In my experience, the better the mountaineer, the more boldly he throws in his lot with the action and security of the man at the moment climbing above or below him; that is, the more he associates his human mechanism, either as impulse or as check, directly with the active rope; and uses the rock, for anchor or indirect belay, as a protection behind him for the inactive rope and the rest of the party. Between good climbers the rope serves as a telegraph wire. So long as it runs free we can receive our call for help or reassurance and return our instantaneous touch or impulse down it with a response that is almost anticipation. Any rock interposition interrupts the one and delays the other. The rescue of rock should be held in ready reserve to reinforce us with an anchor or with an indirect belay, after our human spring has performed its function and has at least absorbed most of the stock.
Holding the Rope.
Climbing rope is as a rule too thin to be conveniently held or pulled with a heavy weight at the end, except by men of abnormal grip or specially developed hands. Many men, therefore, when taking position for holding on a stance, anchored or not, give the rope one or two half-twists round the forearm. This is convenient, but not without risk.
The most comfortable position, on a free or anchored stance, is to pass the rope round the body just above the hips, gripping it on either side in front with the two hands, and passing it along from one to the other hand as required. The best hand-grip is to turn the palms of the hands upward, and to lay the rope between the first fingers and thumbs of each hand. If the outside arm is then turned slightly outward, palm up, and the body, as it stands sideways to the pull of the rope, is inclined inwards, thrusting against the outer firm foot, the body, the outer firm leg and the outer arm will all be approximately in line with the direction of the pull. The utmost use is thus being made of the spring-pulley of arm and body, with no energy wasted round corners. The inside hand pulls in or lets out the rope round the body. The spring, up or down, of the body from the waist is ready at any moment to help in absorbing the jerk of a pull from above, or in giving the steady ‘little pull’ that prevents the jerk coming at all from the approaching man below. The rope passing round the body and the forearm gives a surprising amount of resistance in friction; more so, owing to the elastic surface it embraces, than is given by a rigid belay. With its aid, if the feet are firm and the balance good, we can take a man’s weight on one arm alone, and leave the other hand free to hold the loop-anchor, or pass the loose coils round the belay or round our body as they come in. Naturally we can resist a far greater strain on the rope round our hips, and immediately above and behind our firm leg, than our balance could support if the pull came higher, upon our arms and shoulders. It is sounder for this reason, when we use the body belay, always to pass the rope round both hips and out under the arm, and not bring it out, as is usually done, over our inside shoulder. The pull is sometimes, but not often, vertical enough to make this last a sound position. The same rule applies even more strongly if we are forced to stand facing outward.
Sometimes, when there is no room to balance for the body belay, and we find no rock belay or anchor low enough to allow of our using our arms as effective springs on the rope, we have to be content with high handholds or an anchor-point well above us. In such a case we can often interpose our shoulder as a spring. While we hold the anchor on the point above us with the one hand, with the other we pull a foot or so of the active rope down across our inner shoulder and upstretched arm, springing the rope, as it were, across the bow of arm and shoulder. We thus convert the high anchor into an indirect belay.
A very common position upon steep rock, where our stance is too narrow to allow of turning sideways or of belaying the rope round the body balanced above the firm outer leg, is to turn face inward, and pass the rope round some belay-point from one hand to the other. The only way to make this sound, that is, to prevent the rope in case of a slip coming upon the rock as upon a direct belay—since the grip of one hand on the active rope must be insufficient to act as an effective spring,—is to give the rope one twist round the forearm of the hand behind the belay. With the rope half twisted round the free hand, which is drawing the rope out in front of the belay, we can apply, as between the tug of the arm behind and the ‘give’ of the hand in front, an efficient spring. With such a hold we must wait for the pauses of the man climbing to pull in the rope round our belay. To pull it in while he is actually climbing deprives us of any chance of applying the hand-spring in time.
I have noticed, in confirmation of what I have said before, that the more freely balanced and adroit a climber becomes, the less often he appears to find it necessary to use this sort of quasi-sound stance. On the same ledge where the average man would turn face inward for his rock belay, the expert will find some good leg-thrust for a sideways body belay, and will use the rock point for an anchor-loop to protect a man above, or often only as an extra balance hold for his inside hand if he has to resist a pull from a man below.
The Order on the Rope.
To get the order on the rope right is as important a duty as to get men in their right places on the battlefield or the polo-ground. Every man should take his share of leading on suitable rock if he is ever to improve or discover himself; but on difficult or unsound rock, or on new climbs, the best climber should always lead and come down last. Tossing for the lead is folly. On easier rock, if the order is not dictated by capacity or by fair alternations, climbing is too gracious a sport for its precedence to be settled by chuck-penny rather than by courtesy. The accepted manager, in cases of doubt, must decide. A mountaineer who either from amiability or from incapacity to gauge a climb and his friend’s power allows a less expert climber to lead or descend last on a climb which he knows or suspects would test his own strength, is gravely at fault. Some men, however, seem incapable of remembering how much effort a climb cost them. They have done an exposed climb themselves. With the pride that apes humility they let some enthusiast, their inferior, have his way and lead it the next time, confident in their own skill, or the fallacious doctrine of the belay, to find a remedy in the last resort. But difficult climbs are full of passages where the second man cannot really protect his leader or last man. The leader falls, and the rope, if it does not break, only serves to support an injured or nervously shaken man. Whether the results are serious or slight, the error is equally great, and the expert of the party is to blame.
The Order on Direct Ascents and Descents.