Chapter VII: Ice and Snow Craft (2)

On high exposed ridges we have often to deal, in traversing across the faces of towers, with a mixed coating of snow and ice, in reality a snow cake in process of transformation into ice by infiltration. The snow has to be cleared away, and enough ice hacked from the rock to leave us on the lower sill of the gap, so formed, a sufficiently firm and broad ice edge for a step. This is fine engraving for a leader: if he cuts too roughly, the whole plate may flake off and leave him smooth, vertical rock to traverse; and if he stops too soon, the flake below may similarly peel away when his weight comes on the step formed by its upper edge.

On glacier ice, any rib, crack or flaw in the ice will naturally suggest itself as the groundwork of, if not the substitute for, an ice step. A stone on the ice, or the pocket which it leaves when cleared away, makes generally an adequate toehold,--certainly a hold for the point of a claw.

In cutting across ice flakes, or along narrow bridges through _séracs_, if the bridge is solid enough it is best to make side-foot nicks along one side of the crest. If it is not solid enough and the steps have to be made along the actual edge of crest, it is well to remember that the fit, and especially the exact length of the step, are very important. The boot sole slips about on the top of a flat ice surface, and a step on a narrow crest which is made too short or too long for the boot renders the balance precarious. If claws are worn, the steps will be unnecessary, and the party will use the side or truncated crest of the bridge according to its solidarity and their own convenience.

On glaciers, the flaking ice that we meet with on the faces of big _séracs_ demands great nicety of touch. The steps are difficult to make, as it is difficult to check the fracture at the right point. They are difficult to use, because our weight may continue the work, and the whole flake surface below our feet may come away. Claws are of real service, as they grip without starting a line of downward fracture. If we are without them, a deep pick hold must be secured, driven through into a deeper stratum of ice, to protect the precarious foothold on the flake surface or edge. Large flakes that boom or sound hollow to the axe are best left alone.

On ‘crusted’ snow, snow that has melted and refrozen to an icy surface, which is often too hard to permit of footholds being kicked, steps are best made by a dragging stroke with one corner of the adze-blade along the face of the snow. Any attempt to swing or to cut with the pick will result in the point sticking at every stroke, and thus in very slow progress. On very hard, sticky surfaces, where the pick sticks monotonously and does not split the snow-ice, and where the drag stroke of the adze-blade will not penetrate, the corner of the adze should be struck lightly in, and the axe shaft levered sharply in the direction away from the step-maker. This will burst out a small cube of ice behind the blade. Two such blows and jerks are generally enough to clear a sufficiently long step for a boot. On softer, sticky surfaces a single well-aimed jerking blow of this sort, made by a single motion of the one hand, followed by a sharp, driving kick with the boot, usually forms steps rapidly enough to allow of the maintenance of a slow walking rhythm. Of course, to a party on claws, such surfaces, which cannot lie at very steep angles, present a pleasant ballroom or billiard-table vista of indulgent promenade.

[Sidenote: Using Steps.]

We learn to use steps before we are, usually, allowed to make them. But we cannot use them until they are made. Hence the order I have followed here.

To use steps rightly calls primarily for good balance. A man must learn to walk in steps upright, merely resting his hand or axe point against the ice as he moves up or down from one step to the other. If he leans inward, or hangs on to axe or handhold, he becomes a danger to his party. The steps are not cut for the angle which his foot then makes with the ice; he may easily slip, and the faintest jerk of the rope will snatch his foot from the step. A man upright and balanced on his foothold at the right angle can take a considerable weight or jerk if he has but a second’s warning. A man on claws has double this power.

In using a step a climber has not only a duty to his own balance movement, but to every following member of the party. He must use it exactly as it is made, and leave it as he found it. The foot must arrive neatly and leave cleanly. A fractional mistread leaves for the next man an uncertain or blurred step, if it does not ruin its security. There may be no overtreading, and no twisting or turning of the foot on any step, except on the turning-steps which are designed for that purpose.

At the turning-step of a zigzag the climber twists round face inward on his toes. If the step is only cut for one foot, he must only use it with the one foot, pointing it in the direction in which the imprint indicates that the leader used it. Otherwise he will spoil the step and get the sequence of his feet wrong.

On steep ice our main difficulty is to pass the inside foot from behind to in front, between our outside foot on its step and the ice wall. Beginners and bad icemen are inclined to avoid this difficulty by shuffling from step to step with the outside foot always leading, protecting each change of foot with an axe hold. This is dangerous and ruinous to the steps. On the very rare passages where it may be found necessary,--for instance, on the few feet of traverse across the face of an ice-glazed rock wall, or across a vertical ice bulge in a couloir, where passing the foot is impossible,--the leader will have cut a continuous ledge, on which he intends the feet to be thus shuffled and without risk. Otherwise the inside foot must always be passed in front, whatever the difficulty; and the better a man balances and the less he leans inward and clings to the slope, the easier becomes the passing of the foot. Where the wall is so steep that to pass the leg and hip-bone means really a movement out of balance, the leader may be trusted to have made some handhold above, if only for his own protection.

On steep ice, men on claws have to be very careful in passing the inside foot, so as not to catch the prongs in the puttie or fastenings of the firm foot. On the other hand a man on claws, secured to the ice by his prongs and not merely by the friction of his sole, can flex his firm ankle far more freely outward and allow his inside foot room to pass.

In descending a very steep ice staircase, it is important not only to follow with the proper feet but to notice how the leader used the steps. Steps on a descending ladder are not infrequently cut with the intention that the inside foot should be dropped _behind_ the outside foot as we stand sideways on a slope, and not passed in front of the standing outside foot and then dropped, as in the more usual movement for easier angles of descent. Step cutters should remember the device. It is not only easier, on occasion, to cut a step in this fashion vertically below and not on a descending diagonal, but it is mechanically an easier movement of descent, on a steep wall, to lower the inside foot thus behind the standing foot than to pass it in front.

On a diagonal descent, if the shorter legs of a following man find the steps are made too far apart for his descending balance, and he has no time to make fresh ones, he will sometimes find it safer to turn right round and descend the steps backwards, turning his other cheek to the wall. His outstretched toe can reach farther in this attitude. It is not sound for more than a few steps, and not dignified; but dignity must be sacrificed to security if the steps are already made and it is too late to protest, and it is better to arrive cleanly with the toe on a step, even the wrong way round, than to scrabble down insecurely, leaning against the ice with thigh or hand.

It is often asserted to be the business of the second man to ‘finish off’ the leader’s steps and enlarge them. This has grown out of the mistaken belief that large steps are safer than small, well-shaped ones. The bettering may, on occasion, be done by deliberate arrangement between two men. A return by the same route may be intended, when the larger steps will endure better through the heat of the day. Or if there are weaker icemen in the party it may save time to divide the labour of making the specially good and numerous steps they need. Otherwise the alteration is quite unjustifiable and improper. The best cutter presumably is leading, and he will have made the step of the right shape to start with. If it has been good enough for him to stand upon and cut ahead from, up or down, it is good enough for the party to follow upon. A second working-over of the step risks spoiling it. A patched step is never as good as a clean step, cut just to the right point and left raw for the kick of the foot to finish and to mould. If he does not spoil it, a second man by re-cutting postpones his real business, which is to emphasize the mould of the step still further by the right planting of his foot. If he has time to spare from his functions of anchoring the leader or the men behind, he can employ his hands better elsewhere. He may make additional handholds for balance on bad passages, or, by arrangement with the leader, introduce intervening steps, to save the leader time and to favour a weaker following. If he introduces steps, he must be careful not to upset the sequence of feet for which the leader is cutting the main line of steps. He may, also by arrangement, devote himself to breaking up and dispersing any large fragments of ice left about the steps, though not, of course, to clearing out the small stuff which is expressly left to take the imprint of the foot. He thus incidentally relieves his party’s bottled-up emotions by offering a fair target for the abuse from below which follows such clearing up, but from which the leading step-cutter must always be exempt. It is a graceful concession on a leading step-cutter’s part if, when he is doing his own clearing as well as cutting, he recollects that his following have heads as well as feet.

Men following on claws, in steps, nicks, or only claw-tracks, are freer to vary their sequence of feet or their fashion of using steps; the good hold of the prongs is more than a substitute for the nice fit of the correct foot to the mould of a step. But both for retention of rhythm and for security it is better as a rule to follow the leader’s tracks and save the time which must be spent in selecting new treads. This applies more especially to exposed hard ice where the rope is retained. Men moving without the rope may prefer to digress from the actual treads and find unbroken holding surface for their own claws. The leader’s general line should, however, be followed.

[Sidenote: The Rope on Ice.]

On ice, if the rope is retained, as it will be on exacting slopes by all parties without claws and by many parties with claws, it is worn in its normal fashion, with the waist-knot under the left shoulder and on the side towards or away from the slope according to the direction of the zigzag. One hand, generally the right, holds a short length of slack, as a precaution against jerk and to leave a margin for a longer or shorter stride in our own or our front man’s advance. The rope should never be quite taut. If both hands are required for a moment, to use the axe or to take a handhold, and the slack has for the time to be dropped, we must regulate our distance carefully, step by step, from the man in front, so that the rope to him continues to hang in an easy curve, which will neither catch on the ice nor be jerked by an extra length of stride on his part. We expect the same care from the man behind us.

On hard grainy ice it is useless to attempt to belay the rope with the axe, as is possible on snow where the rope can be looped round the driven shaft. Corrective measures must be left to the firm balance on a good step or on fast claws, and to the spring that the arm, holding the slack, may be able to give to the rope before the jerk of a man sliding comes upon our waist. If a man slips, our natural inclination to lean inwards towards the slope and get some clamp with the axe or hand must at all costs be unlearned and avoided. Once the body is no longer in balance, nor weighing upon the steps, the feet are easily snatched from their hold.

On soft grainy ice it is sometimes possible to make a belay by striking in the pick at a sharp downward inclination above us, and looping the rope round the pick and close to the ice. The shaft must then be held rigid in its first position. Unless the footholds are exceptionally bad, this anchor is not more secure than that given by good balance on the feet alone. And men are very apt, when a friend slips, to throw their own weight inward upon the shaft in a clutch of security, thus pulling the shaft down and loosening the pick from the one angle at which it could have been of any service as a belay.

On zigzags it is of no use trying to keep at even distances on the rope, no matter how even the pace. The intervals must alter as the men pass to and fro on the bends. The rope has to be taken in, as slack in the hand, and again paid out, as we cross below or above our front man on zigzags ascending or descending. The turning-step is usually made face inward in ascending and face outward in descending, though occasionally it is safer to make it face inward on a descent also. The face-inward turn has two advantages: one, that we make the turn on the toes and not on the heels; and two, that if we are using a pick hold at the turn or balancing with our axe touching the ice, we have not to make either the change of hand on the shaft of a fixed axe, or the awkward swirl round of the whole axe outside us and back again on to the ice, which a face-outward turn demands. During either turn the rope should be held high, and clear of the feet.

Balance is always easier when moving in steps at a fair pace; and steps of stationary comfort for turning or special anchoring, and large enough for both feet, are only made at intervals, generally at the end of the zag. Consequently it is not always best to follow step for step with the step-cutter’s necessarily slower progress. If we do so, we are constantly having to wait standing on one foot, or with our legs straddled apart on two steps. It is better to pause in the turning-steps and make up time on the series between them. For example, the second man secures his leader from a turning-step, and can wait until his rope is nearly out. He then follows more rapidly up or down the staircase. He gathers up the rope as he goes if his leader is still cutting, or, on worse passages, the leader takes it in as the second ascends. His natural halts will be at the turning-step of a zag or at his leader’s last anchor step. This method is of particular use when, as often in a couloir, it is safer and more comfortable to make our longer pauses under the rocks at the sides, and not all to move harmonically in criss-cross up the centre. Men on claws may prefer to be without the rope in such places; in this case they make their advance when they please, and are free to halt on any more comfortable nicks to allow for the leader’s slower advance.

For continuous following up steps, the rope and axe are usually held together in the outside hand, the inside hand being left free to take balance touches against the ice or to take in the slack. For slower movement, advancing one at a time, the axe is used for the touches or for resting against the ice during the pause on each step; this saves the chill to the fingers. The axe is at these times held across the body with both hands, the outer of the two hands also holding the slack of the rope.

On very steep or otherwise dangerous ice we shall only be moving one at a time. In this case the leader cuts a large anchor step to which he brings up his second; and the halts will be made by the party only at the recurring large steps. If the ice, and party, are sound enough for continuous progress, we shall generally be pausing on steps made only for the one foot: it is clearly of advantage, at such times, to have the freedom which claws allow us--especially if we are unroped--to move on until we have found a really comfortable nick to wait upon.

On traverses or zigzags, unless we can reach a very good turning or anchor step from which to pull in the rope of the man following, we do better to divide our stance between two steps. Our feet are then well planted to resist a pull coming diagonally or from straight behind us. On a traverse, if we are facing forward, standing either on one or two steps, it is best not to turn and watch the man following, which will prejudice our balance, but to trust to the feel of the rope to tell us what is happening. The rope on ice with its smooth movement is even a surer telegraph than on rock. Moreover, in the event of a slip behind us, we have not only the sound of the slide as warning, but the time taken by a slide down ice, perceptibly longer than by a fall over rock, gives us extra seconds to brace at our strongest. We are more prepared to do this if we keep our body and head turned in the same direction as our feet, than if we first turn round and then have to recover the best holding position.

[Sidenote: Glacier Work.]

On glaciers, besides the task of making and using steps, there is the more serious mountaineering business of finding the best route, up or down, or even any route at all. The climber may or may not have been able to help himself by preliminary reconnoitring. If not, and he finds himself upon an unknown glacier, he has one or two general principles to keep in mind.

The shady side of the glacier--there is usually one more sheltered from the sun--may offer the best chance of finding closed-up crevasses: or of discovering bridges, connecting flakes, etc., such as may help him through any system of open crevasses which extends right across the glacier.

On a curving glacier, the concave side may present to the eye the steeper and more threatening waves of surface ice, since the retardation will be greater on this side. Actually, the ice on this concave side, of slower movement, will be less intricate and the crevasses more contracted. Often the steep crests of ice will be merely surface survivals of crevasses, and their bases will be merged continuously in one another, forming broad glacier dimples easy to negotiate.

On the convex side, the ice crests of swifter movement may appear to be more negotiable, but the crevasses will be open and deep; and on this side there is always more possibility of finding a secondary or tertiary system of edge-crevasses intruding upon the normal side-system. These crevasses are produced by the friction of the glacier against its containing walls, and, like other crevasses, by the unevenness of the rock bed; but being on the convex curve and unsubjected to compression they not only open but stay open. Most edge-crevasses are usually much covered with moraine and stones, on lower glacier, and by many treacherous forms of rotting snow on upper glacier, and they are thoroughly unpleasant to work through. It is best to avoid them by turning out towards the middle of the glacier, until the side-rifts run out in harmless cracks.

On a glacier of approximately straight descent the ordinary systems of crevasses are three in number: these various marginal crevasses, transverse crevasses, and crevasses running lengthways down the fall.

The transverse crevasses are caused by the falls in the rock bed of the descending glacier. They are best crossed on a direct line of ascent or descent of the glacier. According as the glacier is humped in the middle, or flat and even hollow, these crevasses will be found, in the first case, less open nearer the sides of the glacier, and in the second, less open towards the flat or concave centre.

The third system, of lengthways crevasses, is due to the opening out of the containing walls of rock, or to long ‘hog-back’ elevations in the rock bed below, which thrust up the centre of the glacier. This is the more dangerous system to negotiate. Crevasses, especially those whose edges are concealed, must be approached, for crossing, at right angles to their run. A party ascending or descending the glacier lengthways will have constantly to be swinging its whole length on the rope, wheeling until at least two of the party at a time will be approaching the crevasse at right angles to its line and their former line of march. So long as the glacier is clear of snow, the crossings can be thus safely, if tiresomely, managed; but when the crevasses are snow-covered, or where we meet lengthways and transverse crevasses interlinked, it calls for fine icemanship to prevent sometimes all the party finding themselves moving along the same line as the crevasse they intend to cross, or even over its snow-covered length.

Where a glacier, straight or crooked, has one of its sides unsupported by a rock wall, and is therefore falling away at its own edge, or where its marginal and transverse crevasses have joined hands, a disagreeable system of curving crevasses must be expected. This is difficult to prospect, and dangerous to unravel if it is under snow. To locate the direction of a ‘scimitar’ crevasse at one point, and avoid it or cross it correctly, does not protect us against its later loop of unexpected trespass upon our route. The side of the falling away of a glacier should as far as possible be avoided, in spite of the temptation of its easier-looking surface ice.

On large glaciers, where two systems of big crevasses, each equal and still active, have met, we find the worst problem of all: that is, separate ‘cubes’ or islands of ice with crevasses on all their four sides. It leads only to disappointment to attempt to get through a big system of this character. Fortunately it is generally recognizable from a distance by its upstanding squared summits. For a space, also, round the junction of any two glaciers these turbulent effects of cross-pressure must be expected, and the area entered with caution.

On high snow-covered glacier, the huge rotund depressions or mills cannot be disregarded. But they can usually be skirted closely with confidence. They are the result of strains that, fortunately, do not create subsidiary or flanking clefts. They resemble mammoth ice sea urchins, not glacial star-fish.

On glaciers of rapidly changing angle and surface, a disagreeable phenomenon is the formation of an upper crust of ice, or frozen snow, over lesser depressions of the mill type. The crust gets separated from the fall of the surface below it, and while it continues to present a harmless appearance to all but very close inspection, it may surprise a whole party by letting them down simultaneously into a sufficiently startling hollow. The situation is generally more sensational than serious. Similarly, in winter, pools are formed in glacier hollows and frozen over. Then they are covered with snow, and the water drains from under the crust. Thus ice-traps are formed very difficult to detect by the eye, but which sound hollow under the testing tap of the axe point. On covered glacier the axe may never rest idle.

Glaciers in general, like rivers, alternate between distinct falls and more level slopes of smooth shoot or broken rapid. The routes through the smooth sections are easy to trace out from above, more difficult from below. The falls are more difficult to unravel from above, on a descent. In coming down large dry glaciers we can assume that a fall rarely extends equally broken right across the glacier; and that there will be a long bending eddy of smoother surface dallying close round the edge of the more broken section, which may afford us a passage through or round the rapids. On a small or steep glacier, where the fall visibly occupies the whole breadth of the glacier, and there is no eddy round it, it is useful first to discover if there may not be a direct central line which appears to force through the fall a long arrow-point of lazier, more level flow, such as we look for when we are canoeing down rapids. Failing either of these, on a small steep glacier the fall is often best skirted on the concave, or on the shadowed side of the glacier. Only in rare years, of hot seasons following mild winters, do alpine crevasses, or more often one great crevasse, sometimes extend right across a narrow steep glacier, and offer no through route, or bridge. As a last resort then it may be necessary to take to the rocks at the side of the glacier and circumvent the fall.

To get off a glacier at the right point in the evening, and also to lose no time and patience when we turn down on to the big glaciers in the early morning, it is our business to have noted beforehand from above the lie of the crevasses, and the points where it will be best to start crossing their trend. Many glaciers tempt us with long sloping lines of good going where their crevasses slant inward and upward from the margin. If we follow these without pre-examination, we either find our entry carried out and across to where the systems meet and produce difficult ice, or our exit balked of a landing-place. A few resolute traverses of the side crevasses, based upon observation, will often take us on to the master-diagonal, that launches us clear of the central fall or lands us on our chosen marge.

It will be seen that it is of value to train the eye to read a glacier from above, and mark out the best route, before we descend upon it. This inspection should be made not only of the glacier on to which immediate descent is intended, but of all the glaciers commanded by the ridges upon which we are climbing in a given season. The information may be invaluable for a future day, and the practice will serve conveniently to develop glacier prescience and glacier instinct. In addition, we secure a general idea of the condition of the glaciers in a particular season, or in a particular locality, which will assist by analogy to the unravelling of other glaciers which we may have been unable to prospect. A good iceman not only notes from afar, but retains his recollection of the route he noted when he is actually on the glacier and exposed to the constant temptation of following lines of deceptive least resistance. A number of mountaineers learn to observe, but few to remember; and fewer still will uphold memory against the evidence of the moment.

Conversely, it is valuable practical training to note, when we are on a glacier, the character of its rock walls, and the points at which the ice could be reached on a descent of the last rocks from the surrounding peaks. The rock wall just above a glacier is like a sea cliff, smoothed below, and presents a perpetual problem, of ascent or descent. Long returns may often be avoided by our recollection of inspections of a particular wall, or by deductions from our memory of the fashion of rock finishes found on the local glaciers.

Glaciers vary from year to year, and change slightly from week to week, and even on familiar ground it is wise to keep ourselves up to date by using all points of observation for the rediscovery of their annual or local variations.

With a few general principles as guide, the instinct that comes with experience as our aid, and backed by the usual allowance of climbers’ luck, there may be said to be scarcely a glacier, in the Alps at least, which cannot be traversed by patience and skill in all but exceptional seasons. An additional measure of precaution must of course be conceded, if we are following a line after noon or after sunshine which we could take on trust in the frozen hours before sunrise. And even before sunrise, in negotiating steep glaciers, dry or snow-covered, a very careful eye has to be kept upon the chance of ice avalanches or of the fall of a _sérac_. For this risk is not confined to the afternoon hours, when they are most likely to fall. A warm night, or frost, tepid wind or rain, will put the last touch to the career of many vagabond pinnacles depraved by the sun of previous days.

Where we can command the distant glacier above us, it is not difficult to mark the dangerous pinnacles and _séracs_, and to calculate their direction of fall should they choose for it our moment of passage. Otherwise, if we are launched in the morning, without prospect, into the blind intricacies of a big ice fall, the traces of previous falls must be our signals. They will be either scars, from which we draw conclusions according to their appearance of age or newness, or, more frequently, the remains themselves of a past fall, shattered fragments of ice. From the surface of the blocks we know whether the fall was recent or not. If the surface is blue and new in the morning, it has been a recent or night fall, and another may be expected; the same if it has only the rime of frost upon it. If the surface has melted at all and been refrozen since the fall, it is the fall of the day before or of still older date, and it need not be especially regarded in making an early morning traverse. The differences are notable, and a practised eye, backed by knowledge of the weather immediately preceding, can say within a day or a night when the fall took place, and whether it was a day or a night fall, and judge accordingly, with some probability of correctness, when a similar fall may be expected. Again, if there are traces of several falls of different dates, the passage is exposed to the raking of more than one periodic _sérac_ mass, and it must be avoided. If it is but a single old fall, of a complete _sérac_, which no expert will have difficulty in discovering, it cannot fall again and may be disregarded.

After the sun has once risen, all commanding and large _séracs_, even if there is no trace of previous falls, must become objects of suspicion, if we have to pass below them. Their period of decline and fall is proceeding, and its close cannot be calculated nearer than within a few hours.

But a skilled party, with claws and experience, need not be afraid of adventuring on to a crossing of the wettest, bluest, and nastiest-looking _séracs_, provided that they can work out a route of safe footing and that the threatened zones are visible, and therefore avoidable. So long as snow does not conceal the cleavages or muffle the frailties, the difficulties of ice, as such, are a delight to master. With a good axe, good claws and a good friend, to set one’s feet on the crisp spring of morning ice and feel battle joined with the white, blue and silver giants of a glacier fall, I know no excitement so sanely joyous; and no sound so thrilling as the clean hollow smack of the axe and the bell-like rustle of the falling ice-chips returning from the deep crevasse; and yet again, no exultation more healthy than to look back through the glittering labyrinth of turquoise and grey precipice, of sapphire chasm, fretted spire, and lucent arch, flake and buttress, and see the little serpent of our blurred blue steps, edged with the tiny winking prisms of sunlit ice-dust, soaring, dipping, circling, hazarding on its absurd adventure: surely a connected thread of very happy human purpose, asserting its gay consequence triumphantly through the heart of the wildest and most beautiful of the conflicts between nature’s silent armies.

[Sidenote: Snow-covered Glacier.]

Higher glaciers, and the higher reaches of glaciers covered with snow, are the most complex of all mountain problems, and their unravelling is the final test of mountaineering. They demand for their duality of difficulty the mastery of snow and ice technique in combination; and for their associated risk a fourfold measure of precautionary skill; for on them we expect to encounter the ordinary risks of snow superimposed upon the hidden, and therefore magnified, possibilities of danger on ice. The great icemen, those who can disregard a late descent after a long day, and by memory, or by the ice instinct which is the emanation of recollected experience, are able to lead a tired party unerringly through the fantastic, often invisible entanglements of a snow-covered glacier system, intensified by sunshine, their own faculties unimpaired by darkness, fatigue or danger, are masters of the craft; and they are few enough for us to give them ungrudgingly the title of genius.

The peculiar risks of snow glaciers force upon us a reconsideration of the numbers proper for a party.

Solitary climbing is never justifiable on any type of expedition which involves either snow or ice; in fact anywhere where the increase in the so-called objective risk makes it impossible to observe the super-precautionary conditions which must always limit a lonely climber’s performance,--as elsewhere enumerated.[15] An expert on claws may pass a day alone on a dry glacier, with the knowledge that he is taking some definite risk. But anyone who ventures alone on snow-covered glacier, whatever his skill, is giving to everybody, except himself, a proof that he lacks the most important part of a mountaineer’s mental equipment.

The question as it affects a single climber is simple. With the consideration of the justifiability of a party of two venturing on snow-covered glaciers, the complications begin. A party of two, I have said elsewhere, if they are experts, is the ideal party for most rock climbing. For most normal mountaineering which includes straightforward ice work the addition of a third to a strong party adds little except a moral security, and diminishes the complete harmony in rhythm and pace. On clear ice slopes the additional protection is small. If, as between two men, one has not been able to check the other’s fall, the third man will very rarely be able to stop the slip of both the others. On snow slopes, except to share the mechanical labour or in certain exceptional cases, already mentioned, to participate in the corrective anchoring, two good mountaineers should not need reinforcement. But on snow-covered glacier, where hidden crevasses come into question, not only are two insufficient but even three may find themselves hard put to it if two of them have to pull out the third from a bad crevasse.

Some mountaineers have maintained, and in print, that it is never necessary to fall into crevasses; that in every case a man with good eyesight, knowledge of glacier signs and unfailing observation (all of which the leader of a party of two must possess for _any_ type of climbing) can always distinguish their unseen presence and locate their line. This view is nearer the truth than the large number of climbers who have never learned or never cared to use and train their senses would be prepared to admit. In nine cases out of ten the crevasse is really perceptible. But there is the tenth case, with which all men who climb must on occasion have to deal, where there has been no visible sign, and where the crevasse is discovered too late or is only escaped by accident. And further, there is also the supernumerary case when the crevasse _is_ visible, but when its crossing must yet be risked, as the milder of several critical alternatives, and the consequences accepted.

As the matter must still be considered one for discussion, and it is of real moment to clear the ground for a sounder tradition than at present regulates our diverse doctrine and chameleon practice, I shall mention a few instances of what I have called the tenth case.

In a recent alpine season a mild winter and a long hot summer produced conditions of snow sub-surface entirely unfamiliar. Crevasses had opened below long-established snow slopes of unimpeachable aspect. Their coverings had become tenuous and fragile, but until mid-August the upper surface of old snow presented no appearance of subsidence or change. No eyesight could have prevented the falls that resulted. Such a state of snow cannot be unique, or confined to the Alps; and, in fact, the same phenomena, in a less subtle form, may entrap less experienced mountaineers almost any season--guides as well as guideless amateurs. Moreover, even where the crevasse shadow would normally be visible, failing light may trick the best eye, a level sun may dazzle, or low mist may wipe out all sign; and then our expert may go through as easily as another. Few even of the most experienced guides but have suffered the experience. Some have been through; others have had their following drop through where they had passed unsuspecting; yet others have only averted the break by good luck or corrective gymnastics.

Again, there is the case when the presence of the crevasse may be visible or suspected, but where its breadth is undiscoverable.[16] Or, again, where the bounds are discoverable, but where their criss-crossing may elaborate new risks. Suppose us to be two grave men making the descent of a hanging glacier. We find ourselves faced with the alternatives of returning up the peak, of sitting out possibly in deteriorating weather, or of taking the chance of unravelling one of those glacier cross-systems of spouting volcanoes, where the ice is heaped and beaten up into snow-covered vault and dome, and only the tinkle below our feet warns us that we are walking over the brittle cupola of some hidden St. Paul’s. One of us might be pardoned for breaking through here: and how shall one other extricate him?

A more frequent, ‘supernumerary’ case is that of the bergschrund, with its single bridge which we have to cross to get at our peak at all, or to get home before night. In the morning it may have been secure; on our return its security, or the reverse, has to be rediscovered _ambulando_. The experience is common enough, and few parties of two will be able to plead not guilty to having at some time taken the flying chance.

In these and similar cases precautionary and corrective icemanship can do much to reduce the risk for the party of two. But unless such a party climbs so as never to cross snow-covered crevasses at all, which is to postulate absurdity, some risk there must always be of a break-through. And if that once occurs, for a party of two the situation is ten times as serious as for any greater number. For if the fact that a man may excusably fall through may be considered established,--and I shall assume that it is, sufficiently at all events for practical mountaineers,--it is only a question of further fortune whether the crevasse is so shaped that one of the party of only two can rescue himself or even be helped materially by the second man. Several corrective devices have been suggested, such as wearing two ropes, keeping a hand-loop ready near our hand on the rope, etc.--devices which are now used in the confidence that they form a genuine safeguard. The intention of the double rope is that if one man falls through, the other will untie one rope from his waist, and fasten it to his axe, which he will drive in securely as a belay. The man below will then pull on this rope, and the man above on the rope still attached to him; thus securing that the two men will each be pulling separately to raise the one weight. The effectiveness of the double rope so used, however, assumes that the crevasse is one with open walls and clean firm edges, which will allow the second man first to anchor the one rope round his axe, and then move up and stand close enough to the edge to be able to pull in the second rope while his friend below does acrobatics up the anchored rope. But these are not the crevasses into which any observant leader of a party of two has any right to fall. Good men, if they fall, are trapped by snow-covered crevasses of indeterminate edges, or by the midway breaking of a visible but treacherous bridge. In such crevasses the fallen man will be under the projection of a lip of snow. He will be hanging free, probably unable to do more than touch the walls with his axe. The man above will have all he can do to hold on; he may not be able to find secure snow within reach into which to drive his axe for the belay; and his hands will rarely be sufficiently free to untie one waist rope, drive the axe and fix the rope to it, so that he can move up and clear away the overhang. The ropes will cut deeply into the snow lip with the weight; and the friction hold of the snow in which the ropes are embedded will militate against the effective pulling upon his rope by either man. If the two ropes are, as usual, tied to the waist, the one will probably have twisted round the other; both will be jammed in this position in the snow cut, and neither man will be able to distinguish on which rope he is supposed to pull. Even if they have been kept clear before, the cutting through the snow will twist the ropes and jam them, so that they cannot be used separately for pulling at all. The projecting snow will interrupt communications and interfere with any simultaneous action in pulling from above and below. Nor can the man below, suspended in air, really do much to help. Tie a rope round your chest and a bough; drop ten feet on it, and then try to pull yourself up it! And a man in a crevasse is much worse situated for attempting juggling feats. The constriction of the rope alone will soon make him helpless and later unconscious. The shock, the imminent peril and the cold will contribute to weaken him for the strenuous efforts required. Further, if the rope is tied, as it usually is, under the arm, the knot will work up under his shoulder and practically put one arm out of action. All the strength of the arm will be required for merely forcing down the knot and noose, so as to keep it under the arm-pit; the moment the arms are lifted to attempt a pull, the knot will force itself up and half-paralyse the one arm.

It has been suggested, as a partial solution, that the two men should not rope at the ends of the rope, but keep some feet of loose end wound round the body. Then if one falls in he can, with luck helping him, release this slack and make a foot or thigh noose on which the body can rest while suspended, thus relieving the constriction of the chest. Anything that _may_ help is worth trying, and I should certainly advise the method as giving a small extra chance in a bad situation. But this only deals with one of many difficulties.

Experience has again and again shown me that the man below becomes incapable of active co-operation, from cold and shock if not from constriction, before the men above, however prompt and expert they may be, can arrange and carry out any effective scheme of rescue. I have known of difficult situations where even two men above proved insufficient for the complex task of retaining firm fixed anchors, clearing obstructions and pulling up. In any case no mechanical device can be equivalent to the power of a third man, and two men can never be as safe as three.

Once this is conceded, we may admit that a number of good mountaineers will probably continue to hold the view that two is the best number for many sorts of climbing; and that therefore parties of two, starting out with the best intentions, will occasionally find themselves compelled by the necessity of avoiding even greater risk to hazard the crossing of snow-covered crevasses or bridges of dubious stability. They should certainly then put on a doubled or a second rope. One of the two rope-lengths when tied should be longer than the other. This runs risks of twisting and is a nuisance, but in case of a fall it secures that the ropes are at once distinguishable, and it should be prearranged that the man who has fallen should always do his pulling upon this looser rope. The second man should have the end of the looser rope attached, not to his waist, but to his axe shaft. Whenever the leader crosses an obvious bridge or pauses to probe, the second man should plant the axe, with the loose rope attached, at once in the snow, and hold the other, tighter rope in his two hands, ready for emergencies. It is clear that on this method some practical use is made of the protection of the second rope. If the leader goes through, the second man avoids all the enormous difficulty of untying one of two taut ropes, of fixing it to his axe, and then anchoring it, with the whole weight of the man below dragging on him. The weight is on the one taut rope round his waist; he has only to drive in the axe with its slack rope already attached, and the fixed anchor is ready for the man below to start pulling upon, while he himself at once has his hands free to pull on the taut rope. Again, if the rear man falls in--which of course he has even less excuse for doing--this method has the advantage of keeping the second rope already loose and distinguishable in his hand, to cling to or climb upon, and also of saving his axe for him. This double advantage is some remedy for the fact that the leader, who in this case will be the man left above, will have both ropes still fixed to his waist, as on the old faulty system. I do not suggest that the leader also should have the second rope attached to his axe. He must have his axe quite free.

It might be well also to adopt the plan of the few feet of loose end wound round the waist, to make a foot noose with, if the circumstances and position allow.

When the double rope is worn, the rear man should always carry the spare rope. If the double ropes are then, as is quite possible, twisted and jammed in the snow groove, he has yet a third chance of making free and quick connection with his leader; and unless, as I have said, both men can begin instantly to use their full strength upon distinct ropes, there is small chance that one man can get another out of an undercut crevasse.

In place of tying the looser rope to their axe, some men prefer to compromise, and make a fixed loop in the second rope near their waist, through which, in case of the fall of a man in front, they can thrust the axe into the snow, and so get a provisional anchor. This loop in the rope close to the hand, to snatch at or thrust the axe through in emergency, is also used by men in larger parties when linked by the usual single rope. The method has many objections; and all the material security it gives is quite as usefully and less objectionably obtained from the coil or so of slack we are accustomed to grip in the hand.

In the case of a larger party, if a leader or last man does fall in, the first care should be to drive an axe, or axes, securely into the snow, and loop the rope. One man must then approach the edge of the crevasse and see the run of the rope, the nature of the pull, and the clearance of overhanging snow, if any, which has to be made. If the crevasse has the character of a bergschrund, with one lip higher than the other, it is often easier to pull the man out from the opposite side to that from which he has fallen. One, or, if the numbers allow, two of the party must work round cautiously to the far side, taking a spare rope to let down. A noose should be made at the end of the rope before it is lowered. The stirrup for the foot can also well be employed in such emergencies. In a party of three, on a suspicious glacier, the spare rope should always be carried by the last man, and not by the first man, as is usually done in guided parties.

With the two ropes pulling from different sides the extrication is fairly easy. If the farther lip cannot be reached, or overhangs as much as or more than the near lip, there is nothing for it but to cut back the lip of snow overhang above the suspended man until the rope is cleared. This runs some risk of injuring the man below with the falling masses; but the chance must be taken on occasion. The longer a man hangs, the more helpless he becomes. Promptitude is essential.

Keen sight is the first quality for a good leader on snow-covered ice; to be able to remark not only every change of shade or colour or angle on the surface immediately ahead, but also to be able to read the surface well to right and left for its betrayal of crevasses that may be continuing, better hidden, across his path. He must also know all about glacier structure and the inclinations and aspect of surfaces where hidden crevasses may be expected. Tinted glasses are, for many men, an interruption to the reading of ice or snow, and often the cause of bad leading. The man is fortunate who is able to do without them when he is leading, or who finds enough protection in the clear spectacles which best suit his sight. There is an exaggerated idea of the chances of breaking ordinary clear spectacles which has little foundation. They can be worn safely on almost all rock and ice; and even on very severe rock, where they run some risk of smashing as the head is raised past a ledge, they are as safe on the nose as in a pocket. Except right up under the arm-pit, and not always there, there is no contrivable pocket which can be sure of avoiding contact with rock in some attitude of climbing.