Choice of District
One consideration remains for the leader, if it has not been already decided by the preferences of his party—that of the district he will choose for the season. A few general principles may help to guide his choice.
The tour may be either concentric, with ascents made from one or from a succession of centres, or eccentric, in which case the party will be moving forward and carrying its own luggage. The first is the more luxurious, the second the more attractive, holiday. The choice depends upon the character of the party and upon the weather of the season.
With beginners, in a good season, it is more instructive and independent to move along a range, crossing passes and taking only the climbs that come. The same progressive type of tour is the best to follow in a really bad season, when the big peaks are out of the question, for the time at least, and when there may yet be a delightful holiday spent in wandering among the lower Alps below the cloud-level. Even for those who may be ambitious of big peaks, this is a better alternative than sitting cooped up with other murmurers waiting for the impossible in high hotels.
On the other hand, in good but uncertain weather, if the party is desirous of big climbs, and has to economize its time, it is better to move by express routes from centre to centre, and to strike for the big peaks without loss of days, when the good weather comes, and while it lasts.
In more doubtful weather, when the days are playing at ‘alternates’ but the peaks are still possible on fair days, and when consequently we are not forced down to the pleasures of low rambling, it is well to climb still from centres, and from the hotel itself. If, indeed, the party is aiming at a special peak, it should occupy the nearest hut, and provision it as a centre, ready to start on the first clear morning. But if, as is wiser in a bad season, it is wishful to take anything that offers, it is even better to stay at the central hotel below—since peaks enclosing a valley are often differently affected by different kinds of weather—and the party is then in a position to set out at once for whichever mass first becomes feasible. It can start overnight, and so avoid the hut altogether. The fatigue and romance of an all-night tramp are less prejudicial to the chances of a successful climb on the following day than the depression of a dull and stiff morning start after a comfortless night.
On the other hand, there is no more memorable experience than to sleep out in the open air during a spell of settled weather, with the stars for company and the first stir of wind before dawn as a strange awakening. The man who wishes to taste the full pleasure of a mountaineering day should sleep out whenever he can the night before, and he should lie far enough from his companions to be able to feel himself alone.
Possibly the pleasantest holiday of all is obtained by a combination of the concentric and eccentric methods, according as weather and inclination direct. To wander forward independent of times and plans, and to make pauses when we wish for more prolonged assaults upon peaks that tempt us, is a twofold delight. But it postulates leisure.
At home it is natural to base our calculations upon an estimate of a climb every day. Only when we are faced with the facts on the spot, the distances, portages and weather, do we recognize that we are lucky if we can make two or three good climbs a week. We must allow two days for each big climb, and leave a margin for the off-days. Younger heads or less experienced legs must be taught this last doctrine for their own good. The more practised will more easily recall that contrast is the essence of enjoyment, and that the days of hard going on ice and heated rocks are only fully realized and remembered if they are relieved by occasional lapses into tranquil lounging in the grassy valleys, amid the cool temptations of lemon-ices and clinking teetotal glasses.
If the party, having settled its general plan, has no preference for any particular district, it may be guided, in the Alps, by a few broad distinctions as between the best known districts.
The Oberland offers the best opportunities for snow and ice work of almost all kinds. For this reason the Oberland is often the best choice in a moderately fine or uncertain summer when the snow has stayed late. The snow slopes of the gentler Oberland peaks are climbable when the big ridges of the Pennines or the Mont Blanc region are still closed to us by snow cloaks and cornices. On the other hand, in a bad summer the weather is usually at its worst in the Oberland, and the long snow wades may become intolerable, unless we are prepared to snatch a winter tour from a bad summer month by traversing the Oberland, with its high connecting glaciers and summits of easier angle, on ski.
Again, the comparative easiness of the ascents and the training they offer on ice and snow suggest the Oberland as a good choice for an introductory tour with beginners, and as an equally good choice for the preliminary week’s training in any later season. There is no better introduction, or reintroduction, to alpine work than practice on the ice of the Aletsch glacier, varied by ascents of the snow and small rock peaks in the vicinity.
The Pennines offer finer individual peaks, with greater names, and they are more specially adapted for those who prefer concentric mountaineering, with bigger single efforts and the company of their kind. Their variety of type and aspect makes them suitable for selection in ‘alternating’ weather. Often when other regions are closed up, and when even its neighbours are shrouded, personal idiosyncrasies will keep some single Pennine peak open for quick, comfortable ascent. The merit of the Pennines is their mixed general climbing. They have fewer great ice and snow climbs to offer than the Oberland or Mont Blanc, and their rock is inferior to the Aiguilles.
The Pennines of the west, more especially the Val d’Evoléna, have the pleasant characteristic of offering short, condensed and possible climbs in bad seasons, when the bigger peaks are unapproachable, and when the Oberland may be indulging its habit of making bad weather worse. They, too, are an excellent introduction to mountaineering; but their miniature attractions have a somewhat dangerous fascination for British climbers, whom they are apt to hold spellbound even in good seasons, and withdraw from hardier and greater enterprise.
In a fair summer, the Chamonix Aiguilles are the flame-points on the crown of great rock climbing. For length, and as a test of skill, they have no equal in Europe. They also include some magnificent snow and ice ascents. But it is their rock that marks them out as supreme. As a consequence, many British climbers make the mistake of going to them too soon, before they are equal to their demands. It is better to keep them as a great reward for labour when our developed mountaineering technique can enable us not only to overcome, but to enjoy the infinite variety of problems, and when we can feel not only participators in an ascent, but masters of ourselves and of the difficulties throughout their exceeding length. I have seen more than one of the most noted performers on British rocks and from the eastern Dolomites, men who could frolic up the Grépon crack, forced, from pure muscular fatigue, to ask for the rope before the Grépon summit was reached, and only rediscover the pleasure of the ascent of the Dru a full day after their return from the traverse.
To men who can get all that they want of difficult rock in our own islands, the Dolomites of the Eastern Alps present fewer attractions in sunny seasons. Their greater distance is a disability, and they offer small snow and ice practice. But in bad seasons they are an admirable last resort, and an escape to their warm, dry and coloured levels, or rather heights, may send many a party, disappointed elsewhere by ill weather of its alpine season, home in good health and firm muscle.
The great southern wall of the Alps, from Courmayeur to Macugnaga and farther, offers the greatest combined ice and rock mountaineering on the largest and most formidable scale. For those who know its secrets there is also the attraction of many smaller ascents, with the incomparable views as background. But it is not a region for bad weather, or for any but very competent parties.
Early in the season the Southern Alps, from Savoy and Cogne almost down to the Mediterranean, make an exquisite wandering-ground, all too little visited. In May and June we can often enjoy among them flowers, clear climbing and free wandering, long before their big northern brothers have shaken off their winter coats of snow and storm. They retain much of the undiscovered charm of the great Alps in earlier days, and a variety of beauty that can challenge comparison with the impressiveness of greater heights.
I have intentionally avoided mentioning those secluded and particular districts which it must be the fortune of all faithful mountaineers to discover for themselves, and where every enterprising party may gain the reward of its independence and experience in the certainty that it has found, at last and alone, the one perfect region, perfectly contrived, for all purposes of climbing and enjoyment.