Sir William Martin Conway

MOUNTAINS do not merely vary from district to district, but from time to time. Were it not so, how soon should we tire of any single outlook or the neighbourhood of any one centre! They change from hour to hour with the incidence of sunlight, and from day to day with the passing season of the year. They change also, often from moment to moment, with the inconstancy of the weather. In fact they are never twice absolutely the same. In the heyday of our scrambling enthusiasm, we perhaps regarded this variability of the mountains with less satisfaction than it obtains from us later. We should have chosen an unbroken series of long and cloudless days, with the snow all melted from the rocks, and the summit views all complete in cloudless, transparent visibility. Yet even then we found a singular joy in snatching an ascent in some brief fine interval between two spells of bad weather. Whereas the details of many a featurelessly fine ascent have passed from our minds, which of us does not remember, and recall with a keen delight, climbs accomplished in the teeth of storms, when Nature seemed to stand forth as an antagonist whom we wrestled fiercely with, and joyously overcame?

We may regard mountain moods from two points of view; as experienced by the climber, and as affecting the aspect of mountain scenery when beheld from a greater or less distance. The circumstances of his sport, though in most cases they restrict the climber to one season of the year, fortunately compel him to be on mountains at almost all hours of the twenty-four. Most sports are functions of daylight; the climber must travel by night as frequently as by day. None better than he, unless it be the astronomer, knows the full secrets of midnight beauty. What climber's memory is not stored with priceless recollections of the night and its myriad voices, its noble diapason. By day the eye is supreme; by night the ear. Then it is, when marching along upland valleys, that one hears the full chorus of the rushing torrent, now booming close at hand, accompanied by infinite ripplings and splashings of little waves, now fainter and more sibilant but no less musical in the distance. Then, too, it is that the breezes sing most sweetly among the trees; then that the glaciers are most melodious, the moulins most tuneful; then, too, on the highest levels, that the ultimate silences are most impressive. The hum of a falling stone, the rattle of a discharge of rocks, the boom of an avalanche, the crack of an opening crevasse, all these sounds should be heard framed in the silence of night, when the sense of hearing is most alert and the imagination most easily stirred.

Who does not recall the velvety darkness of the sleeping valleys through which he passed near the midnight hour when just setting forth for some long ascent? How that contrasted with and set off the brilliancy of the star-spangled sky, where Orion, the Alpine climber's heavenly guide, shone over some col or darkly perceptible ridge, and bade him expect the coming of the day. Then, as the trees are left behind and the open alp is reached, while night still reigns in her darkest hour, how sweet are the airs, how uplifting the sense of widening space and enlarging sky, how stimulating the wonder of the vaguely felt glaciers and mountain-presences around!

Oftenest perhaps it is moonlight when the climber starts earliest upon his way; then indeed he beholds glorious scenes and revels in the sight, nor envies his sleeping friends in the valley below. Ah! dearly remembered splendours of full moonshine upon the snow! how gladly we retain the images of you in the very treasury of our hearts! Yet who shall attempt to draw them forth for another, or write down even a faint suggestion of their beauty for those by whom they have never been beheld? Surely at no time are the great snows endowed with more dignity, more of the impressiveness of visible size, more aspect of aloofness, of belonging to another and a nobler world, than when the full moon shines perfectly upon them. And then, too, how the snow-fields glisten over all their wide expanse, yet with a pale effulgence that does not paralyse the eye! What velvet blackness embellishes the shadows! How the rocks are fretted against the snow! How clear are the foregrounds of glacier; how spiritual are the distant peaks; how softly lies the faint light in the deep hollows! Surely Night, the ancient Mother, speaks with a voice which all her children understand.

MOONLIGHT IN THE VAL FORMAZZA FROM THE TOSA FALLS

At such hours and amidst such scenes the mere onlooker oftenest shivers and suffers, so that half the beauty escapes him; but the active mountaineer, keenly awake, with the blood alive within him and a day of hopes ahead, misses no sight that he is capable of seeing, yet dreams, who shall say what visions of beauty that flit before his mind and vanish in swift succession. And then—suddenly—he turns his head and there in the east—always unexpected—is the bed of white that heralds the day. The night is dying. Her rich darks and whites grow pallid. Each moment a layer of darkness peels off. The sky turns blue before one knows it; the rocks grow brown; there is blue in the crevasses, and green upon the swards—all low-toned yet distinct. Faint puffs of warm air come, we know not whence, touch our faces, and are gone. The lantern has been extinguished; we stride out more freely; the day awakens within us also.

Now is displayed in all its magnificence the daily drama of the dawn. While the mists yet lie cold and grey in the deep valleys, they glow against the eastern horizon, where all the spectrum is slowly uprolled, more and more fiery beneath, as it tends to red, and cut off below by the jagged outline of countless peaks, looking tiny, away off there on the margin of the world. Low floating cloudlets turn to molten gold. The horizon flames along all its fretted eastern edge, a narrow band of lambent light, a smokeless crimson fire. The belt of colour grows broader; it swamps and dyes the cloudlets crimson. Long pink streamers of soft light strike up from where the sun is presently to appear. The great moment is at hand. All eyes rove around the view. At last some near high peak salutes the day; its summit glowing like a live coal drawn from a furnace. Another catches the light and yet another. The glory spreads downwards, turning from pink to gold, and from gold to pure daylight, and then—lo! the sun himself upon the horizon! a point of blinding light, soon changing to the full round orb. The day has come, and the long shadows gather in their skirts and prepare to flee away.

Now comes the climber's most perfect hour. He shares the strength and promise of the young day. The fresh crisp air seems to lift him from the earth. The sense of the very possibility of fatigue vanishes. He rejoices in his might. He looks forward with confidence to no matter what difficulties may lie ahead. The snow is hard and crisp beneath his feet. The ice-crystals merrily crepitate as they break up, when the bonds of frost are withdrawn. And now the patch of rocks, or other convenient resting place, where breakfast is to be taken, is soon attained. Packs are cast off. It is an hour of perfect delight. The heart of the upper regions has been reached. The fair world of snow opens on every side. The valleys and habitable places are all forgotten. The scenery is superb. At such a time and place who would exchange with folks below, be they never so prosperous?

It is soon time to be on the way once more. The fulness of the day gradually comes on with all its pains and glories. The sun climbs triumphantly aloft and sheds its burning radiance all around. Foreground details vanish in excess of light, but the distances grow more distinct. What is nearer stands out before what is more remote. The eye ranges afar and feasts upon the widening panorama, which about noon, let us hope, suddenly becomes complete, for we are on the top. No daylight is now too brilliant to reveal all the multitudinous effect of what is spread abroad to be beheld. The burning snowfields are below. The mere foreground of our vision is miles away. We look down into sunlit valleys sprinkled with tiny dots of houses and narrow lines of roads. We gaze afar over ridge beyond ridge, it may be to some wide-stretching plain or ultimate crest of remotest ranges. All swims in light, and we triumph in its very exuberance.

Then follows the afternoon of our descent. We plunge into ever-thickening air as we go down. It is penetrated with the dust and flurry of the day. As the hours advance it sheds an ever mellower tone upon the views. Fatigue seems to invade the earth itself as it does our own limbs. We gain the grassy places once more, as the sun begins to lose its towering eminence of place. The rope and all its strenuous suggestions has been discarded, and at length the most toilsome parts of the expedition are over. We can fling ourselves upon the grass by some babbling brook, with the clanging of cattle-bells not far away, and the haunts of men pleasantly adjacent. The peaks we have sought out are not yet very far away. We can still follow the traces of our own footsteps upon their flanks. Their spirit is in us. All that we have so recently seen and felt is still present in our minds, as we gaze with newly instructed eyes upon the places we have visited.

A MOUNTAIN PATH, GRINDELWALD

The last walk remains, down through the gathering trees, through new-mown hay-fields, past little farms clustering on the hillside—down and ever down into the embrace of the narrowing earth, which holds out arms of recognition to us, her children and the special votaries of her shrines. When at length the mellow evening light is warm upon the hillsides, and the rich shadows are creeping down upon it, we reach the village where we are to rest. There, as we sit before some hospitable inn, and gaze yet once again back to the heights whence we have come, the sunset fires are lit upon them when the shades of night already fill the valleys. For a moment the topmost summits facing west glow with the gold and fade to the rose that ushered in the day and now glorify its close. The colour is withdrawn. The warmth fades out of all the view. Pallor supervenes, and "layer on layer the night comes on."

Such are the normal effects and sequences of a fine Alpine summer day; but days of that sort are rare. Usually what we call "weather" intervenes to break the normal sequence with surprises that should not be unwelcome. I have thus far referred mainly to the drama of the sunshine; but more varied, more fascinating, more adventurous is the drama of the clouds, those mist mountains that come and go, forming ranges loftier than the hills, whiter than the snows, but endowed with the two-fold gifts of inaccessibility and evanescence. Them we can neither climb nor map. Clouds we have with us everywhere, but it is among mountains that we learn to know them, how they form and fade, mount aloft or drift asunder. The mountain clouds have a plainlier realised individuality than those that pass over cities and plains. Their positions and relative altitudes are more easy to fix, their changes more readily perceived.

It is not my intention here to analyse at length the characters and forms of clouds from the picturesque point of view. That has been most suggestively and eloquently attempted by Ruskin in various chapters of Modern Painters, which every mountain-lover should have read. One correction only of that fine description of mountain-clouds will I venture to make, the point being of some importance. "I believe," wrote Ruskin, "the true cumulus is never seen in a great mountain region, at least never associated with hills. It is always broken up and modified by them.... The quiet, thoroughly defined, infinitely divided and modelled pyramid never develops itself. It would be very grand if one ever saw a great mountain peak breaking through the domed shoulders of a true cumulus; but this I have never seen."

Whether it be true that cumulus cloud is never formed in the Alps I cannot say, my own notes not being accessible to me at this moment and my memory at fault; but this I can assert, that, in the heart of the great ranges, Himalayas and Andes, they frequently and magnificently occur. Never shall I forget the piled splendours, the divided and involved intricacies of rounded forms, the stupendous mass of the great towers of white cloud which I have often seen, with their level bases just upon or just above the summits of mountains more than 20,000 feet high, and their sharply outlined crests 15,000 or even 20,000 feet higher. Such clouds are only formed in warm uniformly ascending air currents, undisturbed by variable winds. They never form about peaks, but they form beside or above them. Often in Bolivia have I seen these great towers of mist rise with majestic deliberation behind the long white crest of the Cordillera Real, till they reduced the snowy peaks to mere pigmies at their feet. Then the afternoon wind would take them and bend them over the range like waves about to break. White island masses would sever themselves one by one and, passing the crest of the watershed, would drift away over the high plateau. If cumulus is formed in the Alpine region, its base would doubtless there also lie above the level of the snows, and the form of the clouds would not be realised by an observer in the mountain region. From Turin or Milan, gazing northward, immense masses of cumulus are often seen, but I have never yet been able to discover whether their bases rest on the snows or whether they merely lie above the foothills and lake-district.

The clouds that belong to mountains, that arise upon their slopes and crests, and are the vestments they wear in the great ceremonies of Nature, these are of another sort. The climber knows them from within and has a very different sense of their meaning from his who merely watches them from afar off. Mr. Whymper in a well-known passage describes how he spent the best part of two days on the Matterhorn, wrestling with a violent storm. On his arrival at Zermatt, he learned from the inn-keeper that the weather had been fine but for "that small cloud" on the Matterhorn's flank. Such is the difference between being in some clouds and seeing them from below.

Climbers, as a rule, begin their ascents by night, in weather which they at least hope will prove fine. In doubtful weather nights are relatively cloudless, unless it be in valleys. Not infrequently, indeed, a bed of cloud will lie in a valley when all the upper regions are clear. I well remember once starting from Zermatt for an ascent of one of Monte Rosa's peaks at as black a midnight as can be conceived. Not a star shone in the heavy sky. An hour's walking brought us into a thick fog, but we pushed on and up. It lay quite still. Just before dawn we rose above it and could almost feel our passing out through its clearly defined upper surface. We looked abroad over its level surface as a leaping fish may be imagined to see around it the surface of a lake. All above was absolutely clear. The day that followed was radiantly fine and the mist lake presently faded away. Such views of mountains rising out of a level sea of cloud are always felt to be wonderful. Sella's photograph of the Caucasus range thus islanded is the best-known example of that kind of view. It is not uncommon in mountain regions. I have described examples of it in Spitsbergen and the Andes which need not be quoted here.

Oftener the climber starts beneath the stars. His first attention is paid to their aspect. If they seem unusually bright and twinkling, he augurs ill of his prospects, but holds on, hoping for the best. Dark sky-islands indicate the presence of clouds here and there. He trusts that the rising sun may clear them away. In due season the dawn breaks, perhaps in unusual and threatening grandeur, the light pouring along "wreathed avenues" of advancing clouds and illuminating with its rich tints the cloud-banners flying from precipitous peaks. Worst of all is it if umbrella clouds seem to float stationary above the tops of rounded snowy summits. Then indeed there is little ground left for hope. These cloud-caps, just lifted off the heads of the mountains to which they belong, consist of vapour in rapid movement and always imply a strong wind. The mist condenses to windward of the summit, blows over it, and dissolves to leeward, thus making the cloud-cap appear stationary, though every particle composing it is in rapid motion. Similar is the internal composition of a cloud-banner, though the movement of its parts is more easily perceived.

Oftenest, however, at the hour of dawn there is little wind, and the mists condense lazily, forming, fading, forming again in the most whimsical fashion. Or they eddy in hollow places, and reach forth over depressions uncanny arms, which grasp and wither away and return again as though in doubt what to attack. An hour may pass in this weird performance, and then after all the sun may conquer and the misty battalions be swallowed up. But that is unusual. Generally, after some preliminary skirmishing, the moment comes when they gather themselves together, as by word of command, and, coming on in united force, swallow up the mountain world.

This final onrush is often a most magnificent and solemn sight. The gathering squadrons of the sky grow dark and seem to hold the just departed night in their bosoms. Their crests impend. They assume terrific shapes. They acquire an aspect of solidity. They do not so much seem to blot out as to destroy the mountains. Their motion suggests a great momentum. At first too they act in almost perfect silence. There is little movement in the oppressively warm air, and yet the clouds boil and surge as though violently agitated. They join together, neighbour to neighbour, and every moment they grow more dense and climb higher. To left and right, one sees them, behind also and before. The moments now are precious. We take a last view of our surroundings, note the direction we should follow, and try to fix details in our memories, for sight will soon be impossible. Then the clouds themselves are upon us—a puff of mist first, followed by the dense fog. A crepitating sound arises around us; it is the pattering of hard particles of snow on the ground. Presently the flakes grow bigger and fall more softly, feeling clammy on the face. And now probably the wind rises and the temperature is lowered. Each member of our party is whitened over; icicles form on hair and moustache, and the very aspect of men is changed to match the wild surroundings. Under such circumstances the high regions of snow are more impressive than under any other, but climbers must be well-nourished, in good hard condition, and not too fatigued, or they will not appreciate the scene. No one can really know the high Alps who has not been out in a storm at some great elevation. The experience may not be, in fact is not, physically pleasant, but it is morally stimulating in a high degree, and Æsthetically grand. Now must a climber call up all his reserves of pluck and determination. He may have literally to fight his way down to a place of shelter. There can be no rest, neither can there be any undue haste. The right way must be found and followed. All that can be seen is close at hand and that small circle must serve for guidance. All must keep moving on with grim persistence, hour after hour. Stimulants are unavailing and food is probably inaccessible. All depends upon reserve stores of health and vigour, and upon moral courage. To give in is treason. Each determines that he for his part will not fail his companions. Mutual reliance must be preserved.

At first the disagreeable details are most keenly felt by contrast, but, when an hour has passed and the conflict is well entered upon, they are forgotten. We become accustomed to our surroundings and can, if we will, observe them with a deliberate interest. How the winds tear the mists about! There is no constant blast of air, but a series of eddying rushes, which come and pass like the units of an army. Each seems to possess an individuality of its own. Each makes its attack and is gone. One smites you in the face; another in the back. Some seem not devoid of humour; they sport with the traveller in a grim way. Others are filled with rage. Others come on as it were reluctantly.

The aspect of the foreground rapidly changes. Rocks and stones disappear under a thickening blanket of snow. What was a staircase on the way up is found to be a powdery snow-slope in the forced descent. The new snow is soft like a liquid. It flows into the footprints and blots them out. Can it be that there are places somewhere where it is warm and dry—places with roofs over them and snug chimney corners and hot things to eat and drink? How strange the idea already seems! We belong to another world and feel as though we had always belonged to it. Civilised life is like some dream of a bygone night, and this that we are in is the only reality. It, in its turn, we know, will hereafter seem to have been a dream, but now it is the only fact. Here is the world of ice in the making. This is what snow-fields and glaciers come from. Unpleasant is it? Well perhaps! but it is good to have had such experiences. They develop a man's confidence, employ his powers, and enrich his memory.

After all it is the snow regions in their days of storm that I remember best. One tempest that overwhelmed us on the flanks of Mount Sarmiento in Tierra del Fuego—how clearly even its details arise upon the lantern-screen of recollection! We were looking back northward over the Magellan channels towards the southern extremity of the South American continent, and a storm was pouring down thence upon us. "The darkness in the north was truly appalling. It seemed not merely to cover, but to devour the wintry world. The heavens appeared to be falling in solid masses, so dense were the skirts of snow and hail that the advancing cloud-phalanx trailed beneath it. Black islands, leaden waters, pallid snows, and splintered peaks disappeared in a night of tempest, which enveloped us also almost before we had realised that it was at hand. A sudden wind shrieked and whirled around us; hail was flung against our faces, and all the elements raged and rioted together. All landmarks vanished; the snow beneath was no longer distinguishable by the eye from the snow-filled air."

Sometimes the wind blows with a fury that is almost irresistible. I have this note of such an experience. "The wind struck us like a solid thing, and we had to lean against it or be overthrown. It lulled for an instant, and we advanced a few yards; then it struck us again, and we gripped the mountain and doubted whether we could hold on. A far milder gale than this would suffice to sweep men from a narrow arÊte. It was not only strong, but freezing. It dissolved the heat out of us so rapidly that we could almost feel ourselves crystallising like so many Lot's wives. We stood up to it for a minute or two, then rushed back into shelter and took stock of our extremities. My finger-tips had lost all sensation. It was enough."

Such raging tumults of the air are not a very common alpine experience, though most climbers have had to encounter them. Sometimes the air is still, or only gently in motion, while dense clouds envelop peak and glacier. Then a great silence reigns, which yet is not like the silence of night. It seems of a denser, more positive sort. Strange sounds punctuate it in times of heavy snow-fall. There are slidings from rocks, dull sunderings of snow-drifts grown too heavy to retain their unstable positions. There are crackings in deep beds of snow, newly formed. Small avalanches of snow fall with a cat-like, velvety movement, more of a flowing than a fall. Stones plunge with a dim thud into snow-drifts. All these sounds are heard, but the moving objects, though perhaps quite near at hand, remain invisible. We feel ourselves to be in the midst of unseen presences and activities, and instinctively picture them as hostile.

In the midst of such a silence the first boom of thunder breaking on the ear sounds solemn indeed. It may be a distant discharge, and the next will be nearer. But often the very cloud that envelops us is the thunderer, and the first clap is quite close at hand. If so, it will not so much boom as rattle, re-echoing from the rocks amongst or near which it strikes. It has not come unforeseen. The air has been electrical for some time. We have felt cobwebs upon our faces. Perhaps our ice-axes are hissing, and we may have felt a shock or two from them. With the breaking of the storm comes hail that spatters the rocks and pricks over the snow. The discharges multiply in frequency, and if we are in the heart of the storm we hear them now on one side, now on the other—rattling like the volley-firing of scattered companies. Seldom, at high altitudes, are the individual discharges very violent, though being near at hand they sound loud enough. The mountain is exchanging electricity with the clouds over all its surface at a number of suitable points. Many climbers have been struck by lightning, but few are known to have been killed, though lightning-stroke may have been the cause of mysterious accidents never accounted for. As a rule there is noise enough to produce a great impression; there is a sense of the power and activity of nature's forces; but there is little absolute danger.

Very different is the sensation of being in the midst of fine weather clouds, such as are often encountered before sunrise, but dissolve and disappear as the power of the sun increases. I well remember a beautiful experience of the kind upon the Rutor. The night had been overcast; when dawn appeared, the mists only seemed to thicken. We reached the summit crest and felt our way over the other side and down. We knew from the map that a great snow-field was sloping away before us in gentle undulations.

"We could not see it, nor indeed could we see anything except a small area of flat ripple-surfaced snow, losing itself in all directions in the delicate sparkling mist, through which the circle of the soaring sun now began to be faintly discerned. With compass and map we determined the direction to be followed, and down we went over admirably firm snow. Seldom have I been in lovelier surroundings than those afforded by the rippled nÉvÉ and the glittering mist. The air was soft. A perfect silence reigned. Nothing in sight had aspect of solidity; we seemed to be in a world of gossamer and fairy webs. Presently there came an indescribable movement and flickering above us, as though our bright chaos were taking form. Vague and changeful shapes trembled into view and disappeared. Low, flowing light-bands striped the white floor. Wisps of mist danced and eddied around. A faint veil was all that remained, and through it we beheld with bewildered delight all the glory of the Mont Blanc range, from end to end and from base to summit, a vision of bridal beauty. Last of all, the veil was withdrawn and utter clearness reigned all around."

Such sudden and unexpected withdrawals of the cloud curtains, such revelations and surprises are amongst the most transcendently beautiful effects that the mountain-climber is privileged to behold. They amply repay hours of fog, and compensate for days of bad weather. But even if the fog remain, blotting out all distant views, it often provides a setting for near objects, which gives them an emphasis amounting to a revelation. Many of my readers must have beheld great sÉrac towers of ice looming out of mist, and magnified by it into excess of grandeur. Never is an ice-fall so imposing as when traversed in not too dense a fog. What a sense of poise between heaven and earth is received when one is in a steep couloir which vanishes into mist above and below.

I look back with special pleasure to several days of wandering over a series of snow passes, which had never been traversed before by any member of our party, when we had to feel our way over, through snow-storms and clouds by help only of map and compass. They were easy Tirolese passes, which might have proved monotonous in fine weather, but the prevailing conditions made them intensely interesting and even exciting, for the easiest pass may prove difficult if you miss the actual col. How closely we watched the undulations of the glacier, and how keenly we analysed the formation of the rocks. Every hint of structure was important. None could be neglected. No step could be taken without thought. An ordinary crevassed glacier required careful negotiation. Those occasional rifts in the clouds that made manifest now some isolated point of rock, now some icy wall, now some corniced crest of snow, were a series of framed pictures passed in review. We enjoyed no panoramas, but the mountain detail that was forced upon our close attention was no whit less beautiful.

As for the low-level bad weather views, it is seldom that a traveller can bring himself into a mood to regard them sympathetically. We are not seals, and water is not our element. The oncoming of bad weather, beheld from below, is a grievance to the holiday-maker. He may admit that it is accompanied by impressive appearances, but he cannot pretend to appreciate them. It is not till days of rain have followed one another, and disgust has given place to resignation, that he is driven to face the elements and seek for consolation in activity. Clouds lie low and rain is pouring from them, but he must sally forth. Before long he loses sense of discomfort and finds himself entering into the spirit of the day. The pouring clouds are a low roof over his head; their margins rest on the pines, defining the tops of some and half-burying others. Every outline is softened, every form vague. Perhaps a glacier snout looms dimly forth, with all the stones upon it glistening with wet. Everything is wet and all local colours are enhanced. The grass glistens in every blade; so do the flowers, and the pebbles on the foot-path. How sweetly everything smells. All has been washed clean. There are no dusty bushes. Water drips and tinkles everywhere. Little springs arise every few yards; runlets fall down every bank. An infinite number of little treble voices unite in the chorus, and can be heard near at hand alone. Further off they are lost in the great "whish" that fills the air. Surely the clouds must be draining themselves dry! But, no! They form as fast as they fall. One sees them gathering at the edge by the trees. Long stretches of mist lie on the hills below the general level, or move slowly along,

Soon he is up amongst them. There it is not so much rain that falls, it is a general dissolution.

From such a walk one returns a happier creature. Next day, perhaps, the weather will clear. The sun will shine on a glistening world and the clouds will melt away. Then we see the low-lying fresh snow shining on the green alps, and all the great rock-peaks glittering aloft in a new-shed glory. The sky is unwontedly clear and so definitely blue; the trees and grass so green; the snow so white. The early morning moments of such a day are precious indeed. Diamond rain-drops deck grass and pine-needles. There is radiance upon all the earth and freshness in the air. The discomforts of the past are forgotten. We are rested and eager for movement, and the world summons us forth. Nature, after all, knows best, and he is happiest who yields himself, whether in the mountains or elsewhere, to perfect sympathy with her many moods.