Collective Rhythm.
To climb as an individual, each man has to learn how he can most safely and economically manage his muscles, his will and his nerves, and how to accommodate his personal rhythm to the accidents of rock structure. To climb in a party, he has to adjust this to the collective rhythm of whatever men he climbs with. He has not only to get up rocks, he has to do so as part of a machine. If all the party is moving together, he has to watch the hands and feet of the man in front, so as to lose no time in renewed searching for his own holds; to see that the rope in front does not catch or lie about, but take it up in loose, neat coils in his hand, and let it out again as required; to keep his distances, so as not to hurry or jerk the men in front or behind him; to carry his axe and generally a loose coil of rope; and at the same time to climb securely himself, with a view to having to meet at any moment an unexpected slip by some one else. If the party is moving singly, he has to see exactly where the man in front goes; to watch his position on the next stance above, so as to adopt at once the right attitude for belaying or holding the man below when he himself reaches the stance in his turn, and to pull in the rope of the man behind as he comes up, while seeing that the rope of the man in front runs out without hitch.
Climbing on the rope falls naturally into two divisions of technique, alternating in their employment according to the difficulty of the rock traversed and the ability of the party: that of all moving together, or ‘continuous climbing,’ on easy and moderately difficult rock; and that of moving singly, ‘interrupted’ or ‘one at a time,’ on difficult rock; in the latter case the man above will always be stationary and ‘anchoring’ the rope for the succeeding climber. This distinction is made throughout in discussing the different uses of the rope.
The mastery of continuous movement on the rope is the more important; it is the finer art, and the better foundation for big mountaineering. But it has become too much the fashion with our climbers to ignore its importance, and to treat, and therefore to train their following to treat, each section of rock as an individual ‘problem.’
The necessity of learning how to move singly is forced upon us in any case by the sectional character of most of our difficult British rock climbs, which are apt to divide themselves into separate ‘pitches.’ Unfortunately, the effect has gone deeper. Not only do we practise moving singly almost to the exclusion of collective continuous climbing, but we allow the interrupted method to destroy the rhythm and pace that properly form part of good ‘one-at-a-time’ climbing. Such sectional climbing establishes a habit which is bad for the individual style and disastrous in big mountaineering.
A mountaineer on a rope has to learn to feel that he is charged with a portion of a united personality represented by the rope. In proportion as he himself is secure or not, at any moment when others are less well placed, he carries a greater or lesser share of this collective responsibility. If all are moving together, his own movements are of importance to the party in so far as they coincide with the collective rhythm and contribute to the pool of safety against accidents. If the party is moving singly, at the moments when he himself is actually climbing he is free to look after himself alone, but the instant he has ceased to move he has a double measure of security to assure for those starting to move above or below him. This is his contribution to the combined safety of the party. His contribution to the collective pace is that he should climb as quickly as is consistent with safe progress and not as slowly as his own comfort might desire.
Slack habits on short English climbs prevent a party ever finding its rhythm, or even discovering its value as a combination. A good party acquires a fine collective momentum from the impulse transmitted by the sharp ending of one climber’s effort to the immediate start of the next man. There is as attainable a rhythm in ‘interrupted’ climbing as in continuous climbing. When a party can move singly or together, slow or fast, and yet retain its collective rhythm, it will have bridged the gap between the severe problem-climb that may have seemed to it the limit of individual performance, and the great alpine expedition which may pile fifty such problems into a day without coming to the end of the greater collective power of a roped party.
Imitation.
A climber’s first task on a rope is to learn to watch the man in front. This must become a second nature. It should be sufficient that one man has found the right holds; it is a waste of time and a bad break of rhythm if all, or even one other man following, finds it necessary to look for them again. On continuous climbing, pace cannot be achieved without this subconscious imitation. On difficult ‘one-at-a-time’ climbing, to fail to start or to follow with the correct hand or foot often means failure to follow at all where another has easily led. There is nothing lowering in imitation. Big climbing is not competitive puzzle-work. The man behind is in any case handicapped by the rope, and by his extra share of responsibility in guarding his leader. He owes it to the party not to waste time in working out the leader’s job for himself over again. This habit of observation may become quite unconscious. As a personal instance, I once traversed the Matterhorn with a well-known guide as companion. In descending, I was occupied subconsciously in choosing holds and consciously in examining a prospected route on the distant Dent d’Hérens. We were unroped, and the guide was some distance in front. I have no recollection of noticing him. After a time I found myself constantly adjusting my line so as to take holds always with the same hand. I remarked the fact gradually, because I became conscious that it was not always the obvious or most convenient adjustment. In an instant the explanation flashed across me. The guide climbed admirably, but an accident some years before had left him only one hand to climb with. Unconsciously, or as a third mental operation, I had been noting his adjustments and imitating them without being even aware that I saw him.
A criticism very frequently made, especially of a man untrained in combined climbing, is: “You can’t depend on him; he takes different holds:—I never feel sure with him on the rope behind.” If the man moving in front knows what holds the next man is using he knows where he will be encountering a difficulty or a loose hold, and he is already half prepared in case of his help being needed. If, on the other hand, he knows only that a new set are being discovered, he has to be constantly turning round and waiting, and uncertainty is added to his necessary watchfulness. The criticism applies, primarily, to climbing on rock of a certain difficulty, where there will be only one ‘best’ line of holds to use. On easy rock greater liberty is permissible. At the same time a distinction must be drawn between the duty of noting the holds, and their fashion of use by the man in front, and the duty of using them in precisely similar fashion. On very difficult rock passages a man of different physique may, from lack of reach or a divergence in proportions, find it necessary to employ different adjustments. None the less will he profit by having noted the holds his front man used, and, in most cases, by imitating his actual fashion of using them. On such passages of course the party will be moving singly. The front man will therefore in any case be on his guard, and no extra risk or loss of time is involved in the enforced departure from his method.