Mountain Craft

by Unknown

ICE CRAFT

For snow and ice as for rock we study primarily balance,—balance in motion, and above joints flexed as well as straight. The elementary movements and practice are identical. Rock is the substructure of mountains, and ice and snow are its accretions. Similarly, rock climbing is the groundwork of mountaineering technique; and for ice and snow we employ the same principles, availing ourselves of the mechanism of axe and claw and ski so as to render them equally applicable to new conditions of surface and texture.

For balance climbing, footwork is all-essential. On rock, only where angle or unsound texture makes footwork alone insufficient, do we help out with the hands. On ice or snow, only where angle or a texture too soft or too hard denies our feet their assurance, do we supplement them with ice-axe and ice-claw, or to a certain extent with ski. While a man remains a grip climber, he will never make an iceman; and he had better go back and learn first how to climb in balance on rocks, rather than set himself the twofold task of learning balance and axe or claw technique simultaneously and painfully on ice. Most of the early mountaineers learned what footwork they knew upon ice first, and it was therefore very natural that they should in their mountaineering precepts give the larger share of space and attention to elementary movements and exercises in stepping on ice and snow. These movements are now learned more easily and perfectly on rock, sound and unsound, and transferred, when we go to the Alps, to snow and ice, following a more logical and certainly more safe order of study. In recent years I have taken some of the very best of the new generation of ‘continuous’ rock climbers for their first climbs in the Alps, and have found that their balanced footwork took only a few hours to adapt itself to snow or ice surfaces, skipping all the elementary stages hallowed by tradition. Consequently they could start upon the more recondite branches of ice and snow craft with a rapid assurance that left the guides frankly interested.

Largely because it was the only type of mountaineering that they really studied as a craft, and consequently could fully enjoy when they mastered it, ice and snow craft came to be considered by many of our predecessors as the only true mountaineering, to the supersession of all other branches.

After the possibilities of rock surface began to be appreciated, and while rock climbing was working through its successive and isolated stages, the swing of the pendulum went all too far the other way. Ice and snow came to be regarded by all except the old alpine school as intrusions upon ascents, to be got over as best one could. Their study was proportionately neglected by guides and amateurs alike, who chose the ribs and rock faces for their routes, and were apt to be bothered if they had to come off them. The lack of any advanced technique became painfully apparent when mountaineering ambition progressed to the point of attempting great new alpine ridges and faces, where a knowledge of ice and snow craft is indispensable. Many a failure and even accident revealed what a large lacuna our rock climbers had been nourishing in their alpine understandings.

During the development of balance climbing, whose basis is footwork upon any angle and any kind of surface, the scale has been steadily readjusting itself. Simultaneously with, or possibly as a result of, the unification of our several climbing methods upon rock, ice and snow into a single technique of balance, has come the new interest in foot-attachments, the popularizing of the use of ice-claws and of ski. While balance in climbing movement was still only rudimentary, it was more comfortable to climb on a material like snow or ice, where the human could make holds and steps of the shape and at the angle that best suited his standing or his ‘walking’ balance. He preferred this to making a series of awkward bodily adjustments in order to fit himself on to existing accidents in the surface of rock. But as climbers learned to master balance during any movement and in every attitude, and to depend less and less upon the hand, they became naturally alive to the advantage of adopting footgear which secured safer and more continuous progress by adapting the feet to the surface, and saved them the time and rhythm lost in stopping to alter the surface to suit their feet. Hence the increase in our use of soft soles and scientific nailing, on rock, and the perfecting of ice-claws, which allow our feet to walk on ice at whatever angle we find it, and of ski, which make a royal progress of the most voracious snow.

A man who is a good continuous balance climber should be able, as I have said, to transfer his footwork easily and quickly to snow and ice, and to move safely upon moderate mountains, satisfactorily managing the rope and cutting the occasional steps that such ascents demand. Here many climbers stop learning, even among those who write books; and just about here the real delights of icemanship and snow craft begin faintly to suggest themselves. From this point on our rock technique cannot help us, and may, if persisted in, merely embarrass and delay us. Ice and snow, conjoined or apart, with all their significations of colour, texture and angle, and in their local or ephemeral counter-changes, form a study by themselves. As it is certain that we cannot do much route inventing or advanced climbing upon rock without knowing something of the different sorts of rock and their meanings, so is it far more certain that in really big mountaineering no one will get far or go secure whose knowledge of ice and snow is limited to the mere physical ability to climb upon them.

It is impossible to do more than suggest a few lines which training might follow, in order to attain to a point of experience where the specialized study can be begun.

The Nature of Ice.

To start with, it is as well to know something, sufficient for the working purposes of practical summer mountaineering, as to the different sorts of ice which we meet with in the mountains. There are three principal varieties:

Firstly, ‘grainy ice,’ or ‘blue ice’ as it is usually called from its colour. This is formed chiefly from snow, by regelation. Nearly all glacier ice is of this character; whence we also know it as ‘glacier ice.’ It is glacier ice with which we have by far the most to do in the Alps, and its successive stages have to become familiar to us as names, and recognizable from their appearance, if we ever wish to lead a party. In the first stage pressure makes the fallen grains of snow cohere, and an opaque white mass is thus formed, a fine-grained solid, containing a lot of imprisoned air. This stage is usually but incorrectly named ‘frozen snow.’ Under the further action of pressure these grains coalesce, by regelation, and larger grains are formed; part of the entangled air escapes, the solid becomes coarse-grained and less opaque and assumes a bluish tinge. This is called névé (or firn). Under the continuation of the process ultimately all the imprisoned air escapes, the solid becomes transparent and very coarse-grained, and its larger masses have a distinctive, blue colour. This is called ‘ice.’ As the process is a continuous one, it is impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between the different stages, or always to be sure of saying with certainty that our feet are on the one or the other.

Secondly, there is ‘black ice’; ice more or less continuous and generally in layers, formed by the freezing of water. This is comparatively rarely encountered in the Alps, or in mountains, but more often in winter than in summer. Where it intrudes, it is very exacting, as it calls for a different type of claw technique and a different sort of blow with the axe.

Thirdly, there is an intermediate, and intermediately attractive and frequent, class of ice, produced by the infiltration of water with snow, and by their subsequent freezing. This is called ‘snow ice.’

In route designing and in climbing we have to be able to recognize these types and stages. Each has its own right method of treatment. But grainy or glacier ice is the characteristic alpine ice, and most of the suggestions made as to ice technique apply to ice of this description, where it is not otherwise expressly stated.

A large, dry glacier introduces us to almost every normal type of ice, from hard blue to firn, and is the best practice ground for finding our ice feet and transferring our rock balance to ice angles. A week’s good practice devoted exclusively to ice craft on a glacier, under a good mentor, will set our feet on the way of better icemanship than if we trust for our training to the hours of sporadic ice work, generally of some difficulty, which we may meet year after year, and muddle through, on our big climbs. Few men are systematic enough to devote all their first alpine enthusiasm to a restricted training of this kind; but any man who hopes at some date to become a mountaineer should begin early to give his ice some intensive study. Even a mountaineer of experience has to allow for personal variations when he returns each season. However well attuned he may keep his sense of touch on rock by practice in Britain, he takes some days to recover the feel of his feet on ice, and his ice nerve; very much as a skater or a skier has to do each winter. Some of us make a habit, in theory at least, of giving the first day of a tour to work of all sorts on a dry glacier; the second day to some short climb, combining both rock and snow work; the third, probably an off-day, to going up to a hut, and the fourth to a big climb, which must embrace as much varied ice as possible. But this is for resumptive practice in technique. It is not sufficient for a commencing season, or for a grounding in common ice law.

Ice-Claws.

Any man who wishes to make big ascents is well advised if he begins early to learn how to use ice-claws (or crampons). It is not that we cannot climb without them, even as we could without nails in our boots, but that we can learn to climb more securely, and go faster and farther, with them.

Claws have been used by individuals for something like a century, but the conservatism of mountaineers long refused to recognize them as more than an individual eccentricity. It found itself able to draw a nice distinction between the ‘sporting’ character of the assistance given by a number of long spikes separately and laboriously screwed and unscrewed on the boot, and that of a similar number of spikes affixed by a single simple mechanism. It was not until the guides finally capitulated that the practice could grow at all general or that its extra security could become recognized as workmanlike. Claws were formerly assumed to be useless unless worn by every member of a party; an assumption that prevented their use by many amateurs who failed to carry their guides’ conviction with them. As a fact, even one expert furnished with claws can do much to assist the security and lighten the labour for his clawless party on difficult ice, by preceding them and helping or protecting them with the rope. Let no amateur, therefore, ever be discouraged from taking his own where he expects ice work. He will always be the happier himself, and may on occasions be able to point a prolonged moral to his party. Up to the present they have still been looked upon as an experiment, and men have been apt to get discouraged if they have taken them out once or twice and had no need for them. Sometimes they have then dropped carrying them; found that they could ‘get on all right without them’—as who cannot?—and so begun to exaggerate the labour of their portage and minimize their use. The habit has to be formed. It can become as natural to take them on a big ascent as to carry the axe, spare rope and shoes upon a rock climb.

I must premise, that claws postulate precise footwork. A slovenly habit they cannot correct, and may only confirm.

If we use claws neatly, we need no longer cut steps upon all the easier angles of ice or hard snow. We can walk straight ahead, up, down or along, without check for step-cutting or loss of rhythm. We can take foothold just as is most convenient for our balance as we move. Thus a good balance climber from the first moment gets all the advantage of the footwork he has learned upon rock: the labour of ‘finding his feet’ upon ice is reduced to a minimum. Again, claws increase our security, if we step accurately, when we are moving upon angles where, for reasons of steepness or other difficulty, steps may still have to be cut. In using slippery steps they permit of a confidence of movement, firm and continuous, similar to that which previous experience will have taught us contributed most to our security upon rock. In so far claws, even while we are learning, make for safer progress.

Their fashion has been fully dealt with, under Equipment. As to the character of claw which may be of greatest service, there exist divergent schools of thought; and each finds justification for its belief in the greater usefulness of its particular claw for some particular type of ice work.

In general, heavy claws are better for a heavy man, light for a light. Ten-point claws are better than eight for a large foot, and six-point claws are hardly worth their weight in carrying. A heavy claw, with long, sharp points, which suffer in contact with rock, is worth its extra weight if some big ice expedition is in prospect. At the same time, a good climber can, if he is prepared for the extra labour and for the more careful technique which their use requires, accomplish with safety all the ice work to be found on normal climbs with a lighter claw of slightly shorter points. This lighter, rougher type will be more useful to him for mixed ice and rock climbing, as he will be able to sacrifice its shorter and inevitably more blunted points with less regret, while he can retain the claw over every kind of surface. The necessity of constantly putting off and on the long, sharp claws on mixed climbing, to avoid turning their points, has the drawback of losing time, and, still more important, of changing the action of the leg and the feel of the feet. Consequently the rhythm of foot and leg has to adjust itself, after each change, to the new character of surface and movement. Whereas the claw which can be worn all day if the conditions demand it, regardless of rock or blunting surface, and which can be thrown away or resharpened when it has suffered sufficiently, while it may call for more skill and effort for its secure use on long, steep passages of hard ice, possesses the compensating advantage of keeping the action constant, without change to the feel of the feet, to the rhythm, or to the greater or lesser security of the tread.

On the other hand, the finer, heavier claw, by which I mean the claw of the Eckenstein pattern, has the merit of being the only claw at the present time in which both the metal is rightly wrought and the points are shaped and placed under the foot with any scientific regard for their use. It is also the only type which it is safe to wear on hard ‘black ice’; which, even if rarely, is occasionally found on big summits in the Alps or on sunless northern faces.

Of course the claw must be made exactly to fit the boot on which it is used, and it must fasten and take off easily and securely.

The theory of the use of the claw, with all the various positions of the feet required, can only be dealt with in a monograph to itself, and this has been already more than adequately done.[13] It is sufficient for the commencing mountaineer to know that he has to learn how to use claws, and that he cannot do so effectively without preliminary practice. This practice should be on a glacier, and under direction; no man really discovers what the claw will enable him to do until he has seen what confidence and skill can accomplish in the conquest of angle and of natural nerve revulsions. The movements are not entirely natural or self-suggesting, more especially those of descending or of traversing on very steep slopes. The masters of the art can walk, and sustain weights, sideways or straight upon their feet, up to angles of 70 degrees or more. An ordinary climber can learn to move with comfort on angles, of good surface, between 55 and 60 degrees.

When we are on claws, the snow-shuffle and the normal forward swing of the walking foot, heel and toe, have to be forgotten. The foot is lifted rather higher, and is planted cleanly on the ice, without the usual forward scrape. The high, clear lift of the foot must become mechanical, otherwise the points will catch on boot or puttie, and a nasty trip or fall may result. The downward pressure or thrust of the foot varies in force according to the angle and the hardness of the surface. To prevent the points working loose in the holes they make, the foot has to be placed at once in the position and at the angle in which it will have to sustain the weight of the body passing across it. A balance climber who has mastered the tense, dancing action of the foot as it is set upon a rock hold will have to learn little new, except the habit of the higher lift and the more vertical plant.

In ascending, our object is to keep the feet pointing forward and straight as long as the angle will allow us to; only turning the toes outward when we can no longer get the heels down. On most ice it is sufficient if we get hold with two points of the claw alone; and on a fair surface we can walk straight-foot up very steep angles, trusting only to the two points on the toe. Up softer steep surfaces, or literally precipitous angles, we adopt a crab or sideways walk. We descend steep angles with the knees bent and the toes forced down. The ankles have to, and soon do, acquire an increased suppleness and strength, in claw practice.

Perhaps the most difficult task for the beginner is to learn the art of walking and balancing upon flexed ankles, while traversing across steep faces. To strike all the points in neatly and strongly sideways, and with a flexed ankle, so that the flat of the sole may meet the surface cleanly and without a scrape, takes some practice; but slab climbers, who have suppled their ankles by foot-clinging upon steep rock angles, will find themselves a day or two’s frog-marching to the good on ice.

Practice alone will bring us confidence in the new adjustments, or allow us to feel as securely in balance above a foot inclined at a high angle, over a bent ankle or a curved leg, as upon a right-angled hold of rock or ice. Once confidence has come, the sense of security in the attachment of the claw to the ice enables a freedom of movement astonishing at first to anyone accustomed only to the feel of the ordinary boot-nails on ice steps.

This additional and confident security, which the claw gives to our foothold, almost eliminates the chances of what are wrongly termed ‘accidents’ on ice; the breaking foothold, the faultily placed foot, or the slide of the sole on a bad surface as the transference of the weight produces a change in the direction of the leg-thrust. We can balance, therefore, on steep angles far more boldly, and keep our hands free for better purpose. A strong party on claws, in a couloir of uniform surface or on a sound ridge of mixed ice and rock climbing, is often free to do without the rope at all, if it so pleases. The rope is to guard against the results of ‘accidents’ to individual members; and competent icemen, if they are released from the distraction of the rope, and able to concentrate on their own good progress and safety, have all the less temptation to commit ‘accidents.’

Once we have mastered the movements and become confident, we begin to distinguish between varieties of ice, and to vary our claw craft accordingly. For instance, in alpine ‘grainy’ ice there are three ordinary varieties: hard, soft and rotten. ‘Rotten’ ice does not lie in the Alps to more than the depth of an inch or two, though it is found of a greater thickness in other continents; when we find it in the Alps, we clear it away with the axe, to leave a firm tread for the claw on the good ice below. Hard and soft grainy ice have their several adjustments, whose differences have to be learned by practice. Hard ice will usually be found lying at high angles, so steep that we shall sometimes be unable to get more than the hold of a single claw point. Experience alone can make us feel as safe upon the one talon as we have learned to feel upon a single boot-nail on sound rock. For work of this advanced character, for which the heavy, long-pronged claw is better suited, the best practice can be found upon the big fall-ice of dry glaciers. We soon discover, in such practice, that balance is easier when we are confident to move fast, a resuscitated platitude; and that, while moving, we are satisfied with a single point where the whole ten would not have seemed superfluous, had we halted to admire the panorama. But holds, on ice as on rock, are not intended to be held in perpetuity.

The claw is not only useful upon steep ice: on hard repellent snow it spares us the penance of stamping or scraping steps. It is equally reassuring to foothold and nerve on ice-lacquered rocks, or on broken rock surfaces coated with wind-snow or glaze. In a bad season—that is, a season during which snow has been frequently falling, and the rocks are surpliced in various blends and qualities of snow, frozen and refrozen—the claws are often retained for the whole day, and become as natural to the feel of the feet as the more usual boot-nail. It is sometimes even difficult to remember if they are on or off, until they are removed, when the feet become as helpless as they do when skates are first detached. In a snowstorm, for a descent, they should always be put on; and even in clear weather and on good footing it is an immense reassurance to the leader of a tired party ascending or descending a couloir or slope of suspicious or ‘mixed’ surface, if he can count upon the extra security that claws will give to the deteriorating footwork of his party.

Again, on those early, fasting, glacier crawls by lamplight, with which most of us are familiar, when we are expected to balance, with cold joints and often without the protection of the rope, along crevasses and walls which may be easy enough by daylight but seem pulsing with danger and dread in the darkness, claws come as a great safeguard; their tactile value is a reassurance to eyes and to feet still leaden with insufficient sleep and superabundant cold.

The evening descent of a glacier, dry or partly snow-covered, with its crevasse jumping, wearisome for tired legs, and its balance traversing on ice too slippery for jaded feet or day-polished boot-nails, becomes again a delight if it can be taken directly and at a rush, with the new surety of foothold and the change of muscle movement that follow the putting on of our claws. Straight and time-saving lines through glacier falls can then be ventured, even with men dragging heavy sacks or heavy legs, if they have once the new feel of dancing security under their feet.

It is worth while putting claws on even for the short but offensive descent of the snout of a glacier. They crackle crisply down its pebble-pimpled wrinkles and make light gliding of its glassy declivities.

A belated party returning crossly at night down the breakers of a big glacier whose surface has thawed only to be refrozen later to a polished, leg-racking ice-slide, will save temper and re-roping and time if the men stop to put on their claws. Two midnight descents of the Mer de Glace in this condition, without claws, are among the most penetrating and undignified of my remembrances.

On the steep sides of moraines, or on new snow lying on grass, claws, if they happen to have been brought, save much back-sliding. On slippery rock surfaces, such as snow-slimed slate and the like, I have found light claws of constant use.

Finally, we need not take off our claws, if they are light ones, for every rock section of a climb where rock and ice are alternating. On much easy soft rock they are of assistance; and even in steep climbing, if once the novelty of the feel is mastered and the foot has got accustomed to the precautionary tread that protects the points, claws have often a positive value greater than the mere effort we save by not removing them.

To learn how to use claws, however, does not relieve us of the necessity of learning how to make and to walk in ice steps. Nor (although this is a matter of more personal opinion) do claws in my view justify climbers on big expeditions in substituting the small ice-axe recommended by some of the great authorities upon claws, and only intended for making an occasional step or for holding on, for a good step-cutting axe, which has also the potentiality of the third leg on general climbing.

In practice on dry glaciers it is both profitable and amusing to experiment in manœuvring on exceptional angles, or in walking up between the vertical walls of crevasses. Such practice is good for confidence and for training, and it is even of use to discover how comparatively easy claws make it to get out of crevasses, or similar impasses, without relying on the rescue of the rope alone. A climber on claws, for this reason, can take a measure of liberty in solitary climbing that would be folly for a man without them to allow himself. No doubt, if amateurs were able to keep constantly in practice, and had not each season to stop climbing when they have barely reached their best, they would learn to move with equal freedom on angles of this character at great heights. But as a matter of experience no holiday mountaineer can entirely acquire the same feeling of confidence and security if his ice slopes are subtended by dangerous mountain walls or are situated on exposed tracts. Fatigue, diverse air-pressures and, above all, the psychological effect of height contribute to handicap him in venturing on claws risks which he would laugh at on a twenty-foot wall on a glacier. Consequently we find that most mountaineers on very steep, hard ice at great heights prefer to cut steps to aid their claws. In mountaineering on a big scale we usually begin to feel this need when the angle of the ice approaches anywhere near to our limit of average performance upon claws in glacier practice. It is more our sensation than the angle of the ice slope which forces step-cutting upon us. And there is yet another common occasion for steps. On ice which is covered with snow, where without claws we should clear away the snow and make a step in the ice, it is of course similarly open to us to clear it away and step simply with the claw on the exposed ice. But, as a matter of fact, it is generally the practice in such case to make a nick for the claw. Unless the nick is made, the mass of snow round the clearing prevents the foot from being placed conveniently and from providing a sense of security commensurate with the sensational situation. Thus to secure a good reassuring claw hold we should have to clear away an additional quantity of snow, and we may just as well make a nick-step at once. A step in ice when claws are worn need only be a nick for a proportion of the prongs. It takes less labour and art to fashion than a step for a boot.

Again, ice at great heights is occasionally covered with a rotting coating, or crust, through which the prongs cannot reach to the good surface below. Here clearing the rotten ice will in any case be necessary, and, for the reason given above, it is more comfortable and as quick to cut through it and make a step at once.

Where, also, ice is really hard ‘black ice,’ it has an iron quality of surface, through which the prongs have to be driven with real force; and they make clean, hard holes from which we have the feeling they might slip out, as if from smooth metal sockets. Without steps, at steep angles, balance on such ice is a very delicate matter, as this is a branch of claw technique in which the Alps give us little practice. The nerve of most men will call for auxiliary steps. But whether steps are made or not, on such ice the rope must always be retained.

For the average man, therefore, it is still needful to know how to fashion and how to walk in ice steps; both for use on the brief intervals of ice and snow on climbs where the amount of difficult rock and the small proportion of ice in prospect have suggested leaving the claws behind, and for occasions, of which some have been mentioned, that arise out of exceptional mountain or personal conditions.

Cutting Steps.

We have then to learn how to cut and use steps on ice, at high angles, in awkward places, or when complicated by certain conditions. Claws cover the rest of the ice field.

A man who sets himself to learn how to cut steps well must begin by practising on ice. Theory can only help him to avoid certain false positions. A word from a mentor on the spot will save aching shoulders and blistered hands, and be of far more use than many books. Book-lore has rather hindered than helped us by some of the theory it has set down.

It is natural that amateurs who had the example of golfing and other ‘arm-movement’ sports on free angles before them should have been attracted by the idea of a step-cutting ‘swing.’ This has been therefore recommended as a saving of strength and an ideal in style. Possibly many climbers besides myself have formalized their style and retarded their acquisition of ease and security by practising the acrobatic feats of balance which an attempt to swing from the hips in step cutting necessitates. On ice slopes of an easy angle, where we need no longer cut steps at all if we use claws, the swing may be graceful. But on steep ice the swing from the hips is irreconcilable with a secure balance. The most we can attain to is an interrupted swing or ‘follow-through’ with the shoulders alone, to ease our pure armwork. It is not unlikely that the appearance of body movement which this shoulder swing gives to the whole coat of a master iceman, as seen from behind, misled early students of the art, who were following in ice steps, into the belief that they were watching their ideal swing from the hips. But such a swing on steep ice is impossible. The step-cutter is balancing in many cases on one foot, supposing him to be cutting steps at wide ‘mountaineering’ intervals, or on the downgrade; at best he is on two feet set in the same straight line. He cannot, therefore, risk any swinging movement which would disturb his balance above his single base line or point. Let anyone try the hip swing standing thus on a single foot, or on feet alined at a wide interval on the ground, even without the complication of the narrow ice step or the obstruction of the side wall. He will begin to doubt the advisability of our classic swing. Nor may a step-cutter let his swing travel inward with the axe on to the slope; because it is the essence of good step-cutting that the axe shall stop with a jerk, releasing itself from the ‘stick’ of the point in the ice while it jars loose the section of ice that it has split. The hip swing, therefore, if we attempt it, must be checked at both its ends; and very little space remains between the two checks to get the swing going. The steeper the ice the shorter the axe-strokes, and the less and less the opportunity of introducing the swing. As a further difficulty, no one but a craftsman trained in the workshops could swing the whole body so exactly as to strike with his point within a fraction of an inch of the spot required. In chopping wood, which is done with the feet spread, an amateur can achieve this; but if he is balancing on feet alined, it is beyond the skill of most experts to swing from the hips, strike absolutely true, and at the same time remain in secure balance.

Even the shorter shoulder swing, which we use on slopes of easier angle, where we can get some support for our balance, when standing on the outside foot, by pressing the inside foot or the inside knee against the ice wall, becomes impracticable when we are standing, as we must be for half our cutting time, on the inside foot, with the outside foot in a line behind us or swinging free to our poise. On steeper slopes, where we have no margin of balance for any outward swing and no room to get a support for the inside foot against the ice, the shoulder swing becomes impracticable even when we are cutting off the outside foot. On such slopes we are only free to use the short play of the arms, and cutting becomes simply accurate ‘chopping.’ Not only on these steep angles of ice, but on all awkward passages where we are not placed comfortably for free cutting, but where we have to aim our steps at cramped angles with bent arms or with one hand alone, our cutting can be no more than chopping from the elbow, or sometimes only from the wrist. Since, for men who wear claws, these are the only passages on which much step cutting should be really needed, the body and shoulder swings may be safely dropped out of the category of desirable ideals.

The characteristics of a good cutter are accuracy of aim in making the stroke, with the right inclination of the pick and the right jerk of the point; good balance upon both feet or on one foot; and an easy but restrained arm movement, so that he can continue the strokes with smooth precision for an indefinite time. A man who has acquired these will naturally use any easing of the slope in his favour, or any facilities it may offer him for better foot balance, to lighten his armwork by means of a follow-through with his shoulder. But if a mountaineer begins to learn with the idea that he has to ‘swing’ in order to cut well, he will expend most of his energy upon easy angles where claws make it unnecessary to cut steps at all, or in recovering his balance and making very bad steps upon steeper slopes—for the short spells that his strength and nerves will stand.

A good step-cutter need not ‘swing,’ but he also may not ‘press.’ It is mechanically obvious that if a man is not swinging, but has his stroke under muscular control throughout its duration, he will gain nothing, and merely fight against himself, if he tries to force the stroke or ‘press’ before he arrests his point with the final jerk. Once the stroke is started, a good cutter lets the axe fall of its own weight; that is, he follows the stroke through with only just the amount of control needed to direct the point until its contact with the ice.

Each man must discover his own fashion of sketching out a step. The sequence and arrangement of his strokes will vary with the quality of the ice and with his position for cutting.

Every step should slope slightly inward. The angle of the tread is of more importance than the size of the step. On steep ice the inside or back wall just above the step should be cleared away, to allow the shin room and to let the leg stand upright above the foot.

The outside edge of the step should never be cleared entirely or flattened. The ice dust or fragments, if not too large, should be left there, to pack under the foot and give it a further prop inwards. A good step looks like a rough notch before it has been used; but after the first foot has passed over, it should have taken the shape and size of the sole, and look like its mould.

Large steps or ‘buckets,’ such as the guides provide as the beginner’s joy, are useless to men who wear claws, and more dangerous than small steps for those who do not. A large step has a large uneven, or a large smooth floor, upon which the sole is apt to slip about as the weight is transferred. Its suggestion of moral reassurance is a poor compensation for a spoiled balance.

A step should be small, just fitting the foot and gripping the side of the boot; the back wall should just prop the ankle for better balance. It should be comfortable to leave as well as comfortable to step on to. An experienced step-cutter will always prefer to make small steps, not because of the saving of time, but because, on all but exceptional passages, the small, close step gives him a better basis of balance for his next reach-out and cut. Large buckets only become necessary when the angle of the ice wall is so steep that there is no room for the shin and knee to stand upright above the foot. A big slice has then to be cleared away above the step, and this generally involves enlarging the size of the floor of the step, especially if the cutter is not expert.

A man has to learn to cut off either shoulder. He must also be able to cut steps with either hand alone, in order to have his other hand free to take handholds on the exceptionally difficult passages or traverses where these are found necessary. To aim a step with one hand needs practice. To keep a firm grip on the axe shaft, more especially as this gets iced, makes it important to secure a shaft that is well balanced and easily grasped. It may well have some protuberance or collar which prevents the hand slipping. For the same reason the sling is a sound precaution.[14]

To cut handholds in ice calls for a very fine touch. The best that can be usually formed is no more than a steadying nick, over the edge of which the glove can be hooked. The hand shapes the edge of the nick to the curve of the fingers by pressure, and in the process the glove freezes slightly to the ice. The hand can rarely give more than a balance hold on ice. Security and anchorage must be given by the feet.

Similarly, the hand or rather axe hold that we make by driving in the pick above us, in order to help us over a bad step, is usually inadequate. The pull that comes on the shaft with our weight must always be from a direction different to that in which we drove in the point, and the strain will either loosen the point or lever out the section of ice which the blow has in part detached. To drive in the pick straight and not on a swinging arc, so that it may remain firm at an angle to take the pull of our weight in transference, requires a kind of arm stroke very difficult to make with sufficient force in hard, steep ice.

For men without claws the scrambling method, which some leaders risk to save labour in cutting, of alternating one good ice step with a scratch for the other foot, covered by an axe hold, can only be excused by rare circumstance. It is far better to take the little extra time required for making sound steps under both feet. Men on claws, however, are better able to use handholds and pick holds in ice. Their feet are firm so long as the angle and their nerve allow them to stand upright in balance. All they require is a balance hold, to cover them in starting the next movement; for so much assistance a hand nick or a driven pick can well be trusted.

The step for the foot which is passing inside and next to the ice slope can, to save time, be made smaller than that for the outside foot. For a good party, without claws, the step for the inside foot need only be a nick for the side of the boot, provided always that it is inclined at the right angle. To use such steps it is obviously important that the whole party should follow with the same foot. For men with claws there is no need to make this differentiation. Wherever steps are needed for claws, they may all be made of the same small size—just a sufficient nick to take the side points of either claw.

In cutting on a diagonal uphill, for men without claws, it is better to make the interval between the steps shorter when the rising step is to be made from the inside foot on to the outside foot. In rising from the outside foot on to the inside foot a longer stride can be made in balance, and the interval between steps can be made longer.

In cutting diagonally on the downgrade, the contrary is the case. In dropping from the inside foot on to the outside foot a longer stretch can comfortably be made than from the outside foot on to the inside foot.

In cutting horizontally, a longer stretch can be made from the outside foot on to a step for the inside foot, than vice versa. Trifling distinctions; but a good cutter who remembers them will save the inches on his alternate steps; and many inches saved on long ice slopes mean a number of steps spared and minutes, even hours, economized.

For men without claws, or not very expert, it is better to make steps too near together than too far apart. Safe progress is the best progress. This applies especially to cutting downhill. Until a climber is thoroughly practised in lowering his weight on the bending of a single knee, he will always find one instant of delicate balance in a descending stride; and the longer the interval between steps, the more difficult the balance, until the point comes at which he is reduced to axe scraping, or shuffling himself down the ice leaning against his hand. When he finds either help necessary, the step cutter should be given warning at once that the intervals are too long.

Cutting on the downgrade is usually found more difficult than cutting uphill. At the same time, the securing of the right fashion and inclination of the step is even more important on the downgrade than on the up, since the balance in taking a down-step is more difficult, not only for the cutter but for his following. The steeper the angle at which steps have to be made downhill, the more awkward becomes the balance; until, in descending at a very steep angle, the cutting has practically to be done with one hand. For this reason, on very steep slopes it is better to cut short descending zigzags of an easier angle, even in narrow couloirs where economy of time and labour would point to a vertical ladder.

Where there is no room for a descending or an ascending zigzag, it is better not to attempt to make steps for the side-length of the foot, but to descend or ascend face inward, cutting with one hand a perpendicular ladder of ‘pigeon-holes,’ or steps shaped like small church apses, to be used both by the boot-toes and the hands. For men on claws a vertical ladder of nicks, for the fingers and the two front points of the claw, is all that is needed.

In cutting zigzags for men without claws, besides making allowance for the different size and length of step and interval needed for the inside and outside feet, the turning-step at the corner has to be made of different size and shape. It should always be larger in size and semicircular at the back, so that the climber can pivot round in it on his toe, without hitch, until he faces the other way. It is well to provide a good hand-nick or an obvious hold for the pick, conveniently placed above the turning-step.

Steps upon hard, overhanging ice, or upon ice near the perpendicular, are practically impossible to make or use with any real security. The chief difficulty is to make any sound hold for the hands, such as may keep the body in balance above the feet. It is also generally impracticable upon perpendicular or overhanging ice to cut away sufficient ice in the slope at the back of the step to allow the leg to stand erect above the foot, especially if the tread is slanted downward and inward at a safe inclination. When tours de force of this character are performed, it is usually upon ice which has frozen in ‘waterfall’ fashion, coat over coat, so that it becomes possible to cut through one coat and get a downward handhold between the strata of ice. Such holds, of course, cannot be reckoned upon as dependable for more than a balance lift with the hand. Claws will help us for such nice feats; but they are best only attempted on practice glaciers, or where the rest of the party is soundly anchored.

On high exposed ridges we have often to deal, in traversing across the faces of towers, with a mixed coating of snow and ice, in reality a snow cake in process of transformation into ice by infiltration. The snow has to be cleared away, and enough ice hacked from the rock to leave us on the lower sill of the gap, so formed, a sufficiently firm and broad ice edge for a step. This is fine engraving for a leader: if he cuts too roughly, the whole plate may flake off and leave him smooth, vertical rock to traverse; and if he stops too soon, the flake below may similarly peel away when his weight comes on the step formed by its upper edge.

On glacier ice, any rib, crack or flaw in the ice will naturally suggest itself as the groundwork of, if not the substitute for, an ice step. A stone on the ice, or the pocket which it leaves when cleared away, makes generally an adequate toehold,—certainly a hold for the point of a claw.

In cutting across ice flakes, or along narrow bridges through séracs, if the bridge is solid enough it is best to make side-foot nicks along one side of the crest. If it is not solid enough and the steps have to be made along the actual edge of crest, it is well to remember that the fit, and especially the exact length of the step, are very important. The boot sole slips about on the top of a flat ice surface, and a step on a narrow crest which is made too short or too long for the boot renders the balance precarious. If claws are worn, the steps will be unnecessary, and the party will use the side or truncated crest of the bridge according to its solidarity and their own convenience.

On glaciers, the flaking ice that we meet with on the faces of big séracs demands great nicety of touch. The steps are difficult to make, as it is difficult to check the fracture at the right point. They are difficult to use, because our weight may continue the work, and the whole flake surface below our feet may come away. Claws are of real service, as they grip without starting a line of downward fracture. If we are without them, a deep pick hold must be secured, driven through into a deeper stratum of ice, to protect the precarious foothold on the flake surface or edge. Large flakes that boom or sound hollow to the axe are best left alone.

On ‘crusted’ snow, snow that has melted and refrozen to an icy surface, which is often too hard to permit of footholds being kicked, steps are best made by a dragging stroke with one corner of the adze-blade along the face of the snow. Any attempt to swing or to cut with the pick will result in the point sticking at every stroke, and thus in very slow progress. On very hard, sticky surfaces, where the pick sticks monotonously and does not split the snow-ice, and where the drag stroke of the adze-blade will not penetrate, the corner of the adze should be struck lightly in, and the axe shaft levered sharply in the direction away from the step-maker. This will burst out a small cube of ice behind the blade. Two such blows and jerks are generally enough to clear a sufficiently long step for a boot. On softer, sticky surfaces a single well-aimed jerking blow of this sort, made by a single motion of the one hand, followed by a sharp, driving kick with the boot, usually forms steps rapidly enough to allow of the maintenance of a slow walking rhythm. Of course, to a party on claws, such surfaces, which cannot lie at very steep angles, present a pleasant ballroom or billiard-table vista of indulgent promenade.

Using Steps.

We learn to use steps before we are, usually, allowed to make them. But we cannot use them until they are made. Hence the order I have followed here.

To use steps rightly calls primarily for good balance. A man must learn to walk in steps upright, merely resting his hand or axe point against the ice as he moves up or down from one step to the other. If he leans inward, or hangs on to axe or handhold, he becomes a danger to his party. The steps are not cut for the angle which his foot then makes with the ice; he may easily slip, and the faintest jerk of the rope will snatch his foot from the step. A man upright and balanced on his foothold at the right angle can take a considerable weight or jerk if he has but a second’s warning. A man on claws has double this power.

In using a step a climber has not only a duty to his own balance movement, but to every following member of the party. He must use it exactly as it is made, and leave it as he found it. The foot must arrive neatly and leave cleanly. A fractional mistread leaves for the next man an uncertain or blurred step, if it does not ruin its security. There may be no overtreading, and no twisting or turning of the foot on any step, except on the turning-steps which are designed for that purpose.

At the turning-step of a zigzag the climber twists round face inward on his toes. If the step is only cut for one foot, he must only use it with the one foot, pointing it in the direction in which the imprint indicates that the leader used it. Otherwise he will spoil the step and get the sequence of his feet wrong.

On steep ice our main difficulty is to pass the inside foot from behind to in front, between our outside foot on its step and the ice wall. Beginners and bad icemen are inclined to avoid this difficulty by shuffling from step to step with the outside foot always leading, protecting each change of foot with an axe hold. This is dangerous and ruinous to the steps. On the very rare passages where it may be found necessary,—for instance, on the few feet of traverse across the face of an ice-glazed rock wall, or across a vertical ice bulge in a couloir, where passing the foot is impossible,—the leader will have cut a continuous ledge, on which he intends the feet to be thus shuffled and without risk. Otherwise the inside foot must always be passed in front, whatever the difficulty; and the better a man balances and the less he leans inward and clings to the slope, the easier becomes the passing of the foot. Where the wall is so steep that to pass the leg and hip-bone means really a movement out of balance, the leader may be trusted to have made some handhold above, if only for his own protection.

On steep ice, men on claws have to be very careful in passing the inside foot, so as not to catch the prongs in the puttie or fastenings of the firm foot. On the other hand a man on claws, secured to the ice by his prongs and not merely by the friction of his sole, can flex his firm ankle far more freely outward and allow his inside foot room to pass.

In descending a very steep ice staircase, it is important not only to follow with the proper feet but to notice how the leader used the steps. Steps on a descending ladder are not infrequently cut with the intention that the inside foot should be dropped behind the outside foot as we stand sideways on a slope, and not passed in front of the standing outside foot and then dropped, as in the more usual movement for easier angles of descent. Step cutters should remember the device. It is not only easier, on occasion, to cut a step in this fashion vertically below and not on a descending diagonal, but it is mechanically an easier movement of descent, on a steep wall, to lower the inside foot thus behind the standing foot than to pass it in front.

On a diagonal descent, if the shorter legs of a following man find the steps are made too far apart for his descending balance, and he has no time to make fresh ones, he will sometimes find it safer to turn right round and descend the steps backwards, turning his other cheek to the wall. His outstretched toe can reach farther in this attitude. It is not sound for more than a few steps, and not dignified; but dignity must be sacrificed to security if the steps are already made and it is too late to protest, and it is better to arrive cleanly with the toe on a step, even the wrong way round, than to scrabble down insecurely, leaning against the ice with thigh or hand.

It is often asserted to be the business of the second man to ‘finish off’ the leader’s steps and enlarge them. This has grown out of the mistaken belief that large steps are safer than small, well-shaped ones. The bettering may, on occasion, be done by deliberate arrangement between two men. A return by the same route may be intended, when the larger steps will endure better through the heat of the day. Or if there are weaker icemen in the party it may save time to divide the labour of making the specially good and numerous steps they need. Otherwise the alteration is quite unjustifiable and improper. The best cutter presumably is leading, and he will have made the step of the right shape to start with. If it has been good enough for him to stand upon and cut ahead from, up or down, it is good enough for the party to follow upon. A second working-over of the step risks spoiling it. A patched step is never as good as a clean step, cut just to the right point and left raw for the kick of the foot to finish and to mould. If he does not spoil it, a second man by re-cutting postpones his real business, which is to emphasize the mould of the step still further by the right planting of his foot. If he has time to spare from his functions of anchoring the leader or the men behind, he can employ his hands better elsewhere. He may make additional handholds for balance on bad passages, or, by arrangement with the leader, introduce intervening steps, to save the leader time and to favour a weaker following. If he introduces steps, he must be careful not to upset the sequence of feet for which the leader is cutting the main line of steps. He may, also by arrangement, devote himself to breaking up and dispersing any large fragments of ice left about the steps, though not, of course, to clearing out the small stuff which is expressly left to take the imprint of the foot. He thus incidentally relieves his party’s bottled-up emotions by offering a fair target for the abuse from below which follows such clearing up, but from which the leading step-cutter must always be exempt. It is a graceful concession on a leading step-cutter’s part if, when he is doing his own clearing as well as cutting, he recollects that his following have heads as well as feet.

Men following on claws, in steps, nicks, or only claw-tracks, are freer to vary their sequence of feet or their fashion of using steps; the good hold of the prongs is more than a substitute for the nice fit of the correct foot to the mould of a step. But both for retention of rhythm and for security it is better as a rule to follow the leader’s tracks and save the time which must be spent in selecting new treads. This applies more especially to exposed hard ice where the rope is retained. Men moving without the rope may prefer to digress from the actual treads and find unbroken holding surface for their own claws. The leader’s general line should, however, be followed.

The Rope on Ice.

On ice, if the rope is retained, as it will be on exacting slopes by all parties without claws and by many parties with claws, it is worn in its normal fashion, with the waist-knot under the left shoulder and on the side towards or away from the slope according to the direction of the zigzag. One hand, generally the right, holds a short length of slack, as a precaution against jerk and to leave a margin for a longer or shorter stride in our own or our front man’s advance. The rope should never be quite taut. If both hands are required for a moment, to use the axe or to take a handhold, and the slack has for the time to be dropped, we must regulate our distance carefully, step by step, from the man in front, so that the rope to him continues to hang in an easy curve, which will neither catch on the ice nor be jerked by an extra length of stride on his part. We expect the same care from the man behind us.

On hard grainy ice it is useless to attempt to belay the rope with the axe, as is possible on snow where the rope can be looped round the driven shaft. Corrective measures must be left to the firm balance on a good step or on fast claws, and to the spring that the arm, holding the slack, may be able to give to the rope before the jerk of a man sliding comes upon our waist. If a man slips, our natural inclination to lean inwards towards the slope and get some clamp with the axe or hand must at all costs be unlearned and avoided. Once the body is no longer in balance, nor weighing upon the steps, the feet are easily snatched from their hold.

On soft grainy ice it is sometimes possible to make a belay by striking in the pick at a sharp downward inclination above us, and looping the rope round the pick and close to the ice. The shaft must then be held rigid in its first position. Unless the footholds are exceptionally bad, this anchor is not more secure than that given by good balance on the feet alone. And men are very apt, when a friend slips, to throw their own weight inward upon the shaft in a clutch of security, thus pulling the shaft down and loosening the pick from the one angle at which it could have been of any service as a belay.

On zigzags it is of no use trying to keep at even distances on the rope, no matter how even the pace. The intervals must alter as the men pass to and fro on the bends. The rope has to be taken in, as slack in the hand, and again paid out, as we cross below or above our front man on zigzags ascending or descending. The turning-step is usually made face inward in ascending and face outward in descending, though occasionally it is safer to make it face inward on a descent also. The face-inward turn has two advantages: one, that we make the turn on the toes and not on the heels; and two, that if we are using a pick hold at the turn or balancing with our axe touching the ice, we have not to make either the change of hand on the shaft of a fixed axe, or the awkward swirl round of the whole axe outside us and back again on to the ice, which a face-outward turn demands. During either turn the rope should be held high, and clear of the feet.

Balance is always easier when moving in steps at a fair pace; and steps of stationary comfort for turning or special anchoring, and large enough for both feet, are only made at intervals, generally at the end of the zag. Consequently it is not always best to follow step for step with the step-cutter’s necessarily slower progress. If we do so, we are constantly having to wait standing on one foot, or with our legs straddled apart on two steps. It is better to pause in the turning-steps and make up time on the series between them. For example, the second man secures his leader from a turning-step, and can wait until his rope is nearly out. He then follows more rapidly up or down the staircase. He gathers up the rope as he goes if his leader is still cutting, or, on worse passages, the leader takes it in as the second ascends. His natural halts will be at the turning-step of a zag or at his leader’s last anchor step. This method is of particular use when, as often in a couloir, it is safer and more comfortable to make our longer pauses under the rocks at the sides, and not all to move harmonically in criss-cross up the centre. Men on claws may prefer to be without the rope in such places; in this case they make their advance when they please, and are free to halt on any more comfortable nicks to allow for the leader’s slower advance.

For continuous following up steps, the rope and axe are usually held together in the outside hand, the inside hand being left free to take balance touches against the ice or to take in the slack. For slower movement, advancing one at a time, the axe is used for the touches or for resting against the ice during the pause on each step; this saves the chill to the fingers. The axe is at these times held across the body with both hands, the outer of the two hands also holding the slack of the rope.

On very steep or otherwise dangerous ice we shall only be moving one at a time. In this case the leader cuts a large anchor step to which he brings up his second; and the halts will be made by the party only at the recurring large steps. If the ice, and party, are sound enough for continuous progress, we shall generally be pausing on steps made only for the one foot: it is clearly of advantage, at such times, to have the freedom which claws allow us—especially if we are unroped—to move on until we have found a really comfortable nick to wait upon.

On traverses or zigzags, unless we can reach a very good turning or anchor step from which to pull in the rope of the man following, we do better to divide our stance between two steps. Our feet are then well planted to resist a pull coming diagonally or from straight behind us. On a traverse, if we are facing forward, standing either on one or two steps, it is best not to turn and watch the man following, which will prejudice our balance, but to trust to the feel of the rope to tell us what is happening. The rope on ice with its smooth movement is even a surer telegraph than on rock. Moreover, in the event of a slip behind us, we have not only the sound of the slide as warning, but the time taken by a slide down ice, perceptibly longer than by a fall over rock, gives us extra seconds to brace at our strongest. We are more prepared to do this if we keep our body and head turned in the same direction as our feet, than if we first turn round and then have to recover the best holding position.

Glacier Work.

On glaciers, besides the task of making and using steps, there is the more serious mountaineering business of finding the best route, up or down, or even any route at all. The climber may or may not have been able to help himself by preliminary reconnoitring. If not, and he finds himself upon an unknown glacier, he has one or two general principles to keep in mind.

The shady side of the glacier—there is usually one more sheltered from the sun—may offer the best chance of finding closed-up crevasses: or of discovering bridges, connecting flakes, etc., such as may help him through any system of open crevasses which extends right across the glacier.

On a curving glacier, the concave side may present to the eye the steeper and more threatening waves of surface ice, since the retardation will be greater on this side. Actually, the ice on this concave side, of slower movement, will be less intricate and the crevasses more contracted. Often the steep crests of ice will be merely surface survivals of crevasses, and their bases will be merged continuously in one another, forming broad glacier dimples easy to negotiate.

On the convex side, the ice crests of swifter movement may appear to be more negotiable, but the crevasses will be open and deep; and on this side there is always more possibility of finding a secondary or tertiary system of edge-crevasses intruding upon the normal side-system. These crevasses are produced by the friction of the glacier against its containing walls, and, like other crevasses, by the unevenness of the rock bed; but being on the convex curve and unsubjected to compression they not only open but stay open. Most edge-crevasses are usually much covered with moraine and stones, on lower glacier, and by many treacherous forms of rotting snow on upper glacier, and they are thoroughly unpleasant to work through. It is best to avoid them by turning out towards the middle of the glacier, until the side-rifts run out in harmless cracks.

On a glacier of approximately straight descent the ordinary systems of crevasses are three in number: these various marginal crevasses, transverse crevasses, and crevasses running lengthways down the fall.

The transverse crevasses are caused by the falls in the rock bed of the descending glacier. They are best crossed on a direct line of ascent or descent of the glacier. According as the glacier is humped in the middle, or flat and even hollow, these crevasses will be found, in the first case, less open nearer the sides of the glacier, and in the second, less open towards the flat or concave centre.

The third system, of lengthways crevasses, is due to the opening out of the containing walls of rock, or to long ‘hog-back’ elevations in the rock bed below, which thrust up the centre of the glacier. This is the more dangerous system to negotiate. Crevasses, especially those whose edges are concealed, must be approached, for crossing, at right angles to their run. A party ascending or descending the glacier lengthways will have constantly to be swinging its whole length on the rope, wheeling until at least two of the party at a time will be approaching the crevasse at right angles to its line and their former line of march. So long as the glacier is clear of snow, the crossings can be thus safely, if tiresomely, managed; but when the crevasses are snow-covered, or where we meet lengthways and transverse crevasses interlinked, it calls for fine icemanship to prevent sometimes all the party finding themselves moving along the same line as the crevasse they intend to cross, or even over its snow-covered length.

Where a glacier, straight or crooked, has one of its sides unsupported by a rock wall, and is therefore falling away at its own edge, or where its marginal and transverse crevasses have joined hands, a disagreeable system of curving crevasses must be expected. This is difficult to prospect, and dangerous to unravel if it is under snow. To locate the direction of a ‘scimitar’ crevasse at one point, and avoid it or cross it correctly, does not protect us against its later loop of unexpected trespass upon our route. The side of the falling away of a glacier should as far as possible be avoided, in spite of the temptation of its easier-looking surface ice.

On large glaciers, where two systems of big crevasses, each equal and still active, have met, we find the worst problem of all: that is, separate ‘cubes’ or islands of ice with crevasses on all their four sides. It leads only to disappointment to attempt to get through a big system of this character. Fortunately it is generally recognizable from a distance by its upstanding squared summits. For a space, also, round the junction of any two glaciers these turbulent effects of cross-pressure must be expected, and the area entered with caution.

On high snow-covered glacier, the huge rotund depressions or mills cannot be disregarded. But they can usually be skirted closely with confidence. They are the result of strains that, fortunately, do not create subsidiary or flanking clefts. They resemble mammoth ice sea urchins, not glacial star-fish.

On glaciers of rapidly changing angle and surface, a disagreeable phenomenon is the formation of an upper crust of ice, or frozen snow, over lesser depressions of the mill type. The crust gets separated from the fall of the surface below it, and while it continues to present a harmless appearance to all but very close inspection, it may surprise a whole party by letting them down simultaneously into a sufficiently startling hollow. The situation is generally more sensational than serious. Similarly, in winter, pools are formed in glacier hollows and frozen over. Then they are covered with snow, and the water drains from under the crust. Thus ice-traps are formed very difficult to detect by the eye, but which sound hollow under the testing tap of the axe point. On covered glacier the axe may never rest idle.

Glaciers in general, like rivers, alternate between distinct falls and more level slopes of smooth shoot or broken rapid. The routes through the smooth sections are easy to trace out from above, more difficult from below. The falls are more difficult to unravel from above, on a descent. In coming down large dry glaciers we can assume that a fall rarely extends equally broken right across the glacier; and that there will be a long bending eddy of smoother surface dallying close round the edge of the more broken section, which may afford us a passage through or round the rapids. On a small or steep glacier, where the fall visibly occupies the whole breadth of the glacier, and there is no eddy round it, it is useful first to discover if there may not be a direct central line which appears to force through the fall a long arrow-point of lazier, more level flow, such as we look for when we are canoeing down rapids. Failing either of these, on a small steep glacier the fall is often best skirted on the concave, or on the shadowed side of the glacier. Only in rare years, of hot seasons following mild winters, do alpine crevasses, or more often one great crevasse, sometimes extend right across a narrow steep glacier, and offer no through route, or bridge. As a last resort then it may be necessary to take to the rocks at the side of the glacier and circumvent the fall.

To get off a glacier at the right point in the evening, and also to lose no time and patience when we turn down on to the big glaciers in the early morning, it is our business to have noted beforehand from above the lie of the crevasses, and the points where it will be best to start crossing their trend. Many glaciers tempt us with long sloping lines of good going where their crevasses slant inward and upward from the margin. If we follow these without pre-examination, we either find our entry carried out and across to where the systems meet and produce difficult ice, or our exit balked of a landing-place. A few resolute traverses of the side crevasses, based upon observation, will often take us on to the master-diagonal, that launches us clear of the central fall or lands us on our chosen marge.

It will be seen that it is of value to train the eye to read a glacier from above, and mark out the best route, before we descend upon it. This inspection should be made not only of the glacier on to which immediate descent is intended, but of all the glaciers commanded by the ridges upon which we are climbing in a given season. The information may be invaluable for a future day, and the practice will serve conveniently to develop glacier prescience and glacier instinct. In addition, we secure a general idea of the condition of the glaciers in a particular season, or in a particular locality, which will assist by analogy to the unravelling of other glaciers which we may have been unable to prospect. A good iceman not only notes from afar, but retains his recollection of the route he noted when he is actually on the glacier and exposed to the constant temptation of following lines of deceptive least resistance. A number of mountaineers learn to observe, but few to remember; and fewer still will uphold memory against the evidence of the moment.

Conversely, it is valuable practical training to note, when we are on a glacier, the character of its rock walls, and the points at which the ice could be reached on a descent of the last rocks from the surrounding peaks. The rock wall just above a glacier is like a sea cliff, smoothed below, and presents a perpetual problem, of ascent or descent. Long returns may often be avoided by our recollection of inspections of a particular wall, or by deductions from our memory of the fashion of rock finishes found on the local glaciers.

Glaciers vary from year to year, and change slightly from week to week, and even on familiar ground it is wise to keep ourselves up to date by using all points of observation for the rediscovery of their annual or local variations.

With a few general principles as guide, the instinct that comes with experience as our aid, and backed by the usual allowance of climbers’ luck, there may be said to be scarcely a glacier, in the Alps at least, which cannot be traversed by patience and skill in all but exceptional seasons. An additional measure of precaution must of course be conceded, if we are following a line after noon or after sunshine which we could take on trust in the frozen hours before sunrise. And even before sunrise, in negotiating steep glaciers, dry or snow-covered, a very careful eye has to be kept upon the chance of ice avalanches or of the fall of a sérac. For this risk is not confined to the afternoon hours, when they are most likely to fall. A warm night, or frost, tepid wind or rain, will put the last touch to the career of many vagabond pinnacles depraved by the sun of previous days.

Where we can command the distant glacier above us, it is not difficult to mark the dangerous pinnacles and séracs, and to calculate their direction of fall should they choose for it our moment of passage. Otherwise, if we are launched in the morning, without prospect, into the blind intricacies of a big ice fall, the traces of previous falls must be our signals. They will be either scars, from which we draw conclusions according to their appearance of age or newness, or, more frequently, the remains themselves of a past fall, shattered fragments of ice. From the surface of the blocks we know whether the fall was recent or not. If the surface is blue and new in the morning, it has been a recent or night fall, and another may be expected; the same if it has only the rime of frost upon it. If the surface has melted at all and been refrozen since the fall, it is the fall of the day before or of still older date, and it need not be especially regarded in making an early morning traverse. The differences are notable, and a practised eye, backed by knowledge of the weather immediately preceding, can say within a day or a night when the fall took place, and whether it was a day or a night fall, and judge accordingly, with some probability of correctness, when a similar fall may be expected. Again, if there are traces of several falls of different dates, the passage is exposed to the raking of more than one periodic sérac mass, and it must be avoided. If it is but a single old fall, of a complete sérac, which no expert will have difficulty in discovering, it cannot fall again and may be disregarded.

After the sun has once risen, all commanding and large séracs, even if there is no trace of previous falls, must become objects of suspicion, if we have to pass below them. Their period of decline and fall is proceeding, and its close cannot be calculated nearer than within a few hours.

But a skilled party, with claws and experience, need not be afraid of adventuring on to a crossing of the wettest, bluest, and nastiest-looking séracs, provided that they can work out a route of safe footing and that the threatened zones are visible, and therefore avoidable. So long as snow does not conceal the cleavages or muffle the frailties, the difficulties of ice, as such, are a delight to master. With a good axe, good claws and a good friend, to set one’s feet on the crisp spring of morning ice and feel battle joined with the white, blue and silver giants of a glacier fall, I know no excitement so sanely joyous; and no sound so thrilling as the clean hollow smack of the axe and the bell-like rustle of the falling ice-chips returning from the deep crevasse; and yet again, no exultation more healthy than to look back through the glittering labyrinth of turquoise and grey precipice, of sapphire chasm, fretted spire, and lucent arch, flake and buttress, and see the little serpent of our blurred blue steps, edged with the tiny winking prisms of sunlit ice-dust, soaring, dipping, circling, hazarding on its absurd adventure: surely a connected thread of very happy human purpose, asserting its gay consequence triumphantly through the heart of the wildest and most beautiful of the conflicts between nature’s silent armies.

Snow-covered Glacier.

Higher glaciers, and the higher reaches of glaciers covered with snow, are the most complex of all mountain problems, and their unravelling is the final test of mountaineering. They demand for their duality of difficulty the mastery of snow and ice technique in combination; and for their associated risk a fourfold measure of precautionary skill; for on them we expect to encounter the ordinary risks of snow superimposed upon the hidden, and therefore magnified, possibilities of danger on ice. The great icemen, those who can disregard a late descent after a long day, and by memory, or by the ice instinct which is the emanation of recollected experience, are able to lead a tired party unerringly through the fantastic, often invisible entanglements of a snow-covered glacier system, intensified by sunshine, their own faculties unimpaired by darkness, fatigue or danger, are masters of the craft; and they are few enough for us to give them ungrudgingly the title of genius.

The peculiar risks of snow glaciers force upon us a reconsideration of the numbers proper for a party.

Solitary climbing is never justifiable on any type of expedition which involves either snow or ice; in fact anywhere where the increase in the so-called objective risk makes it impossible to observe the super-precautionary conditions which must always limit a lonely climber’s performance,—as elsewhere enumerated.[15] An expert on claws may pass a day alone on a dry glacier, with the knowledge that he is taking some definite risk. But anyone who ventures alone on snow-covered glacier, whatever his skill, is giving to everybody, except himself, a proof that he lacks the most important part of a mountaineer’s mental equipment.

The question as it affects a single climber is simple. With the consideration of the justifiability of a party of two venturing on snow-covered glaciers, the complications begin. A party of two, I have said elsewhere, if they are experts, is the ideal party for most rock climbing. For most normal mountaineering which includes straightforward ice work the addition of a third to a strong party adds little except a moral security, and diminishes the complete harmony in rhythm and pace. On clear ice slopes the additional protection is small. If, as between two men, one has not been able to check the other’s fall, the third man will very rarely be able to stop the slip of both the others. On snow slopes, except to share the mechanical labour or in certain exceptional cases, already mentioned, to participate in the corrective anchoring, two good mountaineers should not need reinforcement. But on snow-covered glacier, where hidden crevasses come into question, not only are two insufficient but even three may find themselves hard put to it if two of them have to pull out the third from a bad crevasse.

Some mountaineers have maintained, and in print, that it is never necessary to fall into crevasses; that in every case a man with good eyesight, knowledge of glacier signs and unfailing observation (all of which the leader of a party of two must possess for any type of climbing) can always distinguish their unseen presence and locate their line. This view is nearer the truth than the large number of climbers who have never learned or never cared to use and train their senses would be prepared to admit. In nine cases out of ten the crevasse is really perceptible. But there is the tenth case, with which all men who climb must on occasion have to deal, where there has been no visible sign, and where the crevasse is discovered too late or is only escaped by accident. And further, there is also the supernumerary case when the crevasse is visible, but when its crossing must yet be risked, as the milder of several critical alternatives, and the consequences accepted.

As the matter must still be considered one for discussion, and it is of real moment to clear the ground for a sounder tradition than at present regulates our diverse doctrine and chameleon practice, I shall mention a few instances of what I have called the tenth case.

In a recent alpine season a mild winter and a long hot summer produced conditions of snow sub-surface entirely unfamiliar. Crevasses had opened below long-established snow slopes of unimpeachable aspect. Their coverings had become tenuous and fragile, but until mid-August the upper surface of old snow presented no appearance of subsidence or change. No eyesight could have prevented the falls that resulted. Such a state of snow cannot be unique, or confined to the Alps; and, in fact, the same phenomena, in a less subtle form, may entrap less experienced mountaineers almost any season—guides as well as guideless amateurs. Moreover, even where the crevasse shadow would normally be visible, failing light may trick the best eye, a level sun may dazzle, or low mist may wipe out all sign; and then our expert may go through as easily as another. Few even of the most experienced guides but have suffered the experience. Some have been through; others have had their following drop through where they had passed unsuspecting; yet others have only averted the break by good luck or corrective gymnastics.

Again, there is the case when the presence of the crevasse may be visible or suspected, but where its breadth is undiscoverable.[16] Or, again, where the bounds are discoverable, but where their criss-crossing may elaborate new risks. Suppose us to be two grave men making the descent of a hanging glacier. We find ourselves faced with the alternatives of returning up the peak, of sitting out possibly in deteriorating weather, or of taking the chance of unravelling one of those glacier cross-systems of spouting volcanoes, where the ice is heaped and beaten up into snow-covered vault and dome, and only the tinkle below our feet warns us that we are walking over the brittle cupola of some hidden St. Paul’s. One of us might be pardoned for breaking through here: and how shall one other extricate him?

A more frequent, ‘supernumerary’ case is that of the bergschrund, with its single bridge which we have to cross to get at our peak at all, or to get home before night. In the morning it may have been secure; on our return its security, or the reverse, has to be rediscovered ambulando. The experience is common enough, and few parties of two will be able to plead not guilty to having at some time taken the flying chance.

In these and similar cases precautionary and corrective icemanship can do much to reduce the risk for the party of two. But unless such a party climbs so as never to cross snow-covered crevasses at all, which is to postulate absurdity, some risk there must always be of a break-through. And if that once occurs, for a party of two the situation is ten times as serious as for any greater number. For if the fact that a man may excusably fall through may be considered established,—and I shall assume that it is, sufficiently at all events for practical mountaineers,—it is only a question of further fortune whether the crevasse is so shaped that one of the party of only two can rescue himself or even be helped materially by the second man. Several corrective devices have been suggested, such as wearing two ropes, keeping a hand-loop ready near our hand on the rope, etc.—devices which are now used in the confidence that they form a genuine safeguard. The intention of the double rope is that if one man falls through, the other will untie one rope from his waist, and fasten it to his axe, which he will drive in securely as a belay. The man below will then pull on this rope, and the man above on the rope still attached to him; thus securing that the two men will each be pulling separately to raise the one weight. The effectiveness of the double rope so used, however, assumes that the crevasse is one with open walls and clean firm edges, which will allow the second man first to anchor the one rope round his axe, and then move up and stand close enough to the edge to be able to pull in the second rope while his friend below does acrobatics up the anchored rope. But these are not the crevasses into which any observant leader of a party of two has any right to fall. Good men, if they fall, are trapped by snow-covered crevasses of indeterminate edges, or by the midway breaking of a visible but treacherous bridge. In such crevasses the fallen man will be under the projection of a lip of snow. He will be hanging free, probably unable to do more than touch the walls with his axe. The man above will have all he can do to hold on; he may not be able to find secure snow within reach into which to drive his axe for the belay; and his hands will rarely be sufficiently free to untie one waist rope, drive the axe and fix the rope to it, so that he can move up and clear away the overhang. The ropes will cut deeply into the snow lip with the weight; and the friction hold of the snow in which the ropes are embedded will militate against the effective pulling upon his rope by either man. If the two ropes are, as usual, tied to the waist, the one will probably have twisted round the other; both will be jammed in this position in the snow cut, and neither man will be able to distinguish on which rope he is supposed to pull. Even if they have been kept clear before, the cutting through the snow will twist the ropes and jam them, so that they cannot be used separately for pulling at all. The projecting snow will interrupt communications and interfere with any simultaneous action in pulling from above and below. Nor can the man below, suspended in air, really do much to help. Tie a rope round your chest and a bough; drop ten feet on it, and then try to pull yourself up it! And a man in a crevasse is much worse situated for attempting juggling feats. The constriction of the rope alone will soon make him helpless and later unconscious. The shock, the imminent peril and the cold will contribute to weaken him for the strenuous efforts required. Further, if the rope is tied, as it usually is, under the arm, the knot will work up under his shoulder and practically put one arm out of action. All the strength of the arm will be required for merely forcing down the knot and noose, so as to keep it under the arm-pit; the moment the arms are lifted to attempt a pull, the knot will force itself up and half-paralyse the one arm.

It has been suggested, as a partial solution, that the two men should not rope at the ends of the rope, but keep some feet of loose end wound round the body. Then if one falls in he can, with luck helping him, release this slack and make a foot or thigh noose on which the body can rest while suspended, thus relieving the constriction of the chest. Anything that may help is worth trying, and I should certainly advise the method as giving a small extra chance in a bad situation. But this only deals with one of many difficulties.

Experience has again and again shown me that the man below becomes incapable of active co-operation, from cold and shock if not from constriction, before the men above, however prompt and expert they may be, can arrange and carry out any effective scheme of rescue. I have known of difficult situations where even two men above proved insufficient for the complex task of retaining firm fixed anchors, clearing obstructions and pulling up. In any case no mechanical device can be equivalent to the power of a third man, and two men can never be as safe as three.

Once this is conceded, we may admit that a number of good mountaineers will probably continue to hold the view that two is the best number for many sorts of climbing; and that therefore parties of two, starting out with the best intentions, will occasionally find themselves compelled by the necessity of avoiding even greater risk to hazard the crossing of snow-covered crevasses or bridges of dubious stability. They should certainly then put on a doubled or a second rope. One of the two rope-lengths when tied should be longer than the other. This runs risks of twisting and is a nuisance, but in case of a fall it secures that the ropes are at once distinguishable, and it should be prearranged that the man who has fallen should always do his pulling upon this looser rope. The second man should have the end of the looser rope attached, not to his waist, but to his axe shaft. Whenever the leader crosses an obvious bridge or pauses to probe, the second man should plant the axe, with the loose rope attached, at once in the snow, and hold the other, tighter rope in his two hands, ready for emergencies. It is clear that on this method some practical use is made of the protection of the second rope. If the leader goes through, the second man avoids all the enormous difficulty of untying one of two taut ropes, of fixing it to his axe, and then anchoring it, with the whole weight of the man below dragging on him. The weight is on the one taut rope round his waist; he has only to drive in the axe with its slack rope already attached, and the fixed anchor is ready for the man below to start pulling upon, while he himself at once has his hands free to pull on the taut rope. Again, if the rear man falls in—which of course he has even less excuse for doing—this method has the advantage of keeping the second rope already loose and distinguishable in his hand, to cling to or climb upon, and also of saving his axe for him. This double advantage is some remedy for the fact that the leader, who in this case will be the man left above, will have both ropes still fixed to his waist, as on the old faulty system. I do not suggest that the leader also should have the second rope attached to his axe. He must have his axe quite free.

It might be well also to adopt the plan of the few feet of loose end wound round the waist, to make a foot noose with, if the circumstances and position allow.

When the double rope is worn, the rear man should always carry the spare rope. If the double ropes are then, as is quite possible, twisted and jammed in the snow groove, he has yet a third chance of making free and quick connection with his leader; and unless, as I have said, both men can begin instantly to use their full strength upon distinct ropes, there is small chance that one man can get another out of an undercut crevasse.

In place of tying the looser rope to their axe, some men prefer to compromise, and make a fixed loop in the second rope near their waist, through which, in case of the fall of a man in front, they can thrust the axe into the snow, and so get a provisional anchor. This loop in the rope close to the hand, to snatch at or thrust the axe through in emergency, is also used by men in larger parties when linked by the usual single rope. The method has many objections; and all the material security it gives is quite as usefully and less objectionably obtained from the coil or so of slack we are accustomed to grip in the hand.

In the case of a larger party, if a leader or last man does fall in, the first care should be to drive an axe, or axes, securely into the snow, and loop the rope. One man must then approach the edge of the crevasse and see the run of the rope, the nature of the pull, and the clearance of overhanging snow, if any, which has to be made. If the crevasse has the character of a bergschrund, with one lip higher than the other, it is often easier to pull the man out from the opposite side to that from which he has fallen. One, or, if the numbers allow, two of the party must work round cautiously to the far side, taking a spare rope to let down. A noose should be made at the end of the rope before it is lowered. The stirrup for the foot can also well be employed in such emergencies. In a party of three, on a suspicious glacier, the spare rope should always be carried by the last man, and not by the first man, as is usually done in guided parties.

With the two ropes pulling from different sides the extrication is fairly easy. If the farther lip cannot be reached, or overhangs as much as or more than the near lip, there is nothing for it but to cut back the lip of snow overhang above the suspended man until the rope is cleared. This runs some risk of injuring the man below with the falling masses; but the chance must be taken on occasion. The longer a man hangs, the more helpless he becomes. Promptitude is essential.

Keen sight is the first quality for a good leader on snow-covered ice; to be able to remark not only every change of shade or colour or angle on the surface immediately ahead, but also to be able to read the surface well to right and left for its betrayal of crevasses that may be continuing, better hidden, across his path. He must also know all about glacier structure and the inclinations and aspect of surfaces where hidden crevasses may be expected. Tinted glasses are, for many men, an interruption to the reading of ice or snow, and often the cause of bad leading. The man is fortunate who is able to do without them when he is leading, or who finds enough protection in the clear spectacles which best suit his sight. There is an exaggerated idea of the chances of breaking ordinary clear spectacles which has little foundation. They can be worn safely on almost all rock and ice; and even on very severe rock, where they run some risk of smashing as the head is raised past a ledge, they are as safe on the nose as in a pocket. Except right up under the arm-pit, and not always there, there is no contrivable pocket which can be sure of avoiding contact with rock in some attitude of climbing.

After our eyes—and our experience—we have still another criterion, that of the hand. The probing with the axe point at every step must become perfectly automatic, and begin of itself to function as soon as sight or instinct makes us suspicious about the glacier surface. We must have the right sort of axe point, one without a large protuberant collar to the spike, so that we can probe with nicety of touch; and we must get to know exactly the feel of our axe and the meaning of the different resistances which its point signals to our hand. For this reason it is well always to use the same axe or kind of axe.

Where our eye or axe probe has given us reason to suspect a crevasse, the next test is to flog the same spot lightly with the axe point. In dealing with sun-soft surface this flick goes deeper, with less exertion, and practice can make it a very accurate reporter upon the consistency. This too is its merit in testing the thoroughfaresomeness of visible bridges. Where also the snow cover is thin, the flogging stroke tells us more quickly than the prod where sound footing ends and the crevasse begins.

Snow testing, like walking with the axe, should be shared equally between the two hands. It is not only exceedingly useful to be equally dexterous and sensitive with either hand, but the practice keeps the muscular development even and the general condition of the body proportionately better.

When we are working through crevassed glacier the second man must always watch the meaning of his leader’s movements, and halt and brace at once if the leader checks. The others watch each the man in front of him. It is essential to follow exactly in the steps on a glacier of this sort, even though the windings of the leader’s tracks may suggest many pleasant short-cuts to the tail of the rope. By watching the men ahead we know when we must be ready to let out rope, so as to enable the man in front of us, in his turn, to make a long step across a dubitable crevasse or a short jump, and when we shall have to pause and protect him with the rope, as his turn comes to start delicately over a presumed bridge. To hold the rope taut is irritating, to jerk it dangerous, and to leave it slack on the surface irritating and dangerous; the correct touch comes with experience.

The leader will always be on the look out; but the men behind will naturally be following with less close attention. Therefore if the leader comes upon a small crevasse or other easy obstacle too slight to cause him an obvious check, he should warn the man behind of its presence, as he strides on, by beating the spot with his axe; and the signal should be repeated by each man following.

Again if, when we are all moving together, we have checked in order to make some awkward step or to test a bridge, we must remember that in a few seconds the man behind us will be checking at the same place, and we must slacken our pace at the right second to allow him time to cross. It is common and aggravating error to hurry on again so as to get into rhythm with the man in front, forgetting that the man behind will have slowed up for our pause, and will be jerked or scuffled by our omission to allow him the same margin.

The same rule applies if we are serpentining rapidly down a glacier, swinging so as to cross longitudinal or diagonal crevasses at the right angle. If we resume the normal pace the moment we have swung ‘into the straight’ again ourselves, we leave no time for the man behind to finish his parabola or cross his bridge. This is a roguery ingrained in all but the best of guides.

Glacier craft, the ability to choose in anticipation the easiest line down or up a volatile succession of semi-visible obstructions, and to surpass them safely as they become concrete, can only become an actual possession by long experience and unwearying observation. There is a family likeness between whole groups of surface configurations shaped by the same cause, which, however dissimilar their momentary association, will recall to a recording eye some past occasion of encounter, and will suggest to a cool head and skilful hands the proven method of avoiding or defeating them in their new combination.

Glaciers form our avenues of tempting approach, and, as often, of tedious return. During the hours when human vivacity is on the wane the higher ice falls are opening always wider eyes of watchful malice. Towards their confounding not only ice craft but all the qualities which produce the collective strength of a party, from temper to the sense of direction, must contribute in concert. Among glacier ambuscades a party that has not found unity will fall to pieces. They are yet more demoralizing to one whose leadership is in commission,—that grievous blunder of divided responsibility, which, arising out of the sociable conjunction of two or more self-contained parties for the purpose of a single climb, leads too often through disjointed action to failure, and even, as our chronicles bear witness, to disaster.

A really united rope, well led, which can work through disheartening glacier falls long, and late, and like them, has graduated in mountaineering; and may be considered to hold the freedom of the great peaks.