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.