Chapter VII: Ice and Snow Craft (1)

[Sidenote: The Age for Glaciers.]

Rock is the framework of mountains, and for those who discover their enthusiasm or train their activity among our western hills, rock craft must always remain the basis of mountaineering. Many of us would not be dissatisfied if the chances of time and leisure offered us no wider field. For our performance, there is more than a lifetime could hope even to examine between the precipices of our mounting uplands and the descending cliffs of our long sea coasts; and for our æsthetic pleasure, nature, through the medium of a soft and variable atmosphere, shrouds the settled lines of our hills with a delicacy of interrupted and changing colour, and a grave reticence of shadow, sun-break and mist, that leave nothing incomplete for the fulfilment of that sense of power and wonder whose realization gives something of the quality of religion to our feeling for great mountains. These ancient hills are at peace with their neighbours the fields, and rest tranquilly among them; content to contribute with their waters and pasture to the fertility, and with their mists and rocks and seclusion to the holiday pleasure of the land which in youth they were wont to cumber with the fragments of each fiery insurgence, or bury under the white burden of their glacial defeats.

In other lands, to modify the harshness and to order the exuberance of younger ranges, whose ambition would yet challenge the stars, nature has still to avail itself of the sterner and more primitive discipline of ice and perpetual snow. With this veil, constant but always renewing, it subdues the barrenness and the aggressive angularity proper to their period of immaturity and change, and preserves for them the aloofness that is at once the protection and the charm of free-growing childhood. It is a mistake to think of the Alps or the Himalaya as venerable because their heads are white: theirs are all the irrepressible impulse, the uneven humour, the unconscious cruelty and the overflowing vitality of froward but jolly children.

A mountaineer may be satisfied to nurse his athletic infancy upon home rocks, and he may be happy to pass the later years of his experience among the more elusive impressions and more subtle romance of our old and quiet hills. But in the storm years of his strength he should test his powers, learn his craft and earn his triumphs in conflict with the abrupt youth and warlike habit of great glacial ranges.

Snow and ice are permanent upon the high hills, and consequently ice and snow craft are essential departments of greater mountaineering. To treat them as decorative adjuncts, cultivated by a certain set of rather old-fashioned folk, or to say, as I have heard more than one promising climber say in effect, “Rock is good enough for me: snow and ice only mess it up; _I_ shan’t bother with that sort of Alp!” and then rush off to the Dolomites as a relief from the Fells, is equivalent to refusing to exchange the foil play of practice for the rapier play of real contest with the best champions of the mountain realm: it means the repudiation of the better half of mountain knowledge, and the renunciation of almost all its rewards.

The higher craft of mountaineering begins above the line of perpetual snow. A rock climber who leaves his rocks at that level can never discover even all that rocks may offer of difficulty and variety. The refinements of climbing develop out of the modifications that rock and ice and snow produce in one another. It is among the elastic extensions, the frequent exceptions, which their combination imposes upon our grammar rules for rock or snow, that the mountaineer is evolved out of the climber.

Our strong years are the years in which to learn the complete craft of greater mountaineering. And it is also in these years, while the senses are keen and the imagination undimmed, that the entries and illustrations most worthy of assembling in our book of memory can be collected from among the daring sights and hazardous incidents of high mountaineering as from no other region of adventure. Never to have broken too soon with sleep, and issued up on to the grey coldness of night-frozen glaciers; never to have felt rather than seen the loneliness of frosted grey peaks, oppressed with a sanctity of reluctant seclusion; never to have endured the enchantment of solitary space, an intimate but hostile fascination that is found elsewhere only in the desert and among arctic silences; never to have almost heard the strange expectancy that fills great snow fields before dawn with questions never uttered and never answered, and whose insistence is only veiled under a livelier and more visible remoteness at the inquisitive approach of light; never to have watched the night widen and the edges of the world draw closer round, as the peaks begin to darken and the glaciers to pale, and the vague shadows of mystery and of elusive presence shrink and harden into form and line and colour with the nearing of sunrise; and, at the moment when the first rose ray quickens the first high summit and day pours in about us, never to have known the lassitude of odd illusion vanish and the summons to good sunlit action thrill every fibre, from toe to finger-tip, with a rush of human mastery in each stout blow of the axe and each fresh shock of the driving heel;--never to have known something of only this one hour of an alpine morning would have been to have missed the most vivid moments of living, and to have deprived our working and our evening hours of their most faithful comrade memories.

ICE CRAFT

For snow and ice as for rock we study primarily balance,--balance in motion, and above joints flexed as well as straight. The elementary movements and practice are identical. Rock is the substructure of mountains, and ice and snow are its accretions. Similarly, rock climbing is the groundwork of mountaineering technique; and for ice and snow we employ the same principles, availing ourselves of the mechanism of axe and claw and ski so as to render them equally applicable to new conditions of surface and texture.

For balance climbing, footwork is all-essential. On rock, only where angle or unsound texture makes footwork alone insufficient, do we help out with the hands. On ice or snow, only where angle or a texture too soft or too hard denies our feet their assurance, do we supplement them with ice-axe and ice-claw, or to a certain extent with ski. While a man remains a grip climber, he will never make an iceman; and he had better go back and learn first how to climb in balance on rocks, rather than set himself the twofold task of learning balance and axe or claw technique simultaneously and painfully on ice. Most of the early mountaineers learned what footwork they knew upon ice first, and it was therefore very natural that they should in their mountaineering precepts give the larger share of space and attention to elementary movements and exercises in stepping on ice and snow. These movements are now learned more easily and perfectly on rock, sound and unsound, and transferred, when we go to the Alps, to snow and ice, following a more logical and certainly more safe order of study. In recent years I have taken some of the very best of the new generation of ‘continuous’ rock climbers for their first climbs in the Alps, and have found that their balanced footwork took only a few hours to adapt itself to snow or ice surfaces, skipping all the elementary stages hallowed by tradition. Consequently they could start upon the more recondite branches of ice and snow craft with a rapid assurance that left the guides frankly interested.

Largely because it was the only type of mountaineering that they really studied as a craft, and consequently could fully enjoy when they mastered it, ice and snow craft came to be considered by many of our predecessors as the only true mountaineering, to the supersession of all other branches.

After the possibilities of rock surface began to be appreciated, and while rock climbing was working through its successive and isolated stages, the swing of the pendulum went all too far the other way. Ice and snow came to be regarded by all except the old alpine school as intrusions upon ascents, to be got over as best one could. Their study was proportionately neglected by guides and amateurs alike, who chose the ribs and rock faces for their routes, and were apt to be bothered if they had to come off them. The lack of any advanced technique became painfully apparent when mountaineering ambition progressed to the point of attempting great new alpine ridges and faces, where a knowledge of ice and snow craft is indispensable. Many a failure and even accident revealed what a large lacuna our rock climbers had been nourishing in their alpine understandings.

During the development of balance climbing, whose basis is footwork upon any angle and any kind of surface, the scale has been steadily readjusting itself. Simultaneously with, or possibly as a result of, the unification of our several climbing methods upon rock, ice and snow into a single technique of balance, has come the new interest in foot-attachments, the popularizing of the use of ice-claws and of ski. While balance in climbing movement was still only rudimentary, it was more comfortable to climb on a material like snow or ice, where the human could make holds and steps of the shape and at the angle that best suited his standing or his ‘walking’ balance. He preferred this to making a series of awkward bodily adjustments in order to fit himself on to existing accidents in the surface of rock. But as climbers learned to master balance during any movement and in every attitude, and to depend less and less upon the hand, they became naturally alive to the advantage of adopting footgear which secured safer and more continuous progress by adapting the feet to the surface, and saved them the time and rhythm lost in stopping to alter the surface to suit their feet. Hence the increase in our use of soft soles and scientific nailing, on rock, and the perfecting of ice-claws, which allow our feet to walk on ice at whatever angle we find it, and of ski, which make a royal progress of the most voracious snow.

A man who is a good continuous balance climber should be able, as I have said, to transfer his footwork easily and quickly to snow and ice, and to move safely upon moderate mountains, satisfactorily managing the rope and cutting the occasional steps that such ascents demand. Here many climbers stop learning, even among those who write books; and just about here the real delights of icemanship and snow craft begin faintly to suggest themselves. From this point on our rock technique cannot help us, and may, if persisted in, merely embarrass and delay us. Ice and snow, conjoined or apart, with all their significations of colour, texture and angle, and in their local or ephemeral counter-changes, form a study by themselves. As it is certain that we cannot do much route inventing or advanced climbing upon rock without knowing something of the different sorts of rock and their meanings, so is it far more certain that in really big mountaineering no one will get far or go secure whose knowledge of ice and snow is limited to the mere physical ability to climb upon them.

It is impossible to do more than suggest a few lines which training might follow, in order to attain to a point of experience where the specialized study can be begun.

[Sidenote: The Nature of Ice.]

To start with, it is as well to know something, sufficient for the working purposes of practical summer mountaineering, as to the different sorts of ice which we meet with in the mountains. There are three principal varieties:

Firstly, ‘_grainy ice_,’ or ‘_blue ice_’ as it is usually called from its colour. This is formed chiefly from snow, by regelation. Nearly all glacier ice is of this character; whence we also know it as ‘_glacier ice_.’ It is glacier ice with which we have by far the most to do in the Alps, and its successive stages have to become familiar to us as names, and recognizable from their appearance, if we ever wish to lead a party. In the first stage pressure makes the fallen grains of snow cohere, and an opaque white mass is thus formed, a fine-grained solid, containing a lot of imprisoned air. This stage is usually but incorrectly named ‘_frozen snow_.’ Under the further action of pressure these grains coalesce, by regelation, and larger grains are formed; part of the entangled air escapes, the solid becomes coarse-grained and less opaque and assumes a bluish tinge. This is called _névé_ (or _firn_). Under the continuation of the process ultimately all the imprisoned air escapes, the solid becomes transparent and very coarse-grained, and its larger masses have a distinctive, blue colour. This is called ‘_ice_.’ As the process is a continuous one, it is impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between the different stages, or always to be sure of saying with certainty that our feet are on the one or the other.

Secondly, there is ‘_black ice_’; ice more or less continuous and generally in layers, formed by the freezing of water. This is comparatively rarely encountered in the Alps, or in mountains, but more often in winter than in summer. Where it intrudes, it is very exacting, as it calls for a different type of claw technique and a different sort of blow with the axe.

Thirdly, there is an intermediate, and intermediately attractive and frequent, class of ice, produced by the infiltration of water with snow, and by their subsequent freezing. This is called ‘_snow ice_.’

In route designing and in climbing we have to be able to recognize these types and stages. Each has its own right method of treatment. But grainy or glacier ice is the characteristic alpine ice, and most of the suggestions made as to ice technique apply to ice of this description, where it is not otherwise expressly stated.

A large, dry glacier introduces us to almost every normal type of ice, from hard blue to _firn_, and is the best practice ground for finding our ice feet and transferring our rock balance to ice angles. A week’s good practice devoted exclusively to ice craft on a glacier, under a good mentor, will set our feet on the way of better icemanship than if we trust for our training to the hours of sporadic ice work, generally of some difficulty, which we may meet year after year, and muddle through, on our big climbs. Few men are systematic enough to devote all their first alpine enthusiasm to a restricted training of this kind; but any man who hopes at some date to become a mountaineer should begin early to give his ice some intensive study. Even a mountaineer of experience has to allow for personal variations when he returns each season. However well attuned he may keep his sense of touch on rock by practice in Britain, he takes some days to recover the feel of his feet on ice, and his ice nerve; very much as a skater or a skier has to do each winter. Some of us make a habit, in theory at least, of giving the first day of a tour to work of all sorts on a dry glacier; the second day to some short climb, combining both rock and snow work; the third, probably an off-day, to going up to a hut, and the fourth to a big climb, which must embrace as much varied ice as possible. But this is for resumptive practice in technique. It is not sufficient for a commencing season, or for a grounding in common ice law.

[Sidenote: Ice-Claws.]

Any man who wishes to make big ascents is well advised if he begins early to learn how to use ice-claws (or crampons). It is not that we cannot climb without them, even as we could without nails in our boots, but that we can learn to climb more securely, and go faster and farther, with them.

Claws have been used by individuals for something like a century, but the conservatism of mountaineers long refused to recognize them as more than an individual eccentricity. It found itself able to draw a nice distinction between the ‘sporting’ character of the assistance given by a number of long spikes separately and laboriously screwed and unscrewed on the boot, and that of a similar number of spikes affixed by a single simple mechanism. It was not until the guides finally capitulated that the practice could grow at all general or that its extra security could become recognized as workmanlike. Claws were formerly assumed to be useless unless worn by every member of a party; an assumption that prevented their use by many amateurs who failed to carry their guides’ conviction with them. As a fact, even one expert furnished with claws can do much to assist the security and lighten the labour for his clawless party on difficult ice, by preceding them and helping or protecting them with the rope. Let no amateur, therefore, ever be discouraged from taking his own where he expects ice work. He will always be the happier himself, and may on occasions be able to point a prolonged moral to his party. Up to the present they have still been looked upon as an experiment, and men have been apt to get discouraged if they have taken them out once or twice and had no need for them. Sometimes they have then dropped carrying them; found that they could ‘get on all right without them’--as who cannot?--and so begun to exaggerate the labour of their portage and minimize their use. The habit has to be formed. It can become as natural to take them on a big ascent as to carry the axe, spare rope and shoes upon a rock climb.

I must premise, that claws postulate precise footwork. A slovenly habit they cannot correct, and may only confirm.

If we use claws neatly, we need no longer cut steps upon all the easier angles of ice or hard snow. We can walk straight ahead, up, down or along, without check for step-cutting or loss of rhythm. We can take foothold just as is most convenient for our balance as we move. Thus a good balance climber from the first moment gets all the advantage of the footwork he has learned upon rock: the labour of ‘finding his feet’ upon ice is reduced to a minimum. Again, claws increase our security, if we step accurately, when we are moving upon angles where, for reasons of steepness or other difficulty, steps may still have to be cut. In using slippery steps they permit of a confidence of movement, firm and continuous, similar to that which previous experience will have taught us contributed most to our security upon rock. In so far claws, even while we are learning, make for safer progress.

Their fashion has been fully dealt with, under Equipment. As to the character of claw which may be of greatest service, there exist divergent schools of thought; and each finds justification for its belief in the greater usefulness of its particular claw for some particular type of ice work.

In general, heavy claws are better for a heavy man, light for a light. Ten-point claws are better than eight for a large foot, and six-point claws are hardly worth their weight in carrying. A heavy claw, with long, sharp points, which suffer in contact with rock, is worth its extra weight if some big ice expedition is in prospect. At the same time, a good climber can, if he is prepared for the extra labour and for the more careful technique which their use requires, accomplish with safety all the ice work to be found on normal climbs with a lighter claw of slightly shorter points. This lighter, rougher type will be more useful to him for mixed ice and rock climbing, as he will be able to sacrifice its shorter and inevitably more blunted points with less regret, while he can retain the claw over every kind of surface. The necessity of constantly putting off and on the long, sharp claws on mixed climbing, to avoid turning their points, has the drawback of losing time, and, still more important, of changing the action of the leg and the feel of the feet. Consequently the rhythm of foot and leg has to adjust itself, after each change, to the new character of surface and movement. Whereas the claw which can be worn all day if the conditions demand it, regardless of rock or blunting surface, and which can be thrown away or resharpened when it has suffered sufficiently, while it may call for more skill and effort for its secure use on long, steep passages of hard ice, possesses the compensating advantage of keeping the action constant, without change to the feel of the feet, to the rhythm, or to the greater or lesser security of the tread.

On the other hand, the finer, heavier claw, by which I mean the claw of the Eckenstein pattern, has the merit of being the only claw at the present time in which both the metal is rightly wrought and the points are shaped and placed under the foot with any scientific regard for their use. It is also the only type which it is safe to wear on hard ‘black ice’; which, even if rarely, is occasionally found on big summits in the Alps or on sunless northern faces.

Of course the claw must be made exactly to fit the boot on which it is used, and it must fasten and take off easily and securely.

The theory of the use of the claw, with all the various positions of the feet required, can only be dealt with in a monograph to itself, and this has been already more than adequately done.[13] It is sufficient for the commencing mountaineer to know that he has to learn how to use claws, and that he cannot do so effectively without preliminary practice. This practice should be on a glacier, and under direction; no man really discovers what the claw will enable him to do until he has seen what confidence and skill can accomplish in the conquest of angle and of natural nerve revulsions. The movements are not entirely natural or self-suggesting, more especially those of descending or of traversing on very steep slopes. The masters of the art can walk, and sustain weights, sideways or straight upon their feet, up to angles of 70 degrees or more. An ordinary climber can learn to move with comfort on angles, of good surface, between 55 and 60 degrees.

When we are on claws, the snow-shuffle and the normal forward swing of the walking foot, heel and toe, have to be forgotten. The foot is lifted rather higher, and is planted cleanly on the ice, without the usual forward scrape. The high, clear lift of the foot must become mechanical, otherwise the points will catch on boot or puttie, and a nasty trip or fall may result. The downward pressure or thrust of the foot varies in force according to the angle and the hardness of the surface. To prevent the points working loose in the holes they make, the foot has to be placed at once in the position and at the angle in which it will have to sustain the weight of the body passing across it. A balance climber who has mastered the tense, dancing action of the foot as it is set upon a rock hold will have to learn little new, except the habit of the higher lift and the more vertical plant.

In ascending, our object is to keep the feet pointing forward and straight as long as the angle will allow us to; only turning the toes outward when we can no longer get the heels down. On most ice it is sufficient if we get hold with two points of the claw alone; and on a fair surface we can walk straight-foot up very steep angles, trusting only to the two points on the toe. Up softer steep surfaces, or literally precipitous angles, we adopt a crab or sideways walk. We descend steep angles with the knees bent and the toes forced down. The ankles have to, and soon do, acquire an increased suppleness and strength, in claw practice.

Perhaps the most difficult task for the beginner is to learn the art of walking and balancing upon flexed ankles, while traversing across steep faces. To strike all the points in neatly and strongly sideways, and with a flexed ankle, so that the flat of the sole may meet the surface cleanly and without a scrape, takes some practice; but slab climbers, who have suppled their ankles by foot-clinging upon steep rock angles, will find themselves a day or two’s frog-marching to the good on ice.

Practice alone will bring us confidence in the new adjustments, or allow us to feel as securely in balance above a foot inclined at a high angle, over a bent ankle or a curved leg, as upon a right-angled hold of rock or ice. Once confidence has come, the sense of security in the attachment of the claw to the ice enables a freedom of movement astonishing at first to anyone accustomed only to the feel of the ordinary boot-nails on ice steps.

This additional and confident security, which the claw gives to our foothold, almost eliminates the chances of what are wrongly termed ‘accidents’ on ice; the breaking foothold, the faultily placed foot, or the slide of the sole on a bad surface as the transference of the weight produces a change in the direction of the leg-thrust. We can balance, therefore, on steep angles far more boldly, and keep our hands free for better purpose. A strong party on claws, in a couloir of uniform surface or on a sound ridge of mixed ice and rock climbing, is often free to do without the rope at all, if it so pleases. The rope is to guard against the results of ‘accidents’ to individual members; and competent icemen, if they are released from the distraction of the rope, and able to concentrate on their own good progress and safety, have all the less temptation to commit ‘accidents.’

Once we have mastered the movements and become confident, we begin to distinguish between varieties of ice, and to vary our claw craft accordingly. For instance, in alpine ‘grainy’ ice there are three ordinary varieties: hard, soft and rotten. ‘Rotten’ ice does not lie in the Alps to more than the depth of an inch or two, though it is found of a greater thickness in other continents; when we find it in the Alps, we clear it away with the axe, to leave a firm tread for the claw on the good ice below. Hard and soft grainy ice have their several adjustments, whose differences have to be learned by practice. Hard ice will usually be found lying at high angles, so steep that we shall sometimes be unable to get more than the hold of a single claw point. Experience alone can make us feel as safe upon the one talon as we have learned to feel upon a single boot-nail on sound rock. For work of this advanced character, for which the heavy, long-pronged claw is better suited, the best practice can be found upon the big fall-ice of dry glaciers. We soon discover, in such practice, that balance is easier when we are confident to move fast, a resuscitated platitude; and that, while moving, we are satisfied with a single point where the whole ten would not have seemed superfluous, had we halted to admire the panorama. But holds, on ice as on rock, are not intended to be held in perpetuity.

The claw is not only useful upon steep ice: on hard repellent snow it spares us the penance of stamping or scraping steps. It is equally reassuring to foothold and nerve on ice-lacquered rocks, or on broken rock surfaces coated with wind-snow or glaze. In a bad season--that is, a season during which snow has been frequently falling, and the rocks are surpliced in various blends and qualities of snow, frozen and refrozen--the claws are often retained for the whole day, and become as natural to the feel of the feet as the more usual boot-nail. It is sometimes even difficult to remember if they are on or off, until they are removed, when the feet become as helpless as they do when skates are first detached. In a snowstorm, for a descent, they should always be put on; and even in clear weather and on good footing it is an immense reassurance to the leader of a tired party ascending or descending a couloir or slope of suspicious or ‘mixed’ surface, if he can count upon the extra security that claws will give to the deteriorating footwork of his party.

Again, on those early, fasting, glacier crawls by lamplight, with which most of us are familiar, when we are expected to balance, with cold joints and often without the protection of the rope, along crevasses and walls which may be easy enough by daylight but seem pulsing with danger and dread in the darkness, claws come as a great safeguard; their tactile value is a reassurance to eyes and to feet still leaden with insufficient sleep and superabundant cold.

The evening descent of a glacier, dry or partly snow-covered, with its crevasse jumping, wearisome for tired legs, and its balance traversing on ice too slippery for jaded feet or day-polished boot-nails, becomes again a delight if it can be taken directly and at a rush, with the new surety of foothold and the change of muscle movement that follow the putting on of our claws. Straight and time-saving lines through glacier falls can then be ventured, even with men dragging heavy sacks or heavy legs, if they have once the new feel of dancing security under their feet.

It is worth while putting claws on even for the short but offensive descent of the snout of a glacier. They crackle crisply down its pebble-pimpled wrinkles and make light gliding of its glassy declivities.

A belated party returning crossly at night down the breakers of a big glacier whose surface has thawed only to be refrozen later to a polished, leg-racking ice-slide, will save temper and re-roping and time if the men stop to put on their claws. Two midnight descents of the Mer de Glace in this condition, without claws, are among the most penetrating and undignified of my remembrances.

On the steep sides of moraines, or on new snow lying on grass, claws, if they happen to have been brought, save much back-sliding. On slippery rock surfaces, such as snow-slimed slate and the like, I have found light claws of constant use.

Finally, we need not take off our claws, if they are light ones, for every rock section of a climb where rock and ice are alternating. On much easy soft rock they are of assistance; and even in steep climbing, if once the novelty of the feel is mastered and the foot has got accustomed to the precautionary tread that protects the points, claws have often a positive value greater than the mere effort we save by not removing them.

To learn how to use claws, however, does not relieve us of the necessity of learning how to make and to walk in ice steps. Nor (although this is a matter of more personal opinion) do claws in my view justify climbers on big expeditions in substituting the small ice-axe recommended by some of the great authorities upon claws, and only intended for making an occasional step or for holding on, for a good step-cutting axe, which has also the potentiality of the third leg on general climbing.

In practice on dry glaciers it is both profitable and amusing to experiment in manœuvring on exceptional angles, or in walking up between the vertical walls of crevasses. Such practice is good for confidence and for training, and it is even of use to discover how comparatively easy claws make it to get out of crevasses, or similar impasses, without relying on the rescue of the rope alone. A climber on claws, for this reason, can take a measure of liberty in solitary climbing that would be folly for a man without them to allow himself. No doubt, if amateurs were able to keep constantly in practice, and had not each season to stop climbing when they have barely reached their best, they would learn to move with equal freedom on angles of this character at great heights. But as a matter of experience no holiday mountaineer can entirely acquire the same feeling of confidence and security if his ice slopes are subtended by dangerous mountain walls or are situated on exposed tracts. Fatigue, diverse air-pressures and, above all, the psychological effect of height contribute to handicap him in venturing on claws risks which he would laugh at on a twenty-foot wall on a glacier. Consequently we find that most mountaineers on very steep, hard ice at great heights prefer to cut steps to aid their claws. In mountaineering on a big scale we usually begin to feel this need when the angle of the ice approaches anywhere near to our limit of average performance upon claws in glacier practice. It is more our sensation than the angle of the ice slope which forces step-cutting upon us. And there is yet another common occasion for steps. On ice which is covered with snow, where without claws we should clear away the snow and make a step in the ice, it is of course similarly open to us to clear it away and step simply with the claw on the exposed ice. But, as a matter of fact, it is generally the practice in such case to make a nick for the claw. Unless the nick is made, the mass of snow round the clearing prevents the foot from being placed conveniently and from providing a sense of security commensurate with the sensational situation. Thus to secure a good reassuring claw hold we should have to clear away an additional quantity of snow, and we may just as well make a nick-step at once. A step in ice when claws are worn need only be a nick for a proportion of the prongs. It takes less labour and art to fashion than a step for a boot.

Again, ice at great heights is occasionally covered with a rotting coating, or crust, through which the prongs cannot reach to the good surface below. Here clearing the rotten ice will in any case be necessary, and, for the reason given above, it is more comfortable and as quick to cut through it and make a step at once.

Where, also, ice is really hard ‘black ice,’ it has an iron quality of surface, through which the prongs have to be driven with real force; and they make clean, hard holes from which we have the feeling they might slip out, as if from smooth metal sockets. Without steps, at steep angles, balance on such ice is a very delicate matter, as this is a branch of claw technique in which the Alps give us little practice. The nerve of most men will call for auxiliary steps. But whether steps are made or not, on such ice the rope must always be retained.

For the average man, therefore, it is still needful to know how to fashion and how to walk in ice steps; both for use on the brief intervals of ice and snow on climbs where the amount of difficult rock and the small proportion of ice in prospect have suggested leaving the claws behind, and for occasions, of which some have been mentioned, that arise out of exceptional mountain or personal conditions.

[Sidenote: Cutting Steps.]

We have then to learn how to cut and use steps on ice, at high angles, in awkward places, or when complicated by certain conditions. Claws cover the rest of the ice field.

A man who sets himself to learn how to cut steps well must begin by practising on ice. Theory can only help him to avoid certain false positions. A word from a mentor on the spot will save aching shoulders and blistered hands, and be of far more use than many books. Book-lore has rather hindered than helped us by some of the theory it has set down.

It is natural that amateurs who had the example of golfing and other ‘arm-movement’ sports on free angles before them should have been attracted by the idea of a step-cutting ‘swing.’ This has been therefore recommended as a saving of strength and an ideal in style. Possibly many climbers besides myself have formalized their style and retarded their acquisition of ease and security by practising the acrobatic feats of balance which an attempt to swing from the hips in step cutting necessitates. On ice slopes of an easy angle, where we need no longer cut steps at all if we use claws, the swing may be graceful. But on steep ice the swing from the hips is irreconcilable with a secure balance. The most we can attain to is an interrupted swing or ‘follow-through’ with the shoulders alone, to ease our pure armwork. It is not unlikely that the appearance of body movement which this shoulder swing gives to the whole coat of a master iceman, as seen from behind, misled early students of the art, who were following in ice steps, into the belief that they were watching their ideal swing from the hips. But such a swing on steep ice is impossible. The step-cutter is balancing in many cases on one foot, supposing him to be cutting steps at wide ‘mountaineering’ intervals, or on the downgrade; at best he is on two feet set in the same straight line. He cannot, therefore, risk any swinging movement which would disturb his balance above his single base line or point. Let anyone try the hip swing standing thus on a single foot, or on feet alined at a wide interval on the ground, even without the complication of the narrow ice step or the obstruction of the side wall. He will begin to doubt the advisability of our classic swing. Nor may a step-cutter let his swing travel inward with the axe on to the slope; because it is the essence of good step-cutting that the axe shall stop with a jerk, releasing itself from the ‘stick’ of the point in the ice while it jars loose the section of ice that it has split. The hip swing, therefore, if we attempt it, must be checked at both its ends; and very little space remains between the two checks to get the swing going. The steeper the ice the shorter the axe-strokes, and the less and less the opportunity of introducing the swing. As a further difficulty, no one but a craftsman trained in the workshops could swing the whole body so exactly as to strike with his point within a fraction of an inch of the spot required. In chopping wood, which is done with the feet spread, an amateur can achieve this; but if he is balancing on feet alined, it is beyond the skill of most experts to swing from the hips, strike absolutely true, and at the same time remain in secure balance.

Even the shorter shoulder swing, which we use on slopes of easier angle, where we can get some support for our balance, when standing on the outside foot, by pressing the inside foot or the inside knee against the ice wall, becomes impracticable when we are standing, as we must be for half our cutting time, on the inside foot, with the outside foot in a line behind us or swinging free to our poise. On steeper slopes, where we have no margin of balance for any outward swing and no room to get a support for the inside foot against the ice, the shoulder swing becomes impracticable even when we are cutting off the outside foot. On such slopes we are only free to use the short play of the arms, and cutting becomes simply accurate ‘chopping.’ Not only on these steep angles of ice, but on all awkward passages where we are not placed comfortably for free cutting, but where we have to aim our steps at cramped angles with bent arms or with one hand alone, our cutting can be no more than chopping from the elbow, or sometimes only from the wrist. Since, for men who wear claws, these are the only passages on which much step cutting should be really needed, the body and shoulder swings may be safely dropped out of the category of desirable ideals.

The characteristics of a good cutter are accuracy of aim in making the stroke, with the right inclination of the pick and the right jerk of the point; good balance upon both feet or on one foot; and an easy but restrained arm movement, so that he can continue the strokes with smooth precision for an indefinite time. A man who has acquired these will naturally use any easing of the slope in his favour, or any facilities it may offer him for better foot balance, to lighten his armwork by means of a follow-through with his shoulder. But if a mountaineer begins to learn with the idea that he has to ‘swing’ in order to cut well, he will expend most of his energy upon easy angles where claws make it unnecessary to cut steps at all, or in recovering his balance and making very bad steps upon steeper slopes--for the short spells that his strength and nerves will stand.

A good step-cutter need not ‘swing,’ but he also may not ‘press.’ It is mechanically obvious that if a man is not swinging, but has his stroke under muscular control throughout its duration, he will gain nothing, and merely fight against himself, if he tries to force the stroke or ‘press’ before he arrests his point with the final jerk. Once the stroke is started, a good cutter lets the axe fall of its own weight; that is, he follows the stroke through with only just the amount of control needed to direct the point until its contact with the ice.

Each man must discover his own fashion of sketching out a step. The sequence and arrangement of his strokes will vary with the quality of the ice and with his position for cutting.

Every step should slope slightly inward. The angle of the tread is of more importance than the size of the step. On steep ice the inside or back wall just above the step should be cleared away, to allow the shin room and to let the leg stand upright above the foot.

The outside edge of the step should never be cleared entirely or flattened. The ice dust or fragments, if not too large, should be left there, to pack under the foot and give it a further prop inwards. A good step looks like a rough notch before it has been used; but after the first foot has passed over, it should have taken the shape and size of the sole, and look like its mould.

Large steps or ‘buckets,’ such as the guides provide as the beginner’s joy, are useless to men who wear claws, and more dangerous than small steps for those who do not. A large step has a large uneven, or a large smooth floor, upon which the sole is apt to slip about as the weight is transferred. Its suggestion of moral reassurance is a poor compensation for a spoiled balance.

A step should be small, just fitting the foot and gripping the side of the boot; the back wall should just prop the ankle for better balance. It should be comfortable to leave as well as comfortable to step on to. An experienced step-cutter will always prefer to make small steps, not because of the saving of time, but because, on all but exceptional passages, the small, close step gives him a better basis of balance for his next reach-out and cut. Large buckets only become necessary when the angle of the ice wall is so steep that there is no room for the shin and knee to stand upright above the foot. A big slice has then to be cleared away above the step, and this generally involves enlarging the size of the floor of the step, especially if the cutter is not expert.

A man has to learn to cut off either shoulder. He must also be able to cut steps with either hand alone, in order to have his other hand free to take handholds on the exceptionally difficult passages or traverses where these are found necessary. To aim a step with one hand needs practice. To keep a firm grip on the axe shaft, more especially as this gets iced, makes it important to secure a shaft that is well balanced and easily grasped. It may well have some protuberance or collar which prevents the hand slipping. For the same reason the sling is a sound precaution.[14]

To cut handholds in ice calls for a very fine touch. The best that can be usually formed is no more than a steadying nick, over the edge of which the glove can be hooked. The hand shapes the edge of the nick to the curve of the fingers by pressure, and in the process the glove freezes slightly to the ice. The hand can rarely give more than a balance hold on ice. Security and anchorage must be given by the feet.

Similarly, the hand or rather axe hold that we make by driving in the pick above us, in order to help us over a bad step, is usually inadequate. The pull that comes on the shaft with our weight must always be from a direction different to that in which we drove in the point, and the strain will either loosen the point or lever out the section of ice which the blow has in part detached. To drive in the pick straight and not on a swinging arc, so that it may remain firm at an angle to take the pull of our weight in transference, requires a kind of arm stroke very difficult to make with sufficient force in hard, steep ice.

For men without claws the scrambling method, which some leaders risk to save labour in cutting, of alternating one good ice step with a scratch for the other foot, covered by an axe hold, can only be excused by rare circumstance. It is far better to take the little extra time required for making sound steps under both feet. Men on claws, however, are better able to use handholds and pick holds in ice. Their feet are firm so long as the angle and their nerve allow them to stand upright in balance. All they require is a balance hold, to cover them in starting the next movement; for so much assistance a hand nick or a driven pick can well be trusted.

The step for the foot which is passing inside and next to the ice slope can, to save time, be made smaller than that for the outside foot. For a good party, without claws, the step for the inside foot need only be a nick for the side of the boot, provided always that it is inclined at the right angle. To use such steps it is obviously important that the whole party should follow with the same foot. For men with claws there is no need to make this differentiation. Wherever steps are needed for claws, they may all be made of the same small size--just a sufficient nick to take the side points of either claw.

In cutting on a diagonal uphill, for men without claws, it is better to make the interval between the steps shorter when the rising step is to be made from the inside foot on to the outside foot. In rising from the outside foot on to the inside foot a longer stride can be made in balance, and the interval between steps can be made longer.

In cutting diagonally on the downgrade, the contrary is the case. In dropping from the inside foot on to the outside foot a longer stretch can comfortably be made than from the outside foot on to the inside foot.

In cutting horizontally, a longer stretch can be made from the outside foot on to a step for the inside foot, than vice versa. Trifling distinctions; but a good cutter who remembers them will save the inches on his alternate steps; and many inches saved on long ice slopes mean a number of steps spared and minutes, even hours, economized.

For men without claws, or not very expert, it is better to make steps too near together than too far apart. Safe progress is the best progress. This applies especially to cutting downhill. Until a climber is thoroughly practised in lowering his weight on the bending of a single knee, he will always find one instant of delicate balance in a descending stride; and the longer the interval between steps, the more difficult the balance, until the point comes at which he is reduced to axe scraping, or shuffling himself down the ice leaning against his hand. When he finds either help necessary, the step cutter should be given warning at once that the intervals are too long.

Cutting on the downgrade is usually found more difficult than cutting uphill. At the same time, the securing of the right fashion and inclination of the step is even more important on the downgrade than on the up, since the balance in taking a down-step is more difficult, not only for the cutter but for his following. The steeper the angle at which steps have to be made downhill, the more awkward becomes the balance; until, in descending at a very steep angle, the cutting has practically to be done with one hand. For this reason, on very steep slopes it is better to cut short descending zigzags of an easier angle, even in narrow couloirs where economy of time and labour would point to a vertical ladder.

Where there is no room for a descending or an ascending zigzag, it is better not to attempt to make steps for the side-length of the foot, but to descend or ascend face inward, cutting with one hand a perpendicular ladder of ‘pigeon-holes,’ or steps shaped like small church apses, to be used both by the boot-toes and the hands. For men on claws a vertical ladder of nicks, for the fingers and the two front points of the claw, is all that is needed.

In cutting zigzags for men without claws, besides making allowance for the different size and length of step and interval needed for the inside and outside feet, the turning-step at the corner has to be made of different size and shape. It should always be larger in size and semicircular at the back, so that the climber can pivot round in it on his toe, without hitch, until he faces the other way. It is well to provide a good hand-nick or an obvious hold for the pick, conveniently placed above the turning-step.

Steps upon hard, overhanging ice, or upon ice near the perpendicular, are practically impossible to make or use with any real security. The chief difficulty is to make any sound hold for the hands, such as may keep the body in balance above the feet. It is also generally impracticable upon perpendicular or overhanging ice to cut away sufficient ice in the slope at the back of the step to allow the leg to stand erect above the foot, especially if the tread is slanted downward and inward at a safe inclination. When _tours de force_ of this character are performed, it is usually upon ice which has frozen in ‘waterfall’ fashion, coat over coat, so that it becomes possible to cut through one coat and get a downward handhold between the strata of ice. Such holds, of course, cannot be reckoned upon as dependable for more than a balance lift with the hand. Claws will help us for such nice feats; but they are best only attempted on practice glaciers, or where the rest of the party is soundly anchored.