Alpine notes and the climbing foot

by George Wherry

The Climbing Foot

It has often been noticed in mountaineering that a guide can go face forward and whole-footed up a slope, while the amateur following, and coming to the steep part, cannot plant his whole foot upon the slope, but has to go on his toes or else turn sideways.

The difficulty with the young climber seems to be to get his heel down, and he learns to look out for little humps or embedded stones on which he may place his heel.

Then if his calf muscles permit his foot to be correctly planted down, this interferes with his upward step, giving him discomfort at the back of the leg, experience very slowly enabling him to walk with the pelvic roll characteristic of the guide’s uphill gait.

It is worth noting here that rowing men in using sliding seats cannot always keep the heel down on to the stretcher at the beginning of their stroke.

It seems possible, and many climbers must have considered it so, that the angle made by the foot with the leg may be more acute in the guide who has climbed from childhood, and that in the case of the guide’s feet there may be some structural difference, both hereditary and acquired, actually permitting more freedom of movement at the ankle-joint, which neither muscular action nor power of balance could ever give to the amateur.

The guides wear their thick leather boots loosely laced at the top during an upward climb; so that it is difficult to judge of the play of the ankle: but last year I was fortunate in falling in with Captain Abney, who kindly photographed for me the naked feet of my guides in the act of climbing a rock, and in other positions for purposes of comparison.

So leaving out of the question all lateral movements at the ankle-joint as difficult and complicated to estimate, we will briefly consider the question of the ordinary angle that the foot makes with the leg so far as it is less than a right angle, and whether the trained guide has any advantage over the amateur in this respect.

FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD, SHOWING THE INSTEP TOUCHING THE SHIN ON SLIGHT PRESSURE OF THE FINGER.

The adaptation of the foot for progression on all fours. The baby is wrapped in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a nurse.

To begin with the foot of an infant, we notice that the foot, like the hand, is all adapted for climbing. Dr. Louis Robinson has shown that the infant’s hand-grip is so strong, that the whole weight of its body can be borne by the prehensile power of the hand. The miner in Bret Harte’s The Luck of Roaring Camp realized this strength of grip when he said after an experience with a cradled infant, “He wrastled with my finger, the d——d little cuss!”

The following photographs show how the child’s foot can be made by a touch of the forefinger to approximate the instep to the leg until there is actual contact. The toes curl round to take a great grip of the object pressing against the sole, and generally speaking there is the most wonderful adaptation both for climbing and for progression on all fours.

The infant chosen for the first photograph was rather an unusually thin baby, but it had a fair amount of vitality, and illustrates better than a chubby child the points which it is necessary to bring out. If, with tracing paper placed over the picture, a pencil line be drawn along the bearing surface of the sole of the foot, and another along the leg to meet the former line below the heel, the angle made by these two lines will measure about twenty degrees.

FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD TOUCHED WITH THE FINGER TO SHOW THE ANGLE OF THE FOOT WITH THE LEG AND THE PREHENSILE TOES.

The baby is wrapped up in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a nurse.

Some may claim that this wonderful function in the infantile foot is a remnant of its former arboreal existence. “Hush-a-bye baby on the tree top” is evidence on this point also according to other most learned people. This remarkable function of the infantile ankle-joint is probably an evidence of our origin, and if we have really descended from apes we should rather be proud of our present position than ashamed of our ancestry. We may well suppose that in the pre-natal state, the child was continually occupied in climbing the walls of its narrow prison, like an infantile Sisyphus, and the flexibility of the ankle-joint was an advantage for the maternal structures.

FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD. THE INSTEP IS MADE TO TOUCH THE SHIN BY SLIGHT PRESSURE OF THE FINGER.

The foot is adapted for climbing and progression on all fours. The baby is wrapped in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a nurse.

In the very tiny infant then of a few weeks old, nothing stops the foot from making the most acute angle with the leg except contact. The child a year or so old has lost some of this freedom, and begins to be adapted for the upright position; later on will begin to “feel its feet,” as the nurses say, and soon to rear itself upon its hind-limbs. The infant’s foot is plantigrade, and gradually during growth becomes adapted for the erect posture, and loses freedom of movement as it gains in strength.

FOOT OF AN INFANT NEARLY A YEAR OLD.

On pressure with the finger the angle of the foot with the leg is less acute and more adapted for the erect posture.

In the adult, in order to measure the angle required, it is necessary to get the long axis of the leg and the long axis of the foot, and then take the angle both when the foot is pressed upon and also when no pressure is permitted. To obtain this angle shadows may be tried; photographs are good, from which diagrams may be made with tracing paper and pencil; also mechanical plans, such as placing the back of the leg on a plane surface (as a table) allowing for the calf by a block behind the ankle, and then pressing a thin board against the sole of the foot, measuring with a suitable instrument the angle the board makes with the table at moments of extreme position, both with pressure and without. With the sole of the foot on the floor, and the heel well down when the leg is carried forward to the extreme position, the angle that the leg makes with the floor will indicate sufficiently, much as is shown in the picture of sitting down using only one limb. Whatever method is used the result is only approximate, but they will all agree, and are sufficient for our purpose. The measurements made when the feet are pressed gives alike in the Swiss guides and in the adult amateur an angle of about 60 degrees; without pressure the angle is nearer 70 degrees, and I measured two rowing men who could get no more acute angle than 70 degrees under any conditions. Always remembering that there is a fairly considerable “personal equation,” we may conclude that if there be any difference between guides and amateurs it will not be enough at any rate to explain more than a trifling part of the superiority of the guides in walking up a slope. The height of the boot heel may be taken to be the same in all mountain boots, but the guides tend to wear heels rather high.

FOOT OF AN INFANT NEARLY A YEAR OLD.

Already the angle of the foot with the leg is less acute and more adapted for the erect posture. The child is wrapped up by a nurse in a black velvet covering.

At Zermatt, on a sunny afternoon, Alois Kalbermatten and Peter Perren were good enough to allow me to pose them with their bare feet on a well-known rock, appropriately named the Shoehorn, while Captain Abney made admirable photographs, from which the reproductions accompanying this chapter were selected.

The guides laughed like schoolboys over the business, or over my solemnity at a scientific experiment. The photographs show very well the climbing position of the foot, and, if a comparison be made of an amateur’s foot, it does not appear that the angle made by the foot with the leg is more acute in the case of the guide. Even with Röntgen’s rays I do not think that any structural difference in the bones of the foot would be discovered.

In the case of the infant, so much of the bones of the foot is in the cartilaginous stage that nothing of the configuration could be studied with these searching rays, because cartilage shows so little shadow.

The foot then of the infant can be flexed until it is almost parallel with the leg; during growth it loses flexibility as it gains in strength and becomes adapted for the erect position and for walking, which is the natural gait of man. The angle made by the foot with the leg in adults is fairly fixed, and a difference between guides and amateurs in this respect is not easy to discover.

Nevertheless, there may be more power on the part of the experienced to keep a straight knee under the conditions of a flexed foot, and as the straight position is the strong position of the knee, the guides may well have an advantage there.

Mr. Clinton Dent has so ably described the mechanism of the uphill walk in the Badminton book on mountaineering, that it is only necessary to remind sportsmen of the figure therein of “ein junger,” page 92, going on his toes, using so much his calf muscles, and so little his greater powers above.

GUIDE’S FOOT IN CLIMBING POSITION AGAINST THE SHOEHORN ROCK AT ZERMATT.

Alois Kalbermatten photographed by Captain Abney. The angle made by the foot with the leg is about 60 degrees.

It is in balance that the guide has such strength. He maintains his equipoise under all conditions with the minimum of muscular effort, so that even under adverse conditions of sudden blasts of wind, pulls on the rope or other disturbances, he can keep his feet firmly planted, and his balance sure. At the end of a long day’s climb he is little wearied, and at the end of a long life he has a lot of climbing left in him. Let it not be supposed that great muscular strength is not there, because the guide does not put it out injudiciously. That great observer, Charles Darwin,[1] writing on balance in riding, makes the following interesting remarks on this very important subject:

GUIDE’S FOOT IN CLIMBING POSITION AGAINST THE SHOEHORN ROCK AT ZERMATT.

Peter Perren photographed by Captain Abney. The angle made by the foot with the leg is about 60 degrees.

GUIDE’S FOOT, TO SHOW THE ANGLE MADE BY THE FOOT WITH THE LEG WITHOUT PRESSURE.

“The Gauchos are well known to be perfect riders. The idea of being thrown, let the horse do what it likes, never enters their heads. Their criterion of a good rider is a man who can manage an untamed colt, or who, if his horse falls, alights on his own feet, or can perform such exploits. I have heard of a man betting that he would throw his horse down twenty times, and that nineteen times he would not fall himself. I recollect seeing a Gaucho riding a very stubborn horse, which three times successively reared so high as to fall backwards with great violence. The man judged with uncommon coolness the proper moment for slipping off, not an instant before or after the right time; and as soon as the horse got up the man jumped on his back, and at last they started at a gallop. The Gaucho never appears to exert any muscular force. I was one day watching a good rider, as we were galloping along at a rapid pace, and thought to myself, surely if the horse starts, you appear so careless on your seat, you must fall. At this moment a young ostrich sprang from its nest right beneath the horse’s nose. The young colt bounded to one side like a stag; but as for the man, all that could be said was that he started and took fright with his horse.” And again Darwin writes in reference to balance without apparent muscular effort, “Each morning, from not having ridden for some time previously I was very stiff, I was surprised to hear the Gauchos, who have from infancy almost lived on horseback, say that under similar circumstances they always suffer. St. Jago told me that, having been confined for three months by illness, he went out hunting wild cattle, and, in consequence, for the next two days his thighs were so stiff that he was obliged to lie in bed. This shows that the Gauchos, although they do not appear to do so, yet really must exert much muscular effort in riding.” The guides, in the same way, do not appear to exert much muscular effort, but great power is there both latent and manifest, and none of it is wasted in a useless manner. There is even found in climbing that ars celare which is so pretty in figure-skating.

FOOT OF A SWISS GUIDE.

The angle made by the foot with the leg without pressure. From a photograph by Captain Abney.

For an example of strength in balance, combined with bending at the ankle-joint, a climbing friend of mine, who is as graceful as a Greek athlete, and has a good balance, maintaining his equilibrium with the least possible muscular effort in mountaineering, has given me the study of carpet athletics photographed below. It represents two positions in the feat of standing on one foot, sitting slowly down, and then getting up again with the same leg without touching the floor except with the buttock. It is best not to attempt this performance often after the age of fifty, but it is no matter to mountaineers, for on the Alps all of them are of the same age, i.e. about five and twenty.

THE ACT OF SITTING DOWN, USING ONLY ONE LIMB, TO SHOW THE BALANCE WITH THE BENT KNEE AND ANKLE.

First position.

FOOT OF AN EXPERIENCED AMATEUR, TO SHOW THE ANGLE MADE BY THE FOOT WITH THE LEG.

THE ACT OF SITTING DOWN, USING ONLY ONE LIMB, TO SHOW THE BALANCE WITH THE BENT KNEE AND ANKLE.

Second and more extreme position.