz,202Arbuthnot, Mrs,257Arc, Valley of,266Aren Glacier,57,61Arlberg Pass,61Arolla,168Arves, Aiguilles d’,248Asti,265BBaker, Mr,134Balloon (crossing Alps),298Balme,300Bans, Les,228Baumann, Hans,127Bean, Mr,136Bennen,57Bergemoletto,65Bergli Hut,210Bessanese,299Bettega,183Biner, Alois and P.,302Biner, Joseph,204,302Blaitiére, Aiguille de,26,37Blanc, Mont,136,153Blanche, Dent,51,152,167Boeufs Rouges,228Bohren,58Boniface,265Bonvoison, Pic de,226Botto,298Bregaglia group,296Brenner,136Brewer, Mrs,61Bricolla châlets,168Bristenstock,164Broadbent, Mr,302Bruce, Major,59Brulle, Mons. H.,260Burckhardt, Mr,208Burchi peak,59Burgener, Alexander,104,202CCà d’Asti,265Carr, Mr Ellis,23Carrel, J. A.,21Caucasus,58,99,116Cenis, Mont,264Cerbillonas, the,260Chamonix,8,23,126,153Charbonnet, Captain,298Charmoz ridge,50Claret,258Clayton, Captain,261Collie, Dr Norman,134Constance,60Conway, Sir W. M.,155,275Copland Valley,4Croz, Michel,222,238DDauphiné,11Dent, Mr C. T.,99,116,142,202Devas, Mr J. F. C.,144Dixon, Mr H. B.,133Dolomites,182Dom,52Donkin, Mr W. F.,58,99,116Dora Riparia, Valley of,266Düniberg,282Durand Glacier,204Durando,298Dych Tau,105EEcrins,228,235Ecrins, Col des,225Eiger,264Elbruz,115Elm, landslip of,275Elmer, Huntsman,280Encula, Glacier de l’,246Étançons, Val des,11FFellenberg, E. Von,212Ferard, Mr A. G.,144Fitzgerald, Mr E.,3Flender, Herr,138Foster, Mr G. E.,126Fox, Mr,116Freshfield, Mr Douglas,116Fürrer, Alphons,8Furrer, Elias,167GGabelhorn, Ober,55Gastaldi, Rifugio,299Gavarnie,261Géant, Dent du,257Geneva, Lake of,37Gentinetta, A.,8Gentinetta, E.,206Gestola,99Glace, Mer de,8Glarus, Canton,277Gohna Lake,277Grass, Hans,55Greenwood, Mr Eric,154Grogan, Mr,302Grove, F. Craufurd,2Gurkhas,59HHabl, Herr Emil,292Hardy, Mr,164Hartley, Mr E. T.,166Hill, Mr,167Himalayas,58,275Hochjoch Haus,261Hohberghorn,52Hörnli,9Horrocks, D. P.,204IImboden, Joseph,52,165,195Imboden, Roman,195Imseng, Ferdinand,202,267Innsbruck,60Interlaken,221JJones, Mr Glynne,167Julen, Edouard,206Julen, Felix,302Jungfrau,55,210Jungfrau Hut,209KKaiserbrunn,292Kennedy, Dr,164,222King, Sir H. S.,208Koenig, Herr,138Kubli, Herr Oswald,281Kurzras,261LLa Bérarde,11,245La Grave,11Langtauferer Glacier,262Lapland,306Lausanne,37Lucerne,301Lyons,298MMaggiore, Lago,301Maithana Hill, fall of,275Maquignaz,21Maritime Alps,305Martino, St,182Matthews, Mr E. C.,211Matterhorn,8,21,248,302Maund, Mr,11Maund, Mrs,11Maurer,11,116Meije,12,248Meije, Brèche de la,12,228Middlemore, Mr,11Midi, Aiguille du,126Mischabel group,301Monand, Mons. J.,306Mönch,124Montanvert,8Moore, Mr A. W.,124,222,235“Moseley’s Platte,”302Mouvoison,142Mueller Valley,4Mummery, Mr,23,58Mürren,208Müsli,280Mussa, Cantina della,300NNant Francon,319Nantillons Glacier,24Neyssel, Mons. Antoine,306Noir, Glacier,245OOetzthal,261Offerer, J.,136Ossoue, Valley of,261PPalü, Piz,55Passingham, Mr,202Packe, Mr C.,259Pelvoux,245Pelvoux, Crête du,245Perren, H.,138Perren, P.,204Pilatte, Col de la,222Plan, Aiguille du,23Plattenbergkopf,277Pourri, Mont,267Powell, Captain,116,123Pyrenees,259RRax, the,291Renaud, Mons.,223Rey, Emil,8Rhyner, Fridolin,287Rhyner, Meinrad,280Richardson, Miss,165Rocca Venoni,300Roccia, Family of,68Roche Melon,264Rocky Mountains,133Rodier,11Rosetta,182Rothhorn, Zinal,195SSaas, Valley of,301Sahrbach,134Schäffer, Dr,136Schildthorn,257Schuster, Mr,162Schwarzsee Hotel,10Sefton, Mount,4Seiler, Herr,145,162Seiler, D. H.,301Sernf Valley,277Silberhorn,208Skagastöldstind,140Ski accident,137Slingsby, Mr Cecil,23,140,152Sloggett, Mr,8Smith, Mr Haskett-,158Solly, Mr,156Somis, Ignazio,65Sospello,306Spechtenhauser,261Spelterini, Captain,301Spender, Mr H.,167Strahlplatten,209Stock, Mr E. E.,302Stockje,156Supersax, Ambrose,209Susa,265TTavernaro,183Tetnuld Tau,99Tönsberg,141Trift Valley,195Tuckett, Mr F.,55,264Tuckett Glacier,5Turin,298UUschba,115VVallon, Glacier du,245Vallot Hut,153Valtournanche,21Ventina Glacier,316Vignemale,260Viso, Monte,269Vuignier, Jean,168WWalker, Mr,223,235Walker, Mr Horace,126Wandfluh,166,179Watson, Mr and Mrs,257Weisshorn,248Weisskugel,261Weissmies,301Wengern Alp,124,210Willink, Mr,123Wildlahner Glacier,136Wolfsthal,292Woolley, Mr H.,116Whymper, Mr E.,222,235Wyss, Schoolmaster,280ZZentner, Kaspar,287Zermatt,10,51,139,181,301Zmutt Glacier,166,179Zurbriggen,3,59Zurbriggen, Clemens,168Zurbrücken, Louis,209Zurmatter,302
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