We have made a great step in advance: we practise climbing down as an art in Britain, but we have still a long way to go in developing our practice of ‘continuous’ climbing, down even more than up. I have seen the start of many of our finest island rock climbers in the Alps, men whose feats on difficult rock still stand unsurpassed, and I have never seen one who, when he came out, was even the equal of a good average guide in continuous going on moderate or steep rock, especially in descending. These men quickly recognized their defect when they saw the styles contrasted, and set themselves to correct it. But others, who have gone guideless and never enjoyed the opportunity of comparison, have continued even in the Alps their interrupted method and, consequently, have achieved a degree of performance in no way equal to their real standard of climbing ability. A very illuminating instance was that of one of the greatest of our rock pioneers, whose style was as finished and deliberate as his enterprise was remarkable. After many years of climbing in our islands, with an unrivalled record, and of climbing guideless in the Alps, with practically nothing to show for it, he spent one season, later in life, with a fast first-class guide. As a result he, admittedly, changed his whole habit, and subsequently climbed with an accomplished continuity that without diminishing his security multiplied his amount of performance three and four fold.
Climbing down requires more practice than climbing up, because the mechanism of the body is contrived more conveniently for upward movement, and because we have eyes in our head and not in our toes or heels. The eye has to learn to select its holds from awkward angles. The hands and feet have to learn accurately to follow the eye’s choice, in movements mechanically more difficult to execute. Consequently in descending the inclination to grip and hang becomes even stronger than in ascending, and until the right attitudes become instinctive it requires some resolution to force the body steadily outward until it is in balance over its footholds and is not depending from the hands.
Once the natural impediments are mastered the gain to pace and to security which we obtain from our balance and foot method soon makes even the memory of our desire to cling strange. The muscular strain is less. We are free to use the friction of the body, in any part, to regulate the pace or suggest direction. The body descends naturally on to firm positions on the feet, and stands ready without readjustment of balance or holds to give any assistance required to the man below on the rope.
It is on continuous descending, and on the management of the rope this involves, that the improvement in our method has had most effect. The principle of descent in balance is to keep face outwards or face sideways as long as possible. In such positions our eye commands both the whole rope and the rock almost continuously, and we can decide at any instant whether we should proceed, or pause, or tauten the rope on the man below.
It is almost startling to see a first-class mountaineer come down steep rock, as last man, in a series of well-timed rushes, while he still protects the continuous descent of his less expert front-men. He never allows the rope to slacken. He keeps the safety check while the man in front is moving; but in any intervals his lightning rushes make up the necessary ground.
In descending, a slight tension of the rope is sufficient to check a weak climber, whereas in going up he would have required a hard pull; and a light guide or a quick amateur, judging his moments well, can ‘anchor’ and secure the safe descent of a whole rope of heavy-weights below him, and yet never check their progress while he interpolates his own flights of descent.
Positions.
In descending, so long as is conveniently possible, and practice alone discovers how much longer the position is tenable than appears to us at first, the face should be kept turned outward.
So soon as the outward position becomes insecure, that is, when nothing but holds for the heels present themselves and the balance is felt to be thrust out by the steepness of the rock beyond the feet, thus throwing a clinging strain upon the hands, the body should be turned sideways to the rock.
Only as a last extremity, on perpendicular or overhanging rock where the eye is no longer of use to find footholds, should the face be turned in to the rock, in the position most natural for ascending.