Preventable Humours.
The influence of the mind upon the body has its special concern for mountaineering management. An athletic body, if it be nervously constituted, may be as susceptible of fatigue after two hours’ walking on a dull road as after twelve hours on an exciting ascent. Mental distraction is as important as change of movement for the easy performance of sustained physical effort. Mountaineering owes for this reason to its infinite variety of motion and interest a record of feats of sheer endurance such as no other human pursuit or sport has excelled. But not all mountaineers are conscious of their debt to this peculiar virtue of the hills, or allow sufficiently for its full enjoyment in making their plans. Far more than any muscular strength or even physical fitness, will-power is the dominant force in maintaining normal energy and in subduing abnormal accidiæ, to which reference is made later. The leader is most efficient who can best protect his party against influences that irritate the nerves and so interfere with the power or desire to bring the will into play. Men bored, men irritated, men disappointed, men overwrought, without pleasure in retrospect or prospect to refresh them, lose the wish to throw off their mood. It is against the causes of boredom, the effects of exaltation or of disappointment, that the leader has to take his precautions. If, in spite of him, the moods are created, he must be ready, in anticipation, to provide some remedy of distraction that can release the will from the oppression of the nerves and associate it in the effort to master the mood. External distractions are the most effective. The alarm of fire has been known to banish rheumatism or paralysis; the sound of an avalanche electrifies a twisted ankle into painless activity; the sight of the hotel round the corner cures exhaustion like a cold douche; an ingenious conversational opening will carry a limping band over unconscious miles of extra effort. Anything that for the moment can release the consciousness from its over-mastering nervous affection, nervous in effect however physical in origin, enables the will to recover control of the muscles. These external provocations excite states of anger, interest or alarm wholly different in character and effect from passive states of irritation and obstinacy which are produced by the reaction from an internal consciousness of fatigue. A leader will welcome them, in fact, as antidotes to their apparently kindred humours.
Boredom.
It may be assumed that a modern leader will not make the elementary, although traditional, blunder of taking beginners or young people or women for their first expedition upon the weariness of snow trudges, such as the traditional first tour up the Zermatt Breithorn. But even with an expert party he has to remember that boredom is one of his chief enemies. Monotonous snow slopes, long moraines before dawn, long zigzags on the path when the excitement of the day is over, make an undue call upon the will, such as suggests fatigue to the mind before the muscles are really exhausted. They are part of the day’s work, but they put a strain upon the temper of an untrained party that is more wisely avoided.
With the same danger in view, a leader, while he insists on early starts, should not give his party too much to do before daylight. Men without guides lose endless time, energy, and, worse still, temper and tone in losing their way and their footing on the preliminary paths and glaciers in the dark. It is better to start an hour later, and recover half of it from the easier, surer going of daylight progress. But best of all for a guideless party is to reach the inn, hut or bivouac in sufficient time the evening before to allow them to make thoroughly sure of their next morning’s dark exit from the mazy streets and fields, or of the easy route on to and through the nearer glacier. Men are irritable enough in the dark, and if they cannot get going at once to a sure rhythm on a certain route, their harmony of movement and mood may be impaired for half or all of a day. Of the means of meeting the special boredom peculiar to snow tramps, something is said under Snow Craft.[3]
Over-excitement.
During the early days of a tour, on the other hand, there is always the contrary possibility to guard against, that the mere excitement and novel sensation of meeting difficulty may urge men beyond their strength and conceal from them that the limit of their endurance is already crossed. When the nervous tension is over, physical exhaustion sets in very suddenly. The situation is awkward to deal with; but physical crises are definite and yield to definite remedies. The sympathy and efforts of the whole party are at once concentrated upon the victim. Fatigue is lost sight of in the greater common need and the supreme effort for which it calls. The individual may suffer, but the tone of the party, if anything, profits. The leader may take comfort in this thought, and also in the fact that even if a climb turns out unforeseenly sensational, it has none the less to be carried through, and that there is some cause for his gratitude if undue excitement will help to sustain a weaker member of his party over the serious part of the day, even at the expense of an off-day on the morrow.
The effects of fatigue from mental suggestion or boredom upon temper, will and, ultimately, energy are less preventable. They tend to divide a party socially and to make them irritable, carelessly reckless, or obstinately languid. Mental tonics, distractions and talk are less easily administered than helping hands. But a leader, whatever his own state, has to pull himself together to anticipate or to meet the occasion, and use all his tact to distract attention and create a new interest in anything but the individual consciousness of fatigue.
Leadership in Action
The manager as leader has a special responsibility to himself. He is the stroke of the party. Like a good stroke, while exerting himself to the utmost, he has always to keep some strength, nervous and physical, in reserve, to meet a sudden emergency or to vitalize unexpectedly depressing hours of dull return. As a duty to the party he should save himself by making use of the stronger members, should there be any, to take something of his share of the more laborious and less vital labour. A party which knows his value as reserve and management will save him, for instance, some part of his portion in the work of carrying, of leading in soft snow, or of easy step-cutting. They too must recognize he has always to keep something in reserve for a crisis.