The New Generation

by G. B. Spenceley

“There was a time,” said my companion, his voice raised above the raucous shouting that came from a party above, ” when all whom you met on the hills were people pleasant to know.” We were sitting separated from the crowds on a ledge some twenty feet above the foot of the crag and sheltered by an overhang from the descent of any unheralded missile. Below, a little way down the scree, in the ” cave ” among the orange peel and paper sat the young members of yet another new club.

We had finished our sandwiches and while waiting to see which of the four buttresses would be least occupied, we had been discussing the behaviour of some of the recent recruits to the climbing world. Later we found solitude above the climbs on the summit of the mountain and as we watched the sun sink behind the western hills, my friend, a mountaineer of distinction and twice my age, told me of his own novitiate. He described his feelings on seeing for the first time high mountains and how it came as a revelation to learn that their remote summits, could, through toil and skill, be attained. The years that followed were a period of careful schooling for the ultimate purpose but his adventures were as yet lived vicariously in the pages of mountaineering hterature on which he fed hungrily. In his later teens, hardihood and endurance were tested on long walks over northern moors, alone and in all weathers; and there were holidays too in the Lakes and Wales with here and there a little scrambling. But during all this time he knew no climbers, indeed had never even spoken to one, although he had seen them at work, remote figures clinging to a Napes ridge, and once in a hotel room he had stood back and listened in respectful silence to an account of a winter ascent of the Old West on Pillar.

However, in those days people never passed one by on the hills without a friendly chat and it was just such a casual meeting that brought my friend his first offer of a chmb. He was taken in hand and with infinite care taught the basic principles. For some time he was not allowed to lead and from the first there was instilled into him an awareness of the potential danger that lay in every step of a chmb and a respect for even the smallest of mountains. Being a man of imagination, fear took a prominent part in those early expeditions, until with experience he began to distinguish between apparent and actual danger, and with increased mastery of his craft to reduce, if not quite ehminate, the latter. With new friends then and a new rope, working through all the moderates and then the difficults, and so upwards through all the standard courses my friend was launched on what was subsequently to become a great mountaineering career.

I have often thought of this man’s approach and attitude to mountains, of his respect for them and love of them; love for their unearthly beauty as well as for the adventure they give, and inspired not only by the mountains themselves, but as much by the breed of men who were mountaineers in those days, forty years ago. Then, more than today, there was a very real and personal relationship between the experienced climber and the novice, and the older man’s influence was a powerful factor in forming, in the budding mountaineer, the correct outlook and values.

No sport has greater traditions than mountaineering; traditions not only of courage and high endeavour but also of unpretentious and gentlemanly behaviour. I could not do better than quote the words of Geoffrey Winthrop Young from an article in the Alpine Journal. He wrote:

” Mountaineering was a discovery … It was perhaps fortunate that the discovery was not made until Victorian days and then by a number of leaders of thought. By the authority of their writings and by their dignity of approach to the new activity, they set a seal of distinction upon climbing; and this preserved it as a practise respectable, if inexplicable, during the decades of popular derision and criticism. They established a notable tradition of the spirit in which mountains must be climbed; and this in our country alone, and in this sport more than in all others, has served to protect its force for good from the progressively corrupting infection of competition and publicity hunting.”

Mountaineering failed to become a popular sport and its recruits continued for many years to be largely drawn from the cultured and moneyed class. But if forty years ago climbing was for the few, now it is for the many and at the same time it is no longer the perquisite of the leisured and learned. That this is the case will be welcomed by all of open mind who have at heart the common good, but the most tolerant cannot help but feel regret at the resultant loss of values and standards of behaviour.

Perhaps it is impertinent of me to criticise a group of climbers belonging to a generation so little removed from my own, but living as I do on the edge of the Lake District I may have a better opportunity than most of our members for observing the actions of those who tend to bring disrepute upon our sport. Perhaps a certain sense of superiority over the mere walker may be afforded and allowance made for the climber’s boisterous spirits after a good day on the very severes within sight of the road, but the mature climber and the tourist will feel irritation and sometimes disgust at the noisy and affected behaviour of many young chmbers who haunt the popular valleys of the Lake District.

Climbers they may be, but mountaineers no; although they have been heard discussing in loud voices their plans to do that year the Eigerwand and the Eperon Walker. Bring them to the point and they will probably admit to a complete lack of interest in mountains as such; the most stirring of mountain aspects will leave them utterly cold; their interest may not even extend as far as the major crags of the Lake District except perhaps where conditions are suitable for the ascent of some notoriously difficult route or when there is the prospect of knocking pitons into ten feet of unclimbed rock. Their playground is the low crag, close both to road and gazing crowds and to hotel bar and awestruck listener. They are essentially fair weather climbers; when the wind is too strong or the rocks too wet and cold for the ascent of climbs sufficiently hard, then all day will the hotel visitor hear their ringing voices.

There was a time when the rope was not seen until the foot of the chmb was reached. It is now not only the practise of these young chmbers to carry ropes in a prominent position on all possible occasions but liberally to drape themselves with slings and karabiners and even pitons (used for display purposes only, in most cases) before they consider themselves suitably attired for pubhc viewing. Thus garbed it is their custom to talk loudly, for all to hear, of super severes, new routes and sometimes, as was heard recently, of accidents, comparing and boasting of distances fallen.

Is there a remedy to combat this general lowering of standards and loss of values? Writing thirty years ago George Mallory expressed the belief that the time had come when it should be the principle of a chmbing club to suppress the propagation of a gospel already too popular. It is certainly tempting to view the situation thus selfishly and to wish the hills only for those com­pletely deserving. We can well imagine what the feelings of Mallory would be today, nevertheless the principle is the wrong one, now, as it was then. The invasion of the hills by young people from the cities should not, and indeed cannot, be halted. Whether we like it or not, we have to accept the fact that rock climbing, and to a lesser extent mountaineering, have in the last few years, become popular sports. Nothing but profit can come of it and if we feel at all for the common good then we should rejoice. The answer lies not in any attempt to arrest this movement but in education, not the education of the schoolroom, but rather the education in mountain manners and in the tradition and values of what is really not merely a sport but a religion, and this can only be given when there is re-established that close and personal relationship between the experienced mature mountaineer and the novice.

For prospective chmbers of an earlier generation it was not easy to get started. The only clubs were what today we call the senior clubs and admission to them was closely guarded and Hmited only to the experienced; there was in existence no organisation or machinery by which the inexperienced climber could be brought into contact with others of similar interests. The young recruit to the climbing world was dependent on his good fortune in meeting kindred spirits and on the good nature of others in devoting their few and precious hours in the hills to his instruction. I myself owe a debt of gratitude to those brilliant climbers Colin Kirkus and Alf. Bridge, who in between forcing new routes up the most precipitous cliffs in Wales found time to take me, then aged seventeen, and many others equally youthful, on crags and routes of lesser difficulty. No doubt most chmbers then and to some extent today, felt it a duty to encourage and train the beginner, and perhaps the flow of newcomers into the sport was so small that the unselfish efforts of these experienced and older cragsmen was sufficient to meet the demand.

Now it is different; the way of the would-be climber is made smooth and he may choose one of many paths, but in some respects the situation is less satisfactory. The number of small local clubs whose membership is open to all and who will under­take the responsibility of training their new members in mountain craft or in rock gymnastics must now be close on a hundred and every month sees the birth of others. At the same time there are a number of other bodies who have interested themselves in mountaineering and the sport is now regarded as an educational benefit with the Ministry itself giving its official blessing. Local Education Authorities in some areas run courses both for children and adults in mountaincraft and rock climbing; the Central Council of Physical Recreation have a permanent centre in the Cairngorms where at holiday times the general public may receive skiing and mountaineering instruction; nearer home is the Outward Bound Mountain School with the accent more on discipline, team work and toughness, where the coalminer’s son will rub shoulders with the boy from Eton; since the spate of post­war accidents the Youth Hostel Association and the Ramblers’ Association have concerned themselves with mountain training and have run week-end and holiday courses both at home and abroad, and there is the Mountaineering Association who have made training in rock chmbing their special province.

Necessary though a more widespread knowledge of mountain-craft is, some criticism can be levelled, not only at the training offered by the Junior clubs — often extremely dubious training — but also at some of the bigger organisations, well-meaning though they may be. The climber of an earlier generation learned his craft behind men usually much his seniors, not only were they of adequate experience, but they were fully imbued with the highest traditions of the sport. Now, while men of character, ability and experience are lending themselves wholeheartedly to the training of beginners, the need is so great that others hardly out of their teens, some having little over a year’s experience, are given the responsibility of running an instructional course; not only are they not qualified to give the technical instruction but their attitude to the hills and their conduct is not always the best example for the young and impressionable novices under their care.

Sufficient is being done by these organisations both in fostering the spirit of adventure and in training the young in its path, but is enough interest and care for the new generation being taken by the individual? It is the personal relationship between mentor and pupil that really matters and will in the end do more good than a thousand lectures and all the collective training. Is it not the duty of all who feel deeply about the hills and who love adventure simply and purely for its own sake, free of all com­petitive elements and of exhibitionism and sensationalism, to pass on to the new generation, by their influence and example, the traditions and spiritual values that the true mountaineer holds so dear?