It may now be assumed that until a mountaineer knows something of his craft by actual experience, the choice of a route up a peak need not be left to his unaided attempts at reconnoitring. Elementary mountaineering information is far more widely diffused, and practical climbing ability has become almost an inherited instinct. The method adopted by the Badminton on Mountaineering, and by various excellent manuals in imitation of it, first synthesized for us a sample peak or climb, resolved the attributed features into their simple elements again, and then directed us, with natural confidence, precisely how to deal with them. A method advisable for purposes of picturesque propaganda in earlier, darker days is of less service to a climbing generation whose acquired craft can be more generally trusted to know how to attack its peak, if it can once attain to only a small part of the certainty about the real character and the momentary condition of distant detail which these illuminating studies could happily assume. The path so well prepared by our predecessors for the straying or reluctant feet of the potential climber, and so entertainingly bordered with composite examples, need not be retrodden. Guidance in reconnoitring, to be of later use, must now wait for its opportunity further along the way, and be ready to pester the progressive competence and self-assurance of zealous mountaineers with the well-meaning but aggravating importunity of an elder walking companion: “Can’t you see that?” and, “What does it mean?” and, finally, “Well, then, I’ll tell you!”
Snow and rock and ice, as a triune element, alone concern us. What we need to find out about them is their respective angles, to know if we can get up at all; their several conditions, to ascertain if we can do so with or without danger or difficulty; and the degree of modification which their combination may be introducing, in order to decide if we can do so within the appointed time. For instance, our agreeable opinion of the angle of a rock rib will counterbalance our unfavourable view of the state of a snow face, which it relieves; or our optimistic impression of the snow in a couloir will free us from the gloom created by our sight of the angle and character of a rock wall, which it bisects. With a peak as such we are only concerned in so far as it presents to us a greater or lesser mass of favourable or unfavourable angles and superficial conditions. We take it that our climbing craft can get us up any mountain by any way visible or invisible. It is for our reconnoitring craft, first, to reject those alternatives which are interrupted by the angle of the impossible; secondly, to condemn the lines where it detects surface conditions or direct menaces which will introduce too large an element of danger; thirdly, to except the routes where it decides that harsh angle and poor condition in unrelenting succession combine to form too great a volume of difficulty to be humanly vincible in a single expedition; and lastly, if no agreeable or interesting remainder be left over, to use its utmost skill to determine whether some unseen aspect may not reveal sufficient of its character to encourage a hope that it will offer a more helpful line of attack.
The sum of the results of these investigations will of course add up differently with every peak, and any discussion of it in the abstract could only be hypothetical. The decision as to whether this sum in any concrete case represents a feasible or justifiable mountaineering attempt must take into further account the strength of the party proposing to make it, and must be therefore, for us, equally hypothetical. All that the grammar of reconnoitring can usefully define are the lines which investigation should follow in order to secure exact information about the elements which are the material for our calculations, and therefore the chief factors in our decisions. Snow, rock and ice are these elements; and their state, angle and influence upon each other in certain combinations form the only matter that need concern our examination on the spot,—or here.
Things Seen
To discover whether a distant slope is snow or ice, if the character of the surface is not apparent at once, or deducible from its position, aspect or angle, we must wait for sun or strong daylight.
Snow Surface Condition.
Ice surfaces—that is, the smooth ice surfaces found in the Alps—reflect light as an even, steely glimmer, like elongated pools of water. Black ice, not so often found in the Alps, has a different quality in reflection. Granular ice is distinguishable by its reflection of light in facets or prisms. It will be noted that these tend to increase in size as our inspection descends the length of a glacial slope. The honeycombed ice found in tropical ranges is quite distinct in character; it can be recognized from a distance, and in a photograph, by its surface forms.
Snow surfaces show plain white or grey in comparison.
An ice crust upon snow has an appearance much like that of ice, but the reflected light is ‘pockled’ and uneven.
New snow, which is best left alone, has a brilliant fresh surface. Seen even from great distances, and especially upon rock, it shows a filmy, gossamer, veil-like quality. This endures until the aeration has escaped and the feathery surfaces have subsided into harder contours.