Some men have the sense in the form of an ability to keep a straight line once set, no matter what the obstruction or obscurity; others in the form of knowing their position in relation to any near or distant point they have previously visited. With a few the sense is polarized; they ‘feel’ the north. My own sense indicates only direction between points already visited. Although making all allowance for the leading foot, and conscious that as leader I was being kept to a straight line by the compass in the hand of my last man, I have myself in thick mist on level snow, after forty-five minutes of what was actually straight marching, felt positive that I had led the party through one complete and one half-circle to the right, so strong was the instinct to turn to the left in spite of all precaution and prevision. On the other hand, I have watched a man who had been brought round from Hammersmith to South Kensington by Underground on his first visit to London, and set to the task without previous warning, take and keep, in thick fog, the most direct line back again through the maze of cross streets; which he could not be said to be seeing for the first time, as they remained invisible. A singular case was that of a high Wrangler, a mountaineer, whose sense of direction was acute, but inverted: it indicated points precisely opposed to the correct ones. Once we had discovered this, and allowed for the idiosyncrasy, we made frequent use of his otherwise very exact sense. For those who may have interested themselves in the faculty, I will add that this friend similarly produced or wrote down the results of all mental calculations with the figures in the reverse order.
GLISSADING
Glissading is an art that rewards the skilful. For the inexpert, though the pleasure in its prospect never dies, the actual performance is more often productive of aching shins and wet clothes, than of birdlike exhilaration. Until ski-ing came in to complement it, and we may say to improve upon it, glissading gave its artists their nearest approximation to the sensation of flying. Its physical thrill is very little less intense than that of flying on machines through the air, because the exciting vibration of the feet over the solid surface provokes a lively consciousness of pace and motion disproportionate to the actual rate usually attained.
But it has never been widely recognized that the art has to be learned. Very little has been written about it, and much of that little has been fundamentally wrong. All men glissade in a sort of way, as a kind of amusing frolic, with tumbles forming an integral part of the fun, like the periodic shrieks of the ladies on the Earl’s Court roundabouts. But men who know how to glissade, and how to use its opportunities as a real auxiliary to their mountain progress, have always been the exceptions. Guides are seldom able exponents. More than a dozen fatal accidents are directly traceable to bad glissading.
Fortunately, the greater popularity of ski-ing has come to the rescue, and its more general practice should have prepared both the minds and feet of a much larger number for a more serious treatment of their mountaineering glissading. A man who can ski is half-way to becoming a good glissader. A good glissader, once the first surprise of the ski feeling is overcome, finds many of the simpler ski motions familiar.
In learning to glissade, a man has three points of normal contact which he must learn to control: his two feet, and the shaft-point of his axe. There is also a fourth point of possible contact, with which I deal separately under sitting glissades. The head of the axe, except in one very rare case, is useless for contact, and should never be brought into play. In fact, during the time of learning,—and to learn properly will take as long as has to be devoted to the beginnings of ski-ing,—it is better to use only a stick with a single point, or a ski-stick. The axe head during the preliminary falls is apt to point too keen a moral.
A certain school of icemen, the devotees of the short axe, keep the axe head always sheathed in its leathern cover. In glissading the practice has distinct advantages: it preserves the keenness of the edge, protects the climber, and is far warmer to grasp. Those who learn to glissade with an axe and not a stick may well copy the practice. This suggestion applies to learning both on snow and on glacier.
On Ice
Glissading on ice is practically confined to short rushes on glaciers; even there it is generally avoidable, but its mastery adds a delightful possibility of directness and pace to the late returns down ice falls.
No sane man will ever start a glissade on ice on a mountain side, unless the slope is evidently short and is seen to end in safe arresting snow, or in the earth deposits found on Himalayan glaciers. The sheer pace and rude vibration produce helplessness and, soon, unconsciousness on a steep ice slide of any great length. Control cannot be maintained for more than a brief period of inevitable acceleration. Often, however, quick bands of ice intrude, visibly or not, on a steep snow glissade, and it is then important to be able to make the new adjustments required by ice; and so avoid being thrown out of balance by the sudden alterations in the quality of the surface flashing under our feet.