PACE
Pace is a matter of vital importance in mountaineering of any magnitude. Unfortunately, guide-books of recent years, by recording the ‘best times’ taken on ascents for future guidance, have given a certain amount of encouragement to racing for records and so to competitive climbing. A confusion has thus been produced between pace and racing in the minds of many sound mountaineers. The mere mention of the word ‘pace’ provokes them to a protest against record-breaking. A natural, but equally dangerous, reaction has followed, which condemns consideration of ‘times’ altogether, and advocates “idling on the great ridges” as the peculiar joy of the guideless or the true-hearted mountaineer.
Adjustment of Time.
Pace does not mean racing. It means the adjustment of the length of the climb to the length of the day, and the adjustment of the progress of the of climber to the length of the climb. A certain amount of ground must be covered in all great ascents, and there are only certain hours of daylight in which to cover it. No mountaineer is competent who cannot relate in advance the measure of daylight at his disposal to the measure of the distance to be traversed, and keep to that measure in action. Only the men who know how to save time upon this calculation have it to spend upon hours of luxurious rest and interval. There is nothing more fatal to pleasure or to safety than to realize, perhaps too late, that the race with darkness and benightment has begun. Those who are loudest in the valley in their protest against climbing by the watch are the most often challenged or beaten by night in this, the most dangerous form of racing.
Benightment.
Getting benighted is not a pleasure, and it is rarely necessary. It has been given a false halo of romance by the practice and the picturesque descriptions of a number of guideless mountaineers, who first render it inevitable by attempting what is beyond them, or by carrying great weights, and then seek to convince themselves and the world that the consequent night out on a lofty ledge or glacier forms an essential and agreeable part of mountaineering. It is neither. On a rare occasion it may be unavoidable, as the result of unforeseen circumstances, bad weather or altered conditions coming on too late to allow of the proper alternative, which is to turn back in time. If benightment is frequently incurred, it is a sign of some grave defect in mountaineering judgment. As a habit it is folly.
By daylight the climber has the hundred chances of activity, warmth and sight in his favour. At night he is the passive and blinded recipient of any evil chance that storm, cold, wind, illness or accident may bring him. To be on a mountain unprepared at night is to increase the percentage of danger incalculably; and stars, sunrise and sunset can be enjoyed without its unaccountable risk.
Most European mountains are of a height to be climbed, with a reasonable calculation of pace, in a single day. When they are beyond this range, huts are to be found, or a bivouac can be contrived. The night out by intention at the beginning of an ascent has more than the romantic pleasure, because none of the dangerous discomfort, of the night out by miscalculation at its end. This reasonable anticipation presupposes a precise estimate in advance of the pace required, as well as of the length of the climb. Such an estimate does not mean fixing such and such hours for so much of the ridge, and so much time for every halt, which is slavery; but it implies a general preconsideration of what ground must be covered and within what general divisions of time certain fixed points should be reached in order to allow of a safe return by daylight.
Pace is the regulation of the progress, and of the halts, of the party in relation to these general fixed points.
Weight Handicaps.
To carry unnecessarily heavy loads as a precaution against cold or hunger in case of benightment—a very common custom—is to increase the actual probability of the event by further checking the rate of progress. It is better to go as light as possible, with the minimum of portable protection sufficient to preserve life in case of ill-fortune, and to concentrate all the energy upon a timely conquest of difficulty, such as will ensure a return before night. The muscles, not unduly weighted, must see to it that there is always a margin of time in hand upon the estimate, to allow for unforeseen checks.
With regard to this there is another common error. Those who confuse pace with racing, picture a party rushing breathlessly over easy and difficult alike, and panting at their rest-points watch in hand. As a reaction from the picture, they themselves make the long, easy passages that constitute the major part of most ascents the occasion for a relenting rather than a quickening of pace; with the result that they have no margin of time for the unforeseen or the unexpectedly difficult passages.
A party that does good times takes each passage at the maximum pace consistent with comfort, allowing for its degree of difficulty. It has consequently always time in hand to allow of leisurely exploration, when found expedient, and of a more careful overcoming of the real problems when they occur.
Continuous Going.
Pace means the continuous progress of a party over the whole length of a climb, allowing reasonable variations for more complicated passages or for halts. It will be found that a party that does good times rarely hurries. It is, after all, human, and it dislikes being pressed. Nor has it any need to be. An experienced party starts slowly—more slowly, usually, than less expert climbers. It knows that pace to be good must be effortless, and must become mechanical, and that the muscles must be given time to get warm and work up to their automatic rhythm. Once this rhythm is attained it will, for the sake of good progress, avoid alike both hurrying and frequent halting. To hurry will interfere with the bodily functions, and react upon heart and lungs and will; and to halt will disturb the rhythm and chill the muscles. It will aim at continuous steady going, and save its seconds and minutes over ground of easy movement, ready to spend time freely again so as to economize effort on more difficult passages.
Combination.
Combination is the secret of saving seconds. Consider for a moment the case of a roped party that has not learned the secret of pace, and is moving all together on easy rock. Inattentive to a common rate, one man lags, one goes unevenly, there is constant check or turning round to talk, each with its break of continuity of rhythm. On a three hours’ traverse of broken ridge half an hour will have been lost only in disentangling the rope on such interrupted, uneven going. The leader, at the end, will be vexed at the shorter time given in the guide-book, and expostulate, with justice, “Why, I was hurrying all the time!”
Or again, watch a party of average amateurs moving one at a time on steep rock. The first man reaches his ledge, preens his plumes for a second or two in the sun of his success, possibly discusses it in detail with his second man below, looks round for a hold or belay, takes a position, alters it, and shouts, “Come along.” The second calls, “Are you all right?” The first man is disturbed, readjusts his body, gets back to the old position, and says “Yes,” or “Half a moment.” Thirty seconds or more will be gone before the second man can start. He reaches the ledge, does not take note of the first man’s position for holding before it is surrendered to him, and has to rediscover it anew, all with the same delay; and another half-minute is gone. If this performance is repeated, as it will be, several hundred times in the day, by one or more of a party, two invaluable hours at least will have dropped completely out of the allowance of time for the climb! The party will remember that they did their actual climbing fast; on their return they will look up the better ‘times’ of the book, and abuse their predecessors for ‘racing,’ for ‘dangerous pace,’ etc., whereas the only difference has been that their predecessors saved, while they wasted, innumerable, all-important, intervening seconds.
Halts.
Continuous progress is the essence of pace. While a party is in motion, the effort should be directed at keeping the pace constant, not at hurrying it. There will then be larger margins for completer rests at the proper halting times and places. Time can also be saved during halts. It is a great mistake to hurry men over their food; a due allowance of time should be made both for food and rest. But the time of rest should be used for resting. Too much of it is usually lost, and more than intended is often taken, in standing about at the beginning of a halt, or by slackness at the end: one man has misplaced his axe; another finds out for the first time that his puttie wants rewinding; and so on. Once the time allowed for the halt is over, the packing and restart should be brisk and immediate. Rest intervals are assuredly a part of the day’s measure, but dawdling at their edges is time lost from the climbing hours, not time added to the resting.
The Maximum Rhythm.
Moving slowly is not less effort than moving reasonably fast. The muscles in movement generate their own warmth, which is the body’s energy. Muscles when in training can consume and create their own energy at more than their normal rate without more effort. The maximum pace for a man is the highest rate of effort at which his system will carry on its functions without demanding direct impulses of will from the brain, and without generating more waste matter than it can naturally consume and discharge. Each man has his maximum rhythm, which varies according to his condition. Up to this maximum he can climb, when in training, without feeling increased fatigue. Above it, his system will soon feel symptoms of exhaustion; below it, he gets no profit from the relaxation, and even suffers some prejudice to his energy in the loss of a sustained rhythm.
The pace of a party is the maximum rhythm of its weakest member.
A good mountaineering party moving continuously and in combination in the common time of its comfortable maximum rhythm will gain steadily on a less experienced rope, although it may allow itself longer definite intervals of “idling on the great peaks,” and spend even more moments on its difficult passages. The margin in time which it will save will serve, on a well-calculated day, to see the party of sustained pace down to easy going before darkness. The one party will be home to dinner; the other may be still struggling at midnight with the quadrupling of difficulties night brings in its train, or sitting out and relieving its feelings by accusing the former party of ‘racing.’
Gradual beginning, gradual acceleration and uninterrupted moving on a steady top-gear of comfortable pace keep a party fresh, and leave it free to appreciate the beauty of the day or of the climb. Its mind is relieved of care as to a timely return, and it can enjoy a margin of leisure, when it pleases, in pleasant exploration, in essaying experimental routes or in the meditation that mimics slumber.
The real freedom to rest, to idle and to enjoy themselves where and when they will, is only for those who have the measure of their day well in hand, and who know that their collective pace, their maximum rhythm of comfort, before it can rise to a rate of disagreeable effort, has a point or two of pressure still to spare, to recover lost ground or to meet emergency.