Conquistadors of the Useless (30 page)

A hysterical crowd of onlookers, reporters and photographers was waiting at the foot of the glacier and around the station, a portent of less disinterested struggles to come. The whole affair provoked violent polemics in Switzerland, German and Italy. Some folk who had taken good care to keep away from the action indulged in criticism of the rescue's organisation, and even of its having taken place at all. Of course no hurriedly improvised action can ever be perfect. The fact remained that mountaineers of many nations had combined together in a wave of spontaneous human feeling to save the life of a particularly foolish colleague, in spite of hopeless-looking conditions. It had been a magnificent example of what can be accomplished by courage, enthusiasm and willpower, and if only for this reason it was a great achievement. The rest is nothing but dirty gossip.

1. 1.
   Translator's note.
   There are batteries of powerful telescopes at Kleine Scheidegg.
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1. 2.
   Translator's note.
   This long traverse leading to the Spider is often called ‘the Traverse of the Gods'.
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1. 3.
   Translator's note.
   Pitons are classified by length and thickness: among them are ‘ace of hearts', the tiniest of all; ‘extra plat', the next category; normal blade pegs of various types; and U-pegs with a thick channel-sectioned blade. Ice pegs are much longer.
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1. 4.
   Translator's note.
   ‘Thrutch' is a climbing word denoting awkward progress.
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The second ascent of the north face of the Eiger was the apogee of my Alpine career. Subsequently I gave less time to my own amateur climbing and devoted myself to professional activities which I sought to practise in as many ranges and on the most difficult climbs possible. It was not until later that I was lucky enough to become active as an amateur once more, but this time it was in the course of eight expeditions to the Andes and Himalayas.
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In a lesser degree Lachenal followed the same course.

There is perhaps something a bit larger than life about mountaineering at times, a quality engendered by its dangerous and sometimes heroic character, but for all that it in no way escapes from the laws of sport or of nature. A naturally gifted man who frequents mountains from boyhood on, overcoming innumerable obstacles and doing hundreds of climbs, gradually becomes surer-footed and acquires stronger fingers, steadier nerves, more stamina and a more refined technique. Thus he may eventually reach such a degree of mastery that even on ascents of extreme difficulty he has plenty in reserve and runs no great risks. The mountains, once so full of mystery and traps for the unwary, become friendly and familiar, and faces which once demanded every ounce of coinage and energy he possessed seem no more than healthy exercise. I ran more risks and had more trouble in climbing the Aiguille Verte for the first time by the ordinary way than I did later on its Nant Blanc face. In between I had been up the mountain nine times (among innumerable ascents of other peaks) by six different routes. In climbing as in any other sport miracles are rare. Talent, experience, technique, and training are the keys to success.

Once a skier has achieved mastery of technique he no longer sticks to nursery slopes; he would soon get bored if he did. In the same way, each advance in a climber's ability leads him to try a more difficult ascent, and so he progresses. To keep up his enthusiasm he must seek new problems, and there's the rub. A skier can always find steeper and rougher slopes, an athlete can always try to run faster or jump higher, but a mountaineer can only climb the peaks and faces which exist.

After the Walker we had begun to wonder if we had not attained a level of fitness, morale and technique such that the Alps no longer afforded us the opportunities we sought for self-surpassment. The Eigerwand, done in bad weather and bad conditions, more or less clinched the matter.

Now that we had climbed the highest and hardest faces in the Alps we had nothing left to hope for. I remember writing somewhere or other: ‘In order to renew the adventure the mountain must rise to the measure of its adversaries'. Thenceforward the mountains of Europe could only provide us with a sporting form of tourism or with simple trials of technical virtuosity. For those of us whose ambitions went beyond aesthetic appreciation or mere gymnastics, the only way out of this impasse seemed to be to change the rules of the game, either by climbing the hardest faces solo or by doing them in winter. Obviously we would rather have measured ourselves against the highest mountains in the world, which will always provide game even for the hardiest, but how were we to get to them without money?

Some readers may be provoked to remark that, although we had repeated the hardest climbs done up till then in the high western Alps, a number of big routes such as the west face and south-west pillar of the Dru were still awaiting their first ascents, and that moreover we hadn't climbed a single one of the great Dolomite faces. As everyone knows, the last-named range contains the longest and hardest crags ever scaled by man. Contrary to what I have said, then, these readers may conclude that even after the Walker and the Eiger there remained plenty in the Alps to keep us busy, and up to a point they would be right. But, as I have already had occasion to remark, mountaineering includes a number of different specialities. Greater mountaineering is one of these, extreme rock climbing is another. Very few people feel an equal enthusiasm for them, and fewer still manage to shine at both, since their techniques differ widely.

I remember two very famous Dolomite specialists being so ill at ease on the way down the Eiger after the rescue that my friend Tom could literally run circles round them. I could also cite the instance of two other ‘sestogradists' who achieved the almost incredible distinction, after a slightly late start, of bivouacking on the easy Dent du Géant. Again, there was the case of an illustrious party from the eastern Alps who took three days to do the Walker in normal conditions; to say nothing of the unbelievable slowness of the German-Italian party on the Eiger, who were all, be it noted, first-rate rock climbers. One of them was indeed considered to be rather a phenomenon, and held speed records for a number of rock climbs. But if it is true that the majority of climbers from the Dolomites are not at home on the ice, mixed ground, or even the rock of the high western Alps, the same applies equally to the ‘greater mountaineers' when they get on to the loose, overhanging limestone of the eastern Alps.

Lachenal and I were determined ‘occidentalists'. Climbing to us meant summits and faces where there was snow and ice as well as rock. For us this fairyland of silver glaciers and shining snow had incomparable charms, and by comparison faces of pure rock seemed painfully monotonous both aesthetically and technically. Neither of us had ever been much attracted by the lower ranges, and we didn't really think of them as proper mountains. ‘Dolomitism' seemed different in nature to mountaineering. It wasn't that we were unable to climb rocks, as we had shown on the Walker – Lachenal was in fact quite exceptional on delicate ground – so much as that mixed or even pure ice climbs inspired us more, particularly in cases where rock climbing meant a lot of artificial work, which we detested.

Now a good many laymen and even climbers may imagine that this technique in which, as everybody knows, one progresses by pulling up from one piton to the next, is really not very difficult. I have quite often heard it said:

‘There's not really much to it. It's just a question of banging in the pegs and then stepping up on little ladders.'

This, however, is a gross over-simplification. Except on some all too rare occasions, artificial climbing calls for considerable strength, intelligence and courage. It is extremely strenuous to spend hours and even days on an overhanging face, swinging around on stirrups, and constantly hammering, in the most uncomfortable positions. Getting the pegs to hold in all sorts of inconvenient cracklets and arranging the ropes and karabiners so that they don't jam is a work of art in itself, and to climb faces of over two thousand feet in this way, at a speed of a hundred or even sometimes a hundred and twenty feet an hour, demands more than ordinary willpower and perseverance. In positions where the rock is friable and the exposure very great only the most genuine courage enables men to trust themselves to a long series of insecure metal spikes which might ‘unzip' at any moment. I know of nothing which gives a greater sensation of insecurity.

Neither Lachenal nor I would ever have suggested that artificial climbing was not difficult, or that it did not demand remarkable qualities: we just didn't care for it. The thing we loved about climbing was the sensation of escaping from the laws of gravity, of dancing on space, which comes with technical virtuosity. Like the pilot or the skier, a man then feels freed from the condition of a crawling bug and becomes a chamois, a squirrel, almost a bird.

Far from evoking this feeling of mastery and ease, artificial climbing gives the reverse impression. Progress is slow, laborious, and due solely to mechanical subterfuges. Fettered to the rock, the climber feels thoroughly clumsy and fragile. Art, strokes of genius, have no place in his success, which is due only to hard labour. Nearly all the big Dolomite climbs involve long sessions of more or less artificial climbing, and quite apart from the fact that their scenery did not attract us, this alone would have been enough to put us off.

For precisely the same reason we never dreamt of trying the three or four then unclimbed faces of any amplitude in the western Alps. I would also add that in 1947 the all-out use of wooden wedges in cracks too wide for ordinary pitons was definitely ‘out'. At that time nobody dared to have recourse to such methods, but it was only due to their use that the west face and south-west pillar of the Petit Dru were eventually climbed.

Only two faces then still virgin could have provided us with adventures comparable in kind to the Eigerwand and the Walker, to wit, the north-east face of the Grand Dru and the north face direct of the Droites. If we had had a little more spare time during the summer season we would certainly have made all-out attempts on these. We did in fact bivouac at the foot of the Grand Dru twice, and I also made an attempt on the Droites with Tom de Booy, but on all these occasions we had no luck with the weather.

As for solo climbing, much practised by German climbers and certain Italian ‘sestogradists', it makes certain techniques so difficult as to bring even the greatest aces down to the level where they are once again forced to fight hard and run major risks. This branch of the sport not only calls for absolute mastery but also an altogether unusual force of character, if not an actual kink. Lachenal and I never went in for it, for reasons less technical than moral. We frequently did not bother to rope up on difficult ground, and still more often climbed simultaneously, roped but not belayed. Theoretically, therefore, we should have been capable of doing difficult ascents solo. But Louis was an extremely sociable man, who hated being alone. Personally I often enjoy it, but in the mountains it makes me acutely conscious of nature's threats, and I become quite incapable of getting up pitches which I would easily do unroped if I had some company.

In my view mountaineering is an essentially individual experience, and I have always considered absurd the opinion, voiced by some authors, that the forging of bonds of friendship is its primary motivation. If this were really so, why would anybody risk his life or exhaust himself on the most fearsome climbs? If friendship really needed any such catalyst the ascent of easy summits would serve as well. True, we encounter every summer, bands of happy warriors singing, guzzling and drinking their way up and down the ordinary routes, finding in the fresh air and exercise an incitement to ‘good fellowship', but this temporary glow is no more real friendship than the same thing generated at a banquet or a party. It may indeed be that these feelings are genuinely the purpose of such outings, but in any case they are only a very minor form of mountaineering.

It is equally true that dangers and labours shared, as in war or on difficult climbs, may link men in a mutual esteem that over the years may deepen into genuine friendship. But friendships born of a particular situation have a way of fading once it is over, effaced by all the petty circumstance of life. Whatever the legends so carefully maintained by some, the mountaineering game is far from a garden of universal fraternity. It is simply that the dangers of the sport, together with the fact that it is carried on in little groups of two or three, create an environment favourable to human warmth, which therefore happens to be commoner, or perhaps I should say less rare, among climbers than among most other communities.

The majority of climbers are complete individualists. Dislikes and rivalries are common among them, and comparatively few go on climbing together year after year. Odder still, it is not unknown for two who positively dislike each other to climb together because the arrangement enables them to do the climbs they want.

Personally I hold friendship one of the most precious things in life, but like everything of real value it is rare. We do not become friends with just anybody simply because we happen to have shared danger or for that matter pleasure with him. It is a powerful emotion, like love, which has to be cultivated; and in the same way it becomes devitalised if given too often or too easily. I have felt a deep and enduring friendship for some of my mountain friends, especially Lachenal, and there is no doubt that climbing is a finer experience when done with such a person, but it would be stupid to pretend that it cannot be done otherwise. If so, it would soon become a rare activity. Anyone who hopes to do a lot of climbing cannot always pick and choose too carefully. It is interesting to reflect that the man who has become the great evangelist of climbing for friendship's sake was at one time in the habit of climbing with the first comer.

I have always refused to go out with people I disliked, but circumstances have often forced me to do so with those who were indifferent to me. Their presence added nothing to my pleasure, and I would have enjoyed myself as much climbing on my own had I been capable of it. But some moral weakness which I have never properly understood has always made me incapable of climbing difficult rock on my own, and even unroped I need the presence of another human being.

In winter all climbs become much more difficult owing to the presence of snow, cold, wind, and the shortness of the hours of daylight. Anybody who wishes to do big ascents at this time of the year, without turning them into expeditions, runs even greater risks than on the most formidable walls in summer, but some climbers have thus found a way of satisfying their lust for battle. In many ways I share their enthusiasm, and yet, perhaps paradoxically, I would reproach them with carrying heroism too far. When wind and cold render conditions too inhuman as, for example, on Himalayan summits where the lack of oxygen enfeebles him, the climber's technical capabilities are greatly reduced. The climbing therefore becomes extremely slow and he is robbed of that feeling of lightness and mastery which should be one of his main joys. But for all that I wish I had had the opportunity to do more winter mountaineering.

However great our passion for the mountains we cannot spend our entire lives climbing. I am so designed by nature that I have to train hard to keep up my standard, and in winter I have always been too taken up with racing and my work as a skiing instructor to spare the time for serious mountaineering. Lachenal, by contrast, had such natural gifts that he needed almost no practice to keep on form, and in consequence pulled a number of big winter ascents as it were out of a top hat.