Even a stay in a hut is more tolerable than confinement in an hotel. For this reason, and to save the time and patience spent upon going up and down from the hut, as well as to be on the spot to catch the right day, it is often pleasanter to stay up at the hut, and send down a porter each day for provisions. We are then ready when the change comes in uncertain seasons.
Snowfall, however, with its hopeless prospect and unpleasing chilly presence, will suffice to send us down without question. Continued snow will send us yet further; unless we can arm ourselves with the short summer ski. In that case we may still refuse to admit defeat, and mint golden days out of the ashes of a heartless season.
I am speaking here only of weather in the Alps. In more distant and less hospitable ranges, where the base camp and the rescue of civilization are more remote, the same persistent course cannot be maintained in face of continued bad or changeable weather. In small climbing, as in Britain, we need not regard weather at all. It enforces all the observation it deserves by the definite limits which wet or snowy rocks put upon the degree of difficulty which it is safe or comfortable for us to attempt, and by the temporary discomforts and restrictions that wind or snow inflict upon our daily expeditions.
TRAINING
The Framework.
If any layman in anatomy has ever kept his fingers on trunk or sides while walking down or up hill, he will have been astonished at the amount of work that is done by groups of muscles wholly remote from the calves or thighs upon whose development he has proudly relied. Suppleness and an even development of hardened muscle all over the body are what tell in climbing, not local bulges. Most men are designed by nature to develop most spring, suppleness and strength at a point of general muscular development which will never earn their portraits a place beside the corrugated limbs of the gentlemen on the hoardings. Of course a naturally big-muscled man must remain big-muscled. But it is the quality of the muscle that counts. Whatever there is, large or small, it has to be spun into fine silk. Any effort to develop unduly some group of muscles, in arm or leg, will even prejudice the ease with which a man can recover in training the harmonious control of his machinery at its best, and the artificial muscle is apt to degenerate into fat when he goes out of training. A man, evenly developed according to his potential strength, even when he goes out of training has little difficulty in preserving a level, if lower, plane of general fitness and suppleness; and when the time comes for winding up or for relaxing, his condition moves evenly and easily up or down, and he is ready, in a few days if he is young, in rather more as time goes on, to climb again at his best.
To keep in moderate training out of season, any regular exercise in the open air is sufficient which exercises different parts of the apparatus of the body in their relation to one another, and which holds the attention. Monotonous repetitions of particular muscular movements are of little service. They bore the mind and weary the nerves; and it is the interworking of his nerves, muscles and will that a climber has to train. If he is prevented by circumstances from getting open air exercise, he may find fencing the most effective, concentrated and lasting indoor practice which he can fit conveniently into his working day. An hour’s hard fencing with both hands, comprising exercises, free play and a cold douche to finish, uses every muscle and connection of the body to the full, but risks no local strain. For in fencing every movement must be supple and yet controlled; the whole system is kept concentrated, and at full tension, upon movements minute, quick and fine. The training in rapid adjustments and lightning reactions is invaluable to the climber, and its unboisterous character makes it possible of continuance without prejudice well into old age.
If he can face them, dancing and skipping are admirable exercises to the same end. Tree climbing, or even haystack climbing, where possible, are also fine climbing practice. Swimming and sculling exercise organs and muscles smoothly and develop them evenly. Swimming has no equal as an exercise for growing strength. It runs no risk of violent local strain, and it cannot be continued beyond the point of wholesome fatigue. In all its varieties and attendant circumstances it combines more educative merits than any other form of open air sport.
My own view is that the development of special groups of muscles is best left for the climbing days themselves to effect. ‘Morning exercises,’ before the cold bath, are excellent to get the circulation right, and better than nothing for climbers whose day allows them no more wholesome outdoor activity. Among special exercises I should put first those that strengthen the forearm and fingers, for ‘gripping’; those that build up the muscles of the trunk, which have the greatest share of work to do in climbing; those that train the body to balance easily up and down on one leg, for balance; and those (if there are any but wood chopping) which prepare the shoulders and trunk for the movement of step cutting. But the working in easy combination of groups of muscles is what the climber aims at. Excessive exercise of independent groups is apt to militate against quick muscular interaction. It is well, therefore, to make movements in combinations, and constantly to vary them. This helps to keep the attention concentrated. So does a looking-glass. Boredom invalidates the whole effort. Each movement should represent a separate effort of the will.
The Organs.