ROCK-CLIMBING.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20198, 28 March 1931, Page 11

ROCK-CLIMBING.

STRUGGLE AND SPORT. (SPECIALL7 WRITTEN FOB THB TSES3.) [By D. W. 0; Hkii;.] There are few people who-will fiot turn aside from, the tedium or the ugli-ness-of daily life to regard an ideal and flawless beauty set apart, The sublime physical beauty of" great mountains is parent of a noble rest- j lessness. To the mystic, the ravishment of contemplation is all, but to the mind set down nearer to life the desire I of action makes a more intimate clutch at the will. There is a compulsion to climb, to consummate in Vigorous contest the. pleasant view of mountains from a distance, floating above the' clouds like water' lilies in a pond, to add s 't,o the motive of .beauty desired, appetite for peril and the challenge of difficulties to skill and strength. To thtf repressed town-dweller, who loves discomfort because it is discomfort, mountains are a gymnasium or a clinic. Very different are the motives of tho consecrated mountaineer, who exults not inore in the conflict with a difficult ; concrete antagonist than in ■ the deflniteness of his task. Ci L. Montague has already formulated the epigram, "Oh, that life were as easy as rockclimbing!'' •The Sock-Climber's psychology. ' I shall for the moment set aside the mountaineer in general, who climbs high peaks often by glacier, couloir, and- icecrest, to discuss the obscure and per-haps-unlovely mind of the rockrclimber, the mountaineer who, ha's lost any illusion that he is; after a peak to get a view from tho top, or to put his name in a bottle under the summit cairn, or maybe to prove to himself that he is alive. The mountaineer as lover of overpowering beauty I must likewise disregard, but only probe the psychology of this curious specialist. I am a rock-climber by predilection. It is rarely possible. to analyse oneself without. reading into the introspection many' preconceived ideas. But I have always found in climbing, concentrated on difficulty alone—as it is on rocky bluffs like those one in encouraged to scale in'the English Lake district, North Wales and Skye, in the Dolomites, the , Kaisergeberge, on Table Mountain, Notre Dame of Paris and Chicago skyscrapers—that the real benison is the escape from tho crosses, variabilities, meannesses, waste, hate, love, fury, and monotony of ordinary living into a world absolutely fixed, as immu- • table as the lines of a great poem. The joy . of effort, the • self-realisation in the skill with which one may climb daintily on tiniest holds up a steep slab, these are much., The almost aesthetic thrill of being in a queer place, a knife-edge ridge or on some, laughably convenient platform perched -high on a sheer wall, the contempt for, " extoosure" (to forget about a drop being down, below one, is, a first essential in rock-climbing) are prime ingredients in its fascination; but the value or virtue of it is to relieve the mind by giving it a substitute for habitual problems, putting it for a holiday, or to convalesce, into ( a "World as different* in basis from our pwn L as is the, delicious wrongrwayroundness of "Alice through" the Look-/ ing Glass." An Exacting Test. The non-climber is chiefly struck by the rank sensationalism of rocklimbing. that the climber 'is insane ia : fosnde<l, on' having to son inaccessible* precipices orttfearfiu mountain, spires, and not lilee ' broad-, siding or boxing; in a.- stadium where admission 1 is chatjgfcd, and a money-value set on. so much risk and The. rook-climber' lias no powerful machine, ta guide; on# the weak and fickleof- hid' owu muscles and; xni&d. *' Nor. will he kill, anything except himself and his com* panions. In 'progress towards selfmanagement, in thinking in terms of both hands and' both- rfeet .at once, >n calculation of balance,. more broadly in the planning' of. a "route, from the choice- between .-faftnjUiqlfla sis inches apart to the > selection, of the .line of attack at. the bottoitt' of a cliff, and finally, 'at a supreme crisis, in the decision to break "the rules—the roped climber observes an elaborate ritual inside which he is safe—and to fbece the route, whatever happens,.to himself or companions, there -is exacted from the leader, a whole-hear tion of the most momentous efforts" of will and*thought he should bellied on to make in ordinary _ Self-Surpassing Effort. A young 'Oxford- "roe&climber . of. notable brilliance . gaye Up ' climbing because what he / could do bored hipx, 1 and what he couldn't 'do frightened him. There was little, needless to say, that he couldn't do. This feeling of satiation attacks the climber in the hotor of his greatest success. - 'lndeed, perhaps be is happier whence achieves his: first easy lead," than of his careey he conque/s some- famous route of extreme severity.competes always with himself. His standard is forced higher, and * higher, till (as it does for most of us) it stops at the edge of ,the list. of-.the classified according to difficulty, labelled Bpvere. The EnglislTrook-cUmbuig clubs tabulate a difficulty, g™<*ing the Touteji, described W . their guide books as - '.'moderate," difficult,] "very difficult," "severe." This is useful, but labels everything with an arbitrary reputation. Far more pleasure able to climb .where no guide books intrude with advice or intimidation! ?his ecstasy we still inherit in_ New Zealand in-the quest for the diminishing of peaW still vxrgi-n, wlicn wc have leisure and money to get to them. There is usually some rock near home one can /play with even during a halfholiday. Christchurch has dangerous volcanic outcrops on the Port Hills. Wellington has quarries and sea-clifts. Though training for mountaineering jn the broad sense, rock-climbing is a .pleasure in its own right, for some the most satisfying compartment of the finest sport in the world. , Kock-climber and Mountaineer. ' TO the mountaineer who .is a trained rock-climber, there is, on large peaks) a great widening of technical interest. The variety of rock-forms, soapy brown rock, fickle quartz, flat, glittering slabs off--which, nailed boots skate .as off glass, rocks of every degree of looseness, flaking slate or hard granite, wiU absorb "his attention or exact .his effort. The technique of climbing, "rottexi" rocks without knocking down stones that will murder the rest of the party is a$ essential as it is difficult to learn. In any long alpine cligib of ev*n moderate ambition it will be necessary to climb steep Tocks in clampers, a feat quite, possible, on anything less than, a '<mauvais pas.". Thiß is /.he supreme ecstasy of the jnounprospeotfng. the uncertain-clue-of his perl- j to l scale 8 precipices where no foot clomb be- j tor°%o'od or ill success to his last limit of strength Robert Bridge#: of Beauty. It is only the rock climbed - who forces things, to his last limit -of

strength. The mountaineer, -whose effort is spread over a long time, ten, twenty or even thirty hours, saves a little strength, a little courage, for an emergency he hopes will never arise and the avoidance of which is the object of his technique. " - Two Great Climbers. Nearly all the great climbing names are those'of men who were rock-climbers as well as mountaineers. Mummery first popularised rock-climbing in Alpine ••p*ft«rtice-;'--by--'----eonqueiw^ v^thi^ 1 ' "imso often: hides' the easiest route that it was an enormous expansion of possibility to realise steep rocks were climbable. Mallory was a very great rock climber. The legend of how in, failing light he climbed by way of an overhang, nobody else would conceivably look ,at, to. -retrieve ; - hjts . pipe*,. ■Robert Graves'records" in ** GobdljwkJib ;Tfce' climb; • 'bo r aatde" then' is the! -Slab" ! route on Lliwedd,- the , great , Wolsfr i crag, "severed but/ npt overhanging. . A talc that better illustrates his chataei ter and abilities is the account in, 'JfSOn High Hills," by Geoffrey Winthrop *of.Mw Mallory;,felV off while, sqnfleri)»g thfl*.- -Bfellgrait' ri4ge ->f :rth,o; Nesthbrn..- It-'waV: a "scatheless fall-of-over • thirty feet, during- which he- iiid ' npt let go his ice axe. Winthrop Young held him, lowered him till he could findfooting on the sheer walg. when ,he cheerfully "climbed up, intact .and calm r the rest of the party not realising,, any-, thin#-unusual had happened. '•'*',£\ , - , \ .-, '.-• The Leader's Elation. ,'*; It is impossible to dissociate climls ing from the mountains, climbed. Thecharm ofi the_ Lake t District invites the; climber* comfortably,' almost .as muqh-.ai black,; forbiddiag. .cliffs "like* Sca.wfiW v bid-him adyaiceaudby hitfßeJuevftftenfo; destroy the 1 'bogey, of their rugged,' ?e-; p'ellent ■ ■ appearance. There is keen' historical interest on these known, much beloved crags, that is' unkn6wn on .iriosfc New Zealand mountains, as it is only' to ; be produced 'by the feet" .of .4he- generation's, treading persistently the same, chronicled, ways; Of-"course'. •British-' rock-climbing "is .artificial.' 'Much less- arduous' to walk up a pass to the'top of a cliff'which the climber attacks with'a rope and all the re-? sources >of his , cunning and strength! But again the journey is greate* thita\ .the' arrival. ■ The climber ,looks ■ ft>r - difficulty s his aim is not semi-geograpbi-' •cal, like the mountaineer's, but personal, a desire to cram into a short space, greatly concentrated emotions. Hence the desire of experienced climbers to. have the fun of -leading." ■ To ' follbw someone up a difficult route, though "a comfortable ' arrangement',. since, one's., ascent of every pitch will guarded with' t;he rope ,by the , leader, who has already climbed it, robs rock : climbing of its meaning, which is mys-' tical rather than gymnastic. Besides it is far more nerve-racking to see the leader over one's head grappling with difficulties than to be that leader oneself! Danger Forgotten in Enjoyment. There is little nerve strain in rockclimbing. A very few climbers arc callous and without nerves, but for them climbing has small point beyond the envy and the glory they may cover themselves with by their pursuit of the lurid. The usual type of personality among climbers is the sensitive but practical. They cannot ignore danger but make adjustment to forget it -in the enjoyment of the business of climbing' In his sub-world tho rock-climber reigns, less than man but more than monkey, finding in doing a state of being, and setting up for himself, as in all-fames, an attainable goal, to be ' reached only after a struggle, but to be reached. The nostalgia that calls him I back, after all sorts of maltreatment, is ' notorious. There is more than a little religion in mountaineering* What mountains are to a great climber, who climbs stfll in spite of having lost a leg in France and whose chief pleasure is to encourage youth to climb, is articulate in these words of Geoffrey Winthrop Young:—< "Mountains arc a good adventure. They change little enough in their attributes or in their charm, for us ro consider them permanent.- We .return at each' sight of them to the self which first saw them, regardless of any changes in ourselves. To this, too, they owe their comfortableness, their when we are among them, of making* us see all other events of life in their right proportion. It is upon their changelessness that wo rely to give us back-ourselves."