Yet another group, with whom I have a particular sympathy, who belong to the class of ‘made’ climbers rather than to that of ‘natural’ climbers, may often find that they have stuck fast at a certain point in their technique and are abandoning the prospect of improving further. Experience encourages the hope that they may be able, after learning something of the essential principles of method, to recast or amplify their own methods, so as to make further progress on sounder lines. Or they will discover that a man may be useful to a party as an expert in one of the less common but no less important branches of mountaineering craft. Their inferiority in a single department—for instance, rock climbing, in which excellence is often overrated as compared with other equally valuable qualifications—will then be seen in better proportion.
And those who are not climbers, but who are interested in or perhaps even resentful of the fascination which mountains exercise, may discover, if they have the patience, that mountaineering as it is now practised is no simple outlet for an athletic impulse, and no selfish indulgence in a game which has the demerit of risking lives often of notable value; but that it is a genuine craft, as well as a genuine enthusiasm; an education alike in self-development and in self-subordination; a discipline of character, of infinite variety in its demands and in its reactions upon strength, endurance, nerve, will, and temper, upon powers of organization as upon powers of dealing with men; a test of personality for which no preparation may be considered excessive, and a science for whose mastery the study of all our active years is barely sufficient. Of its rewards, in health, self-knowledge, æsthetic pleasure, and incomparable adventure, it is not the place to speak in a book of practical counsel.
For the opinions on technical points, and their elaboration in theory, I must be held alone responsible. Where the multiplication or repetition of detail may appear tedious, it has been inserted for the better illustration of some underlying principle, or to provide the more material for the future settlement of some point still under discussion among mountaineers. Those who disagree with the methods recommended may still make use of the advice, much as I should do in their case, treating it as yet another statement of an individual point of view, such as may at least act as a serviceable standard of comparison for their own practice.
Our object will be gained if the suggestions are found to provide a basis for more general discussion and thought, an available condensation of a good deal of theory floating and partially formulated among modern mountaineers of experience, and something of a book of reference and reminder for those who may not have known, or cared to admit, that there was so much about which they ought to form an opinion.
In the innovation of giving a prominent position to considerations of personal management and leadership there has been a special purpose. For reasons not difficult to assign, most manuals dealing with the practice of active pursuits have been in the habit of ignoring the dominant influence that is exerted upon all combined action by the psychological factor, and the extent to which changing conditions of mood and humour, and the more stable divergences between the individual temperaments of men acting in association, must contribute to success or failure. The accentuation of the human problem, as it presents itself in mountaineering, has therefore been intentional. In mountains, where personality counts before everything, men are forced back upon their elemental selves; they become very different beings from their drawing-room semblances, and unless they allow for this in the adjustment of their relations on the hills, they can achieve only the mediocrity of performance, the barrenness in results, or the complete break-down which are the common fate of all ill-constituted parties, for exploration, for mountaineering, for warfare, or for any other active adventure that depends for its success upon effective combination.
Mountaineering, in its modern development, involves a large number of matters for arrangement which cannot be classed under the headings of technique or of specific equipment for climbing; such as methods of travel, care of health, choice of districts in less-known countries, special routes of access, and details of topography and equipment peculiar to any particular district chosen. Most of these vary in detail in the different ranges.
It has, therefore, seemed most convenient to deal with the special conditions which characterize a number of the regions now most frequently visited in separate chapters, each chapter devoted to one of the great ranges. These chapters have been undertaken by experts who will be recognized as speaking with authority by mountaineers of every school and nationality. Their intention is to give just the amount of practical information which we all need, and which we find it so hard to procure, when we are in process of making up our minds what region we will visit; and to add sufficient indication of where we may find all the more particular information which we shall require when once we have decided upon our region.
Captain Farrar’s suggestions on Mountain Equipment, Mr. Arnold Lunn’s on Equipment and Method for Mountaineering on Ski, Dr. Wollaston’s on the Care of Health, and Mr. Sydney Spencer’s on Photography, apply, generally speaking, to all mountaineering regions and to all organized expeditions. To Captain Farrar’s advice the suggestions on Outfit made in the regional chapters are complementary, dictated by the special conditions of the district or of the season.