Reviews

ALPINE JOURNAL (21s.)

The last three years are packed with interest, the Himalayan articles for instance including the ascents of Tirich Mir, Annapurna, and Everest.  For the Swiss autumn attack, 1952, and the last we must wait till 1954.

In the Alps the British guideless are very active and successful.  Many remarks they make show how the steeplejack technique has opened out many sensational routes, but is spoiling some grand rock climbs as noted in the last Y.R.C.J.

In the French and Italian Alps there is a terrific use of hammer and nails, a Dent du Geant climb is a succession of artificial pitches, the north face of the Dru has fourteen spike belays, a Grepon route has ten pitons on one bit.

There is a most enlightening article on a long piton climb on the Peigne (Chamonix), one of Dolphin’s last.

Can we imagine Almscliffe being supplemented by hammer and nail work on the mill chimneys of Leeds ?

E.E.R.

THE NORTHERN HIGHLANDS: by E. W. Hodge. (Scottish Mountaineering Club Guide. 162 pp., 34 illustrations, 12 line diagrams and a map, 15s.).

This is the third edition of this guide.  It has been completely rewritten by Mr. Hodge, who has added much fresh material and has brought the climbs up to date since the first publication in 1932.

This book must not be considered a mere “guide” in the stereotyped sense of the word: It is much more than that.  There is history, geology, folk lore; it tells where accommodation can be had, an important point this, in the wildest and most thinly populated district in Britain.  And not only does it tell what the Gaelic names mean, but gives some indication of how they may be pronounced.  A holiday in the northern Highlands, even if one is not climbing or walking, but merely fishing or motoring, cannot but be enriched by the presence of this book.

H.G.W.

MOUNTAINS WITH A DIFFERENCE: by Geoffrey Winthrop Young (Eyre & Spottiswood, 282 pp., 14 illustrations, 21s.).

To the old this book brings back the very early days of climbing in Britain, and the pioneering enthusiasm of the eighteen nineties and of that glorious decade at the beginning of our troubled crazy century.  There is great charm and intimacy about his descriptions of climbs and of his companions on them.

To the young the book turns back a page in climbing history, and brings to life the climbers of one, or even two generations ago, whose names have been made legendary by routes named after them, or whose photographs appear in bygone numbers of club journals.

But the “difference” is that Geoffrey Young continued to climb after losing a leg in the first war; he developed a “peg” which came as near as is humanly possible to overcoming the deadness of an artificial limb, and he battled and successfully defeated the tendency to rapid weariness which deters so many legless people from an active life.

H.G.W.

THE ASCENT OF EVEREST: by John Hunt (Hodder & Stoughton, 300 pp., 8 plates in colour, 48 photographs, 2 maps, 25s.).

So much has already been said and written about Sir John Hunt’s book that there is little we can add except our admiration not only of his expedition’s magnificent achievement, but also of his own almost equally brilliant feat of producing within six months of the day on which Hillary and Tensing stood on the summit, an account of supreme interest.

The book, without the use of one superfluous word, gives us all we want to know, preparation, approach, rehearsal, plan, assault, and return.  The appendices give the details, equipment, oxygen, diet, physiology, medicine and loads.  The photographs are superb.

It is not a scientific treatise, it is a story of human aspiration, human endeavour and attainment, written with simplicity, understanding and humour.

H.G.W.

THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS. 2nd Edition. Editor H. MacRobert.  Published by the Scottish Mountaineering Club, price 15s. 145 pp., 48 illustrations, 15 line diagrams.

The Scottish Mountaineering Club have produced another edition of their invaluable Guides to the Highlands.  These comprise a great geographical work and the standard of excellence achieved by other volumes is well maintained or even surpassed by the latest edition on one of the most popular and interesting areas.  There can be no higher praise.

It is interesting however to speculate on the future.  The Central Highlands are as varied as they are vast and throw into relief the problem facing future editors.  Are they to follow the traditional form or abandon it in favour of some one or more volumes more on the lines of the present Fell and Rock Chmbing Club guides to the Lake District or Climbers’ Club guides to Wales?  In the traditional form the rock climbing is covered only by general descrip­tions of the classic routes and the reader is referred for anything more com­prehensive to Murrays “Rock Climbs in Glencoe and Ardgour.”  The Purchaser may feel some disappointment at the need to buy two overlapping books to obtain the full details of such a highly developed area as Glencoe.  Perhaps the additional space could be found by the adoption of note form and the omission of such material as is reasonably apparent from a study of the map.  And how useful (if it were possible) would be a list separating the habitable from the non habitable bothies, with notes for the law abiding on how, if at all, to obtain permission to use them!  The Editors must some day choose between a study of traditional size and shape for fireside reading and a handy note book for the anorak pocket.

It seems however that for the time being at least they have decided against spoiling too much the joys of route-finding and exploration, and after a bank holiday week-end on Gimmer, who dare say they are wrong?

R.E.C.

EXPLORING CAVES: by C. H. D. Cullingford. (Oxford University Press Compass Books, 1952; 148 pp., js. 6d.).

An excellent little book.  We congratulate the author on his survey of English cave districts.  He is headmaster of Monmouth Grammar School and has done much caving with boys.  The account of the minor caves at hand along the Wye and in Gower is most useful.

The opening chapters summarise the stories, fantastic and otherwise which have gathered round caves, then follow surveys of South Wales, Devon, Mendips and Derbyshire.  With Yorkshire there is laid down emphatically the clear distinction between pot-holing and caving.  There are many words of warning as to the seriousness of pot-holing and much sound advice on equip­ment and behaviour.

E.E.R.

 BRITISH CRAGS AND CLIMBERS: edited by Eaward C. Pyatt and Wilfrid Noyce. Published by Denis Dobson Limited at 215., 235 pp., 16 illustrations.

This volume consists of an anthology of British Mountaineering literature taken largely from the Journals of the British Clubs.  Our own Journal is represented by Fred Botterill’s account of the ascent of his Slab (Y.R.C.J., Y.R.C.J., 1903) and Frankland’s description of the Central Buttress of Scafell (Y.R.C.J., Y.R.C.J., 1922).

There is a brief introduction to mountaineering terms and technique for the layman and the anthology then follows in date order.  The Editors have made their extracts with great skill and judgment and have the knack of lighting upon just the essential passages without encumbering the volume with un­necessary material.  Their choice extends from Professor Tyndall in 1859 to R. L. Colledge in 1951, and ranges from the heroic (e.g. Owen Glynne Jones’ ascent of Walker’s Gully in 1899) through the idyllic (Smythes description of the Surrey hills) and the reminiscent (G. Winthrop Young on Early days) to the numerous (“A great effort” by J. M. Edwards.)

The whole is extremely readable and our thanks are due to the Editors for presenting the best of club Journals to a larger public and for showing British Mountaineering as a craft of its own.

R.E.C.

 THE CARNEDDAU (Climbers’ Club Guide to Snowdon District VII): by A. J. J. Moulam. (123 pp., 8 maps and diagrams, 1951).

A complete and entertaining account of the many climbs which have been worked out on the great crags and on the many minor crags of the Carneddaus.  The West Gully (Block Ladders) and the Great Gully (Craig yr Ysta) are ranked as the best in Wales with Cyrn Las Great Gully.

Across Nant Francon the delightful Ebdr Pillar and Gleision are included. One can wander to old Ogwen climbs and see if they have got in.

E.E.R.

The British Ski Yearbook. 1903-1953

The Club celebrated its Golden Jubilee with a Dinner and Ball on the 6th May, 1953, exactly 50 years after the Foundation Dinner of 13 members at the Cafe Royal in Regent Street.

Ken Foster takes us round the “Forty-four little Grey Tombstones” as he calls the past issues of the Yearbook, and Jimmy Riddell tells us of the distant nineteen-twenties — how distant everybody seems to think they are nowadays — and of Mürren in the Golden Age of downhill ski-ing.

Peter Lunn who has given up ski-racing for 16 years still feels compelled to ski fast and straight; he has found out what we all learn, that once we start to ski slowly and safely we might as well not ski at all.  His father, Sir Arnold, describes a new and interesting form of competition, the “Arlom.”  Competitors are taken for a long run among the mountains, each section of the run being allotted maximum points based on a total maximum of 100 points.  Competitors, who are sent down each section one by one, are marked for choice of line and control, being given high marks for fast fluent “tempo” turns, and lower marks for slow turns.  The Arlom is intensely popular with many skiers who hate racing but who welcome an opportunity of proving that they are better all-round skiers than many racers who specialise in hard snow.  It is eminently suitable for holiday skiers with short holidays who have no time to train for real racing.  It is an answer for those who hate the “piste” and a breakaway from what Field Marshal. Montgomert so rightly called “The Decadence of Ski-ing.”

The equipment section describes the Gomme Ski, an all-British production of high precision, consisting of wood, plastic and steel bonded together to become stronger and more efficient than the orthodox wooden ski.  Contact lenses made of plastic and slightly tinted to cut out glare are an absolute necessity to the short-sighted racer and to the more humble they are a godsend, as they cut out hunting in the snow for glasses — taking off gloves — un­zipping pocket — pulling out handkerchief — wiping glasses — putting on glasses — replacing handkerchief — zipping pocket — replacing gloves, a process which becomes irksome when repeated at 200-yard intervals on a long run.

H.G.W.

The journal of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club

It comes as something of a shock to those of us who still think of ourselves as young, lithe and active, to read Graham Wilson’s “The Days of Our Youth ” and to realise that it is the 1920’s he is writing about, not the 1890’s, and that we are in the 1950’s, so finely separated from the 1930’s by the night­mare 1940’s.

Dorothy Pilley Richards advocates the Middle Alps for the Middle Aged — a hint to us of the 1920’s.

T. H. Tilly andj. A.Jackson, with three other Englishmen and four Sherpas, spent an adventurous summer between 18,000 and 20,000 feet in the Himalayas, and proved the theory that a swimming movement will keep one from being submerged in an avalanche.  Nothing daunted they conquered the 20,330 ft. “Avalanche Peake.”

A. H. Griffin, a Fell and Rock member as well as a Y.R.C. brings home the bitterness of exile with a nostalgic description of the less known life of the Lake District throughout the year.  The Club has a new home, Birkness, in Buttermere, and Frank Simpson describes its inauguration by the President, T. R. Burnett, on June 2nd, 1952.  The Salving House at Rosthwaite has also been opened as a Club Hut.

R. T. Wilson leaves one in no doubt of the excellence of Kinlochewe for a “Whitsuntide meet.

H.G.W.

 The Climbers’ Club Journal

With no mountains near London the Club certainly moves about.  Scalantag (6,300 metres) in the lordliness of the Andes climbed in 1952 by Bernard Presse, who at Christmas-tide 1950/51 had also enjoyed some interesting and amusing climbing in the Hoggar district of the Central Sahara: “Plumb Vertical,” a graphic and vertiginous description of climbs on the Cime di Lavaredo in the Sexten Dolomites: a long day ascending Mont Blanc by the Pillars of Frenez: the horrors of a cold wait while the other end of the rope hacks his way out of an overhanging crevasse: Mulhacem (3,481 metres) in the Sierra Nevade — and so back to the cliffs of Cornwall.

H.G.W.

 

The Rucksack Club Journal, 1953

The articles in this journal give the impression that the members of the Rucksack Club, like some of our own members, are turning more and more to the Alps for their advanced climbing.  J. N. Mather has an interesting description of a traverse of the Peteret Ridge, including a bivouac on the Breche Nord, and illustrated with beautiful photographs by Basil Goodfellow.

Allan Allsopp’s account of a holiday among the Zermatt Four Thousands makes good reading, and has that attribute of all good chmbing articles, of making us feel we must go and do it too.  He imbues the Dent d’Herens with almost the tranquility of Kanchenjunga.

It is only when we turn to ” New Climbs and Notes” that it becomes evident how active the Club continues to be on its own ground.  Three new climbs in Wales, one of them ” Very Severe,” and four in the Lake District, including three ” Very Severes.”

The highlight is the Jubilee Walk from Tan Hill to the Cat and Fiddle, 120 miles linking the two highest inns in England.  There were five starters, and the course was completed by V. J. Desmond in 54 hours 10 minutes, and by E. W. Courtenay and Frank Williamson in 55 hours 40 minutes.

We join the Rucksack Club in mourning the tragic death of Alexander Taugwalder, for whom a very moving obituary has been written by W.H.H.

H.G.W.