Weight Handicaps.
To carry unnecessarily heavy loads as a precaution against cold or hunger in case of benightment—a very common custom—is to increase the actual probability of the event by further checking the rate of progress. It is better to go as light as possible, with the minimum of portable protection sufficient to preserve life in case of ill-fortune, and to concentrate all the energy upon a timely conquest of difficulty, such as will ensure a return before night. The muscles, not unduly weighted, must see to it that there is always a margin of time in hand upon the estimate, to allow for unforeseen checks.
With regard to this there is another common error. Those who confuse pace with racing, picture a party rushing breathlessly over easy and difficult alike, and panting at their rest-points watch in hand. As a reaction from the picture, they themselves make the long, easy passages that constitute the major part of most ascents the occasion for a relenting rather than a quickening of pace; with the result that they have no margin of time for the unforeseen or the unexpectedly difficult passages.
A party that does good times takes each passage at the maximum pace consistent with comfort, allowing for its degree of difficulty. It has consequently always time in hand to allow of leisurely exploration, when found expedient, and of a more careful overcoming of the real problems when they occur.
Continuous Going.
Pace means the continuous progress of a party over the whole length of a climb, allowing reasonable variations for more complicated passages or for halts. It will be found that a party that does good times rarely hurries. It is, after all, human, and it dislikes being pressed. Nor has it any need to be. An experienced party starts slowly—more slowly, usually, than less expert climbers. It knows that pace to be good must be effortless, and must become mechanical, and that the muscles must be given time to get warm and work up to their automatic rhythm. Once this rhythm is attained it will, for the sake of good progress, avoid alike both hurrying and frequent halting. To hurry will interfere with the bodily functions, and react upon heart and lungs and will; and to halt will disturb the rhythm and chill the muscles. It will aim at continuous steady going, and save its seconds and minutes over ground of easy movement, ready to spend time freely again so as to economize effort on more difficult passages.
Combination.
Combination is the secret of saving seconds. Consider for a moment the case of a roped party that has not learned the secret of pace, and is moving all together on easy rock. Inattentive to a common rate, one man lags, one goes unevenly, there is constant check or turning round to talk, each with its break of continuity of rhythm. On a three hours’ traverse of broken ridge half an hour will have been lost only in disentangling the rope on such interrupted, uneven going. The leader, at the end, will be vexed at the shorter time given in the guide-book, and expostulate, with justice, “Why, I was hurrying all the time!”
Or again, watch a party of average amateurs moving one at a time on steep rock. The first man reaches his ledge, preens his plumes for a second or two in the sun of his success, possibly discusses it in detail with his second man below, looks round for a hold or belay, takes a position, alters it, and shouts, “Come along.” The second calls, “Are you all right?” The first man is disturbed, readjusts his body, gets back to the old position, and says “Yes,” or “Half a moment.” Thirty seconds or more will be gone before the second man can start. He reaches the ledge, does not take note of the first man’s position for holding before it is surrendered to him, and has to rediscover it anew, all with the same delay; and another half-minute is gone. If this performance is repeated, as it will be, several hundred times in the day, by one or more of a party, two invaluable hours at least will have dropped completely out of the allowance of time for the climb! The party will remember that they did their actual climbing fast; on their return they will look up the better ‘times’ of the book, and abuse their predecessors for ‘racing,’ for ‘dangerous pace,’ etc., whereas the only difference has been that their predecessors saved, while they wasted, innumerable, all-important, intervening seconds.
Halts.