On Other Grounds
Many surfaces other than ice or snow give us good practice and pleasurable moments. Volcanic ash is said to provide the finest conceivable flying footing. Sand of sea-cliffs or quarries, and even the mud shoots of the east-coast cliffs, give excellent fun; but the most common, and perhaps the most admirable sub-alpine surface is a light, steep scree slope.
On Scree.
Our method of descending these shoots is dictated by the size of the stones composing them. When they are of shale, or light enough to slide away under our weight, we need only straighten the leg, stiffen the ankle, incline the body slightly forward from the hips, and start with a long leaping stride, forcing the heels well down and in. Small scree, at a good angle, will carry us on and down of itself. The axe is held in the same way as on snow, and is only used for balance touches.
On scree at a lower angle we shall have to continue the plunging strides, leaping from heel to heel and travelling as far as possible on the stones set moving by each foot. The stronger the leg the longer may be the stride. The massing of the stones under the foot will stop each step with the softness of a slow spring, and if we are thrown out of balance by one too abrupt foot check, we can generally recover it on the next stride.
Towards the end of the slope the scree grows larger, and whether sliding or plunging, we have to look out for knee and ankle twisting. We go cautiously, but driving always harder with the heel, until the stones refuse to yield to the thrust; and then we call in our loose legs under control, and proceed to stumble or dance down the rest according to the perfection of our ankles and balance. A man light of foot and supple of joint can let his feet drift, as it were, over even large rolling stones, letting them adjust themselves to the varying resistances without checking his pace. A man who judges his scree not by its size but by its angle, its shape and the way it sits on the surface, can continue his glissade often well beyond the point where the less expert begin to fall or crawl.
Once the blocks grow too big to be kicked into harmless motion, and the drifting feet begin to slip over them into the interstices, the wise man begins to look for other shoots to carry him farther. By using the swinging cross-step described already, we can make diagonal descents of slopes on a succession of connected parallel glissades. By choosing a line well ahead, and crossing from shoot to shoot, many hillside descents of weary prospect can be charmed into a few moments of stimulating racing. It is well to remember that up-running spits of light scree often conceal themselves in depressions between ribs of rock or in hollows between slopes of heavier scree, especially near the bottom of the slopes.
The light screes that lie in these lower furrows on hillsides are among the deepest and pleasantest. Our zagging from furrow to furrow will divert our thoughts if not our feet from the last tiresome steep grass drop. Where the lower spits of light shilla thin out, generally at their lower ends, it is wise to look out for the catch to the ankle of rocks or wet earth or grass, stripped of their scree varnish by the driving heel.
It is best for each member of a party to choose a different line, otherwise the larger stones dislodged, often accumulating a torrent, may surprise a speedier forerunner. Similarly, it is safer to leap sideways occasionally ourselves, and wait while our own attendant torrent passes.
The angle of inclination at which small scree lies is invariably the angle of disinclination for big scree. Big scree, when we cannot avoid it, is an unqualified worry, and we worry out of it as we can. The method, traditionally recommended, of sitting or standing on one large stone and tobogganing down on it over the others, would seem to be only successful for distances not yet ascertained.
In Winter Gullies.
Except in the North, where winter snow gives much the same conditions for glissading as the summer Alps, winter glissading in Britain is usually upon snow-covered scree or mixed snow and scree. The end of our glissades in this case has a special risk: where the snow thins and weakens among the larger blocks, which it yet continues to cover—to our downfall. To glissade near emerging rocks is risky, on account of the probable holes and hidden pockets in the snow round them.
In gullies alone we find snow over rock. Here there is another special risk in the rock steps or pitches, which may be only partially covered with snow. The drop is often invisible from above, and an inexperienced glissader may be unable to stop himself in time, when he is close enough to recognize a break in the continuity of the snow slope. Sometimes there is a frail lid of snow more deceptive than an open break; and I have seen a man shoot over a pitch of this sort through the snow lid and down the wet rock channel under the lower snow. Where the rock of such pitches is visible, we have still to look out for another trap. We may count upon stopping as we reach the rock; but the very end of the slope, where the melting snow has run down and refrozen over rock, is usually of harder surface, if not of ice. Hence we have to allow for a sudden and surprising acceleration just where we intended to slow up.
No man should start glissading down a gully or slope that he does not know; or that he cannot see throughout its whole length; or until he is expert enough to know what the snow, as he finds it, will do with his feet.
On Grass and Heather.
Glissading is also possible and pleasant on slopes of grass, heather or whortleberry growth, if the angle of the hill is steep and the conditions right.
Under snow, even in small quantity or half melted, any herbage will serve; but the dry, polished, almost glassy surface of grass or short growth, produced by drought or hot sun, is almost as slippery as snow.
On firm covering snow over hill grass, of course a standing glissade is indicated.
If the snow is soft or thin, so that the feet would catch through it upon the grass or heather stems, sitting is best. On steep slopes sitting means rapid going, while there is any snow at all showing between the stalks.
If the snow is merely a wet skim, or if we are glissading upon dry glassy herbage, it is better for clothes and comfort to use the feet. The correct method is to sit or squat right down on the heels. If we have an axe or stick, we lean back upon it, or push with it, as balance or our relenting pace suggests. If we have no stick, we clasp the hands round the knees and shoot down in a honeypot attitude. At a check, the legs are shot out, and a raking action of the heels starts the slide again. This fashion of sliding crouched upon the feet is feasible upon nearly all steep slopes of smooth, thick, fatiguing herbage, where the walking descent would be slippery and laborious; but it must be used with caution. Stones, roots and hummocks intrude; and nowhere is a human being more helpless, once he has lost control, than on steep, slippery grass. If he once starts to roll, a broken arm or a bad shaking may be the least disagreeable consequence. There have been more serious accidents due to slips on grass than on all the snow mountains of the world put together.