Reviews

COLLECTED POEMS OF GEOFFREY WINTHROP YOUNG.

(Methuen, 12s. 6d.).

In these days of Purism, Surrealism and other ” isms,” it is refreshing to turn to the works of a poet who sees beauty in beauty instead of in ugliness.

For the man and woman who are devotees of town life and who find their joys in man-made pleasures, the poems of Geoffrey Winthrop Young will have no message. It is to the genuine lovers of nature that they will appeal. They have a sincerity which is all too rare in modern literature. They should specially appeal to members of a mountaineering club, whose main source of union is derived from their common love of Nature. It is not unlikely that this book of collected poems might win converts even among those who have always fought shy of Poetry as a whole. Anyone who has enjoyed the thrill of climbing rocks, the rush of roaring torrents, the smell of mossy banks, the beauty of mountain sunsets and other phenomena of nature, will be grateful to Mr. Winthrop Young for putting into vivid language emotions which they themselves could not express in words.

The philosophy of many of the poems suggests Wordsworth, but a more virile Wordsworth. For example, the phrase ” make the man and save the child ” cannot fail to remind us of the ” Ode to the Intimations.” As regards technique, one feels that at some period the author came under the influence of Swinburne. This is not only noticeable in the alliterative language and sonority of several of the poems, but also in the vivid use of simile and metaphor, The Swinburnian influence is specially to be observed in such poems as ” Mountain Speed ” and ” Hymn to the Sun.”

Sometimes the poet is in mystic mood, but his mysticism is not of the esoteric kind. It is a mysticism which we have all shared now and then, when brought face to face with the grandeur and loneliness of nature on mountain tops.

Lovers of poetry will not need to be urged to read this book, Others, who love nature, but are apt to decry poetry, may find in these poems something to convert them to an appreciation of the beautiful expression of beautiful things.—D.H.L.

CAMP SIX : by F, S. Smythe

(Hodder & Stoughton, 1937, 307 pp)-Although the official history of the glorious failure of the 1933 Everest Expedition has been told to mountain lovers in Hugh Ruttledge’s splendid book, Camp Six by F, S. Smythe is essentially a personal narrative. Smythe virtually takes us with him on every step of his journey and permits us not merely to picture every thrilling incident but to share in all his mental processes.

The descriptions of the journey to the Base Camp are light and interesting and the Author’s equestrian performances on Relling and April the Fifth constantly evoke a smile. To any animal lover, the exploits of Policey, the Tibetan mastiff, who attached herself to the party, make a special appeal. She accompanied parties as high as Camp 3A, ” gaily leaping crevasses or floundering gallantly through patches of soft snow,” and apparently slept outside the tents at an altitude of 22,000 feet without undue discomfort.

One cannot help being impressed and thrilled with the keenness, the cheerfulness and bravery of the porters and especially those who, with Longland, established Camp 6 and made the descent to Camp 5 in one of Everest’s worst blizzards.

No short resume can do justice to Smythe’s graphic account of the terrible climatic conditions which hindered the establishment of the various Camps, the manner in which apparently insurmountable obstacles and difficulties were eventually overcome and the magnificent final assault made by Eric Shipton and the Author. One is permitted to share in his thoughts and criticisms, his longings for food, his feeling of lethargy, and one marvels that even in the worst of climatic con­ditions his power to appreciate beauty and the grandeur of nature never seems to have been dimmed.

The photographs are quite up to Smythe’s usual standard, and having regard to the assiduity with which the Author plied his camera one’s only regret is that more of the pictures taken are not included in the book.

One’ could wish that every boy in this country should read this book and thereby receive inspiration bravely to overcome difficulties which at times appear to be insurmountable.—B.A.B.

OVER TYROLESE HILLS : by F. S. Smythe.

(Hodder & Stoughton, 292 pp., 36 illustrations, 12s. 6d.). Except the last quarter of Conway’s Alps from End to End I cannot recall any book which describes climbing in the Austrian Alps. Smythe’s is just what people want. There are many fine pictures ; of such difficult subjects as high Alpine valleys, two strike me as brilliantly successful, the Windach Tal and the Samnaun Tal.

The book is a charming account of a delightful journey over many peaks, and should be read by everyone who plans to go from one D.O.A.V. inn to another. With a Canadian, Secord, Smythe travelled from the Silvrettas to the Gross Venediger, after which bad weather fell upon them. Secord is an economist with international free-trade as a remedy for European troubles. He has a tough life-work as a missionary anywhere in N. America.

Like everyone else, they found the Austrians pleasant folk, though in one place Smythe comments on another side of them. After all, charming people like Austrians and Turks seem to be peculiarly detested politically.

The remarks in passing on present climbing fashions and the degrada­tion of Austrian peaks are many and amusing, but the climbs described show that off the routes ” developed ” there are many good things to be done. Of great interest is the borrowing for mountaineering of Joly’s wire ladder idea ; Smythe carried a 15 foot wire ladder, weighing one pound, for use in case of a bad fall into a erevasse.

THE MOUNTAIN SCENE: by F. S. Smythe.

(A. & C. Black, 1937> I53 PP'< 78 illustrations, 12s. 6d.). This wonderful collection of mountain photographs, from Holmbury to the Highlands, from the Eastern Alps to Mont Blanc, to Gahrwal, and to Everest is a joy to turn over, to anyone interested in pictorial photography an education. Some it will set on to burn most of their films, others to take more thought.

A few good examples of advice are :—The most important thing in landscape photography is managing the foreground ; Smythe suggests a crevasse or a human figure to balance the background, and the principal foreground object should not be directly in line with the main background object. The majority of effective landscape and mountain pictures are taken with the sun somewhere in the half circle in front of the camera or directly into the sun with the lens shielded ; the most pernicious advice to a beginner is ” to keep the sun at your back.” (Till I heard this book discussed I did not know how many are prepared ” to die in the last ditch ” in defence of this maxim). In the Alps for the same reason, to secure contrast, it is hopeless to use the camera between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The use of panchromatic films or plates gives better tone value.—A.W.W.

ALPINE JOURNAL

(Nos. 252-255, 1936-7, 10s. 6d. each).

First in importance are the articles on the Everest Reconnaissance, on Ruttledge’s second expedition, 1936, so well organised and so fortunate up to the reaching of the North Col, only to be ” snowed off,” and on the ascent of Nanda Devi. Then there are Bauer’s Sikkim expedition, the ascent of Mount Waddington, the survey of Nanda Devi basin, and Chapman’s great adventure on Chomolhari.

An expedition of soldiers not officers, of the ist East Surrey, up Kamet to 200 ft. above Meade’s Col, is epoch-making. Things must be improving for other ranks in the Army in fact and not on paper, while those who think the soldier gets rubbish will note that the Army kit used proved excellent.

Carson Roberts has written two most interesting articles. It appears that after Venetz and Mummery he was the third to lead the Grepon Crack, and he so impressed Emile Rey that they went up and down the Petit Dru and Aiguille du G6ant unroped. The dreadful thing was that Rey fell coming off the latter, 24th August, 1895, the same day Mummery was lost on Nanga Parbat.

Read also Somervell on the High Tatra, Porter and Wyatt on New Zealand, and much beside.

D.O.A.V. men made many ascents in the Caucasus in 1935 and 1936. Their habit of bivouacking is extraordinary in our eyes and fills one with admiration for their hardihood. One party was 4, 3, 5 and 4 nights out, traversing continuously over formidable ridges, miles in length. A British party did well in 1937, the first since the War except J. H. B. Bell (S.M.C.) with Russians.

Accounts appear of the first three ascents of the Grandes Jorasses N. Face, all within ten days, conditions exceptional. Three Munichers at least have been killed on this wall.

Sherpa porters will be wonderful people if they do not become superstitious about Nanga Parbat. This year’s terrible’ disaster may have been due to great ice changes ; it emphasizes the huge scale and real difficulty of this mountain of misfortune.

Other accidents inevitably occupy much space—the Eigerwand and other amazing examples of present day recklessness, such as the Watzmann affair with its concentration of bergwacht and military to rescue two madmen from a winter week out in bad weather. The Editor makes most refreshing remarks as he records new steeplejack climbs.

There are full memoirs of the great career of Lord Conway of Allington, who died at the age of 81.

HIMALAYAN JOURNAL

(Vol. VIII, 1936 and Vol. IX, 1937, 8s. each.) Apart from the articles on the great expeditions, Everest and Nanda Devi, and the contoured map of the N. Face of Everest, the greatest interest will be found in the attack on Kabru by Cooke and Schoberth, an experiment in climbing in a winter month, November, which Mason in dealing with ” Rainfall” agrees is the finest month. Cooke reached the top, and on the whole they had good weather, with cold not too severe, minimum—n°F.

A most creditable affair was the attempt on Peak 36, Karakoram, by J ohn Hunt, Waller, Carslaw, and Brotherhood. Istor-o-Nal (Chitral), 24,271, was almost reached by Dennis Hunt with Lawder. Siniolchu was climbed in 1936 by Bauer’s party, but the French were driven off the much higher Hidden Peak b)r the ceaseless snow of the too early monsoon.

Wadia’s geological article lays down the essential unity of structure and strata in the 1,500 miles of Himalaya. It has risen 5,000 feet since the advent of man, and is still rising. The strikes of the beds make a hair-pin bend round Nanga Parbat, along the Indus trench to the S.W., and a similar thing occurs at the other end of the Himalaya near Namcha Barwa and the Tsangpo gorge, though Kingdon Ward maintains the line of snowy peaks continues east.

SPELUNCA
(Bulletin de la Societe Speleologique de France, Nos. 5, 6, 7. 1934-6) Speiunca remains to us, though the Speleo-Club de France has changed a very good name for something more elaborate. A glance through one of the three numbers, let alone all, leaves one almost stupefied by the tremendous amount of work done by the French enthusiasts, and makes one realise what very small beer is now left to us in Britain.

The pages are crammed with brief notes on cave after cave, and pot after pot. M. Joly, the President, had 45 ” firsts ” in 1934, 27 in 1935. 3° m I93&. but in 1935 much time was taken over the great discovery of the Aven d’Orgnac (Ard^che). Here a ladder climb of 160 feet reached down into a vast descending hall, 500 metres long, filled with wonderful stalactite masses, often enormous.

In 1936 he led a party of thirteen, provided with four boats, the full length of the difficult Grotte de Vignan (Gard), a task of nearly 24 hours and a distance of well over three miles.

M. Casteret has been in Morocco, and found there three pot-holes of about 400 feet vertical, and one of 300. Moreover he has gone down further in the Gouffre Martel, to 738 feet.

The results of M. Joly’s visit to Majorca are to be found in No. V, pp. 114-7, twelve caves and pots, plus two remoter pot-holes of 100 and 170 feet for which there was no time.

In one article we find an amusing instance of the danger of a single line of survey, W. being mistaken for N. in the principal gallery; in another that one group can ascend pitches of over 300 feet up a rope at the rate of 15 ft. per minute, using three ” singes mechaniques,” metal gadgets which grip the rope.

M. Gache’s party, engaged with a 260 ft. pitch in Baume Ste. Anne (Jura), tried all the three methods, and concluded that without leaving men at the top it is most practical to use ladders, the last down and first up making use of ” singes,” but for a vertical of over 200 feet it is preferable to have windlass and rope, i.e. to have a party at the top. This they did on the 400 ft. pitch in the Malaterra (Vercors).

SCOTTISH MOUNTAINEERING CLUB JOURNAL

(Nos. 121-124 1936-7, 2s. 6d.).  An ascent in February of the Crowberry Gully, prolonged till late, turned out better than it might have done, light lasts out wonderfully on snow, but a December attack on the Crowberry Ridge was less successful, except in avoiding a smash, a defeated part)’ getting clear only at dawn after 14 hours of descent in darkness.

More new climbs are recorded in Glencoe, in particular Agag’s Groove, and on Garbh Bheinn of Ardgour. Bell has begun on the Coire Ardair rocks (Creag Meaghaidh), and he and Allan have climbed the gully between N.E. Buttress and Observatory Ridge, removing a Slav piton on the way.

Of climbs on seven buttresses of Beinn Mhor (S. Uist.) MacLellan gives report, the fifth and sixth forcing the party to use pitons to get up.

” Benighted on the Moor of Rannoch ” relates a daring expedition in bad weather one January years ago, made by men responsible for planning the Fort William railway. How they escaped death was concealed from us for a year till the second part appeared. Probably they all knew what they were up against much better than the reader imagines.

The National Trust now has possession of Dalness Forest and the Clachaig end of Glencoe, 12,500 acres, including the Buchailles Etive, Bidean, and Aonach Eagach ridge, a boon so great one cannot yet grasp its consequences.

We greatly regret the loss of W. W. Naismith, recognised as the real founder of the S.M.C., and of another great pioneer, J. H. Bell.

These are the first numbers edited by Dr. J. H. B. Bell, one of the very few climbers who condescend to take an interest in Gaelic. Perhaps he may dare to make known some of the rules of pronunciation, a good deal simpler than the rules of our own spelling.

Guides.—Revised editions of Ben Nevis and Northern Highlands are out. The former contains much additional matter, the energy of Macphee in coming up to tackle new climbs in spite of bad weather being phenomenal.

Northern Highlands is only slightly enlarged. The tourist is not of much importance there, and the routes and climbing on these peaks have not been thoroughly explored. In time there will be much to add.

BRITISH SKI YEAR BOOK

(Nos. 17 and 18, 1936-7, 10s. each).  It is impossible to mention even one tithe of the matter in these volumes, so interesting are they both to mountaineer and racer. Outstanding is Mr. Arnold Lunn’s fifty page essay on Greek Olympics and the Ski Olympics at Garnisch, distinguished by clear thinking and plain statement. An admirer of ancient Greece, he has no sympathy with those who are hypnotised into thinking the Greeks did and wrote all the best things in the world ; a sound sportsman, he inclines to the view that the Olympics, which carry great prestige, are a menace to the sport. ” International sport helps to foster friendly feelings between sportsmen of different countries in inverse ratio to the import­ance of the event,” and again, ” Y^oung athletes will march when mobilised by their elders, however friendly their personal relations with athletes of other countries. It is not by imponderables such as these war is averted.”

A merciless critic is Mr. Lunn, so it is comical to find he has let Mr. Seligman make what amounts to a complaint that Smythe and Shipton did not take up an anemometer to Camp Six, and has allowed another man to refer to ” the childish attitude of the Alpine Club to ski-mountaineer­ing ” when that pillar of the Downhill Only, Peter Lunn, justifies this attitude to the ski-ing crow~d by confessing that he has never been up the Schilthorn and has just been converted by two girls who took him up the Riffelhorn rocks.

RUCKSACK CLUB JOURNAL

(Nos. 30 and 31, 1936-7, 4s. each).  As amusing and as literary as ever, witness ” Tiger Rag” and ” Aneroids ” to begin with, and half a dozen others. On the serious side, Dr. Hey gives most valuable advice on action ” After the Accident.”

J. K. Cooke and F. S. Chapman were with the second Marco Pallis expedition, and by a three weeks expedition, mostly bad weather, got two peaks in Lhonak.

Something of the doings with the Bavarians abroad is revealed by Taylor. On the first outing everyone except the leader seems to have come off, the second party were benighted in spite of a rope from above at times, the rock appalling, three pitons for eight feet—it was evidently not enjoyed. Jenkins tells of the Bavarian visit here. Evidently their best men were real tigers, but I notice accounts avoid any allusion to the use of pitons by the weaker leaders. One remonstrance had to be made on Gimmer.

In ” Further Scratchings Underground ” Forrester writes amusingly of ventures into abandoned Derbyshire lead mines, a perilous business at times.

Mr. J. H. Doughty, sometime President and Editor, was a remarkable man, a delightful speaker and writer. His death is greatly regretted by the many climbers who have come into contact with him.

CLIMBERS’ CLUB JOURNAL

(Vol. V, No. 2, 1937, 5s.). A short account of the Nanda Devi ascent is given by Odell. The severity of the climbing accounts for the failure of the Sherpas to reach the highest camps. Probably this expedition means a further advance in their capabilities.

” The Cornish Cliffs,” first of three articles, is a considerable enlarge­ment by Andrews of what he wrote many years ago. A full and interesting relation of a visit to the most developed part of the Canadian Rockies includes some suggestion that it is decidedly expensive if you are lucky enough to get there.

CLIMBERS’ CLUB GUIDES—I, Cwm Idwal Group—II, Tryfan Group—III, Glyder Fach Group.

6¼ ins. by 4¼ ins. Diagrams and photos. Climbers to-day make constant visits to the crags in a way impossible in pre-motor years, and the Ogwen rocks have now been strung with routes only a few yards apart. Messrs. Edwards, Noyce, and Kirkus have described and recorded all the climbs, even the shaky ones on the Devil’s Kitchen cliffs, so minutely that it is great fun to see if theie is a new first ascent of something done thirty years ago. A most useful set of books.

FELL AND ROCK CLIMBING CLUB JOURNAL

(Nos. 29-31, 1935-7).  At last the date on these journals is put right by boldly giving the last, the Lakeland Number, two dates and two numbers. There is so much of interest one can only say, read them.

So many camping people have staggered, overladen, through the Pyrenees that Mr. and Mrs. Side are to be envied for their skill in setting out with only 53 lbs. including 100 ft. line and two axes. In his reminiscences of Fifty Years of Climbing, Haskett Smith reminds us that persistent gardening has made many climbs much easier. There is a history of Lakeland climbing, an account of the first descent of Central Buttress, Beetham on Birds, and a good article on Roman Lakeland. E. W. Hodge has walked the old route over the Kent Sands, but gives no details as to times, etc,

The Climbing Guides have been reduced in size to suit the pocket, and brought completely up-to-date. For the first time the Journals have no new routes “to record, so close is the network.

WAYFARERS’ JOURNAL

(No. 5, 1937, 116 pp) The great feature is the excellent 40 page Guide to the Lofoten Islands, by H. P Spilsbury, which ought to be published also in book form.

From the Himalaya comes Nicholson’s description of an almost successful ascent of Simvu, beaten off only by a terrific crevasse across a broad ridge and Pallia’s sympathetic pages on Ladak, of which in place of sob-staff he says, ” Medicine, to my mind, is the one solid advantage we have to offer the people of the trans-Himalaya.”

There is a remarkable number of fine illustrations, and that attached to Plint’s excursion into Stamp Collecting makes one wonder why the Post Office never employs a competent artist, or at the least one who knows the name of our.country is Great Britain, not Postage.

The catalogue of 225 peaks and humps in the Lake District will give a lot of amusement in looking over maps.

CAMBRIDGE MOUNTAINEERING

(1936, 88 pp., 3s. 6d.). The University Club holds very successful training meets both at home and abroad. Of unusual trips such as are open to people with vacations we find one in ” Norway in a Trawler,” a month with eight days’ climbing, and another in ” Pyrenean Wandering,” across France with car and tent. Some notes on High Altitude Research and on the Balkans are of much interest.

JOURNAL OF THE MENDIP EXPLORATION SOCIETY, I and II.

Platten has taken this new club at Bristol under his wing, as containing real workers, and produced the first number by typing, a limited issue of 50 copies. It contained three articles of length, Bats, Swildon’s beyond the Waterfall, and Balcombe’s account of his most desperate feat in Swildon’s beyond the Sump. The second number Platten printed himself on a hand-press. We congratulate him most heartily. There is an account of an expedition as far as the second sump in Swildon’s and back in four hours, but Dan-yr-Ogof is the main feature.

APPALCHIA

(Nos. 81-3, 1936-7, 2 per year, Appalachian Mountain Club, H. Q. Brattleboro’, Vermont). I have read every word of these entertaining numbers, and have some idea now of the delights open to the hill lover in the Eastern States. True it is some go very far afield, climbing and bicycling in the Alps ; A. H. Marshall describes his searches for and ascents of the highest points of all the 48 States, and Wiessner his lead up the redoubtable Mount Waddington (British Columbia).

This first ascent took 13 hours from camp, up bad rocks, on the last 1,000 feet of which pitons were freely used. A previous feat of Wiessner was the second ascent of the Grand Teton N.W. Face, and two other members, using 20 or 30 pitons, got up all the S.W. Ridge. The Shiprock, a rotten volcanic core in New Mexico, 1,800 feet high, is however of a substance which defies all the efforts of the hammer and nail people.

Houston deals with the effects of altitude on Nanda Devi, and concludes that a long period of hard work up to 23,000 feet leads to good acclimatization.

There are amusing articles on ski-ing, which has suffered in Vermont a disconcerting outburst of popularity. Ski-tows abound. The first was built only in 1933, and I believe there is a rush of them now in the Alps. You go up 300 feet in two minutes, and if well off, can run 15,000 feet downhill per day.

Camping in the Appalachians is among trees everywhere. Ski-runs only fifteen feet wide have to be cut before a centre can develop ; Balsam Firs cover the Great Smoky Mountains summits, over 6,000 feet above sea. Still in Maine and elsewhere rock-climbing places are being found.

Two articles deal with the formation and opening out of the Shenandoah and Great Smoky National Parks. The latter is in Tennessee and N. Carolina, was formed by voluntary effort and purchase, and handed to the nation. A thousand families were bought out in 687 sq, miles and will, as time goes on, one by one withdraw.

Canoeing is a great sport both for women and men ; running the broken Eastern rivers is called back-paddling.

When one lays down these magazines, one suddenly realises that the perfect English in which they are written comes from the same nation as the horrors of Hollywood. I don’t believe the word ” guy ” is to be found. It is pleasant to think that there are multitudes of people of our own type in U.S.A., perhaps even in California. There is a Yorkshire touch in a paper on the circumstances of the first death on Mount Washington, of one of the Strickland family.

JOURNAL OF THE MOUNTAIN Club OF SOUTH AFRICA

(Nos. 38-39 for 1935-6, 2s. 6d. each. Index of Illustrations in Nos. 1-37 with No. 38). The extent of S. African climbing grounds grows ceaselessly ; Table Mountain, Cedarbergen, Drakensberg, yield numerous new routes and summits. It is good news for many that more and better rock-climbing is within 70 miles of Johannesburg than can be obtained in Britain—no peaks, but on 70 miles of the Magaliesberg escarpment, 100-500 feet high.

The amazing change brought by the motor car is noted ; frequent trips and small parties take the place of large parties at rare intervals, and the cheerful companionship of long train journey and waggon drive dies out with some loss to the social life of the Club.

No. 38 contains an interesting account of the first ascent of the Amphitheatre Wall, Mont-aux-Sources, led by D. P. Liebenberg, whom we remember as a guest at most of Y.R.C. winter Meets, 1936-7. Weshall not readily forget his energetic, if unorthodox methods of tackling the ladder climb in the Hill Inn barn.

MOUNTAINEERING JOURNAL (1936 and 1937).

The first few numbers were very uneven in interest, and the Editor continued his irritating tone of patronage and his failure to read the proofs. ” Armscliff Crag ” turns out to refer to Almscliff, but the author is probably the culprit in christening the Cup Climb, ” Cup and Saucer.”

We note full accounts of two particularly insane German climbs, and Rickmers’ sober article on the Eiger Nordwand. He is always ready to justify and explain the German point of view, but he has limits. We quote, ” German youths consider assault on a bombarding peak a justifiable risk. Staking their lives is a patriotic duty,” and again, ” two days are normal, three nothing out of the way.”

Of Irish peaks an ascent of Carn Tual is described, and a full des­cription with sketch-map given of the Reeks, Nothing is said of the weather; the late Raymond Bicknell climbed them all without seeing one.

The last two numbers have been edited by Dr. J. M. Edwards, who has adopted a new policy, reprinting accounts of ascents from other Journals as soon as possible. On these lines the magazine may be a success.

SHORT GUIDE TO THE SLOVENE ALPS : Mrs. F. S. Copeland and Mme. M. Debelakova.

(Kleinmayr & Bamberg, Ljubljana, pp. 128, 6 in. X 4 in., 2s. 6d.). The names of these two ladies are familiar to readers of the Alpine Journal, and they have produced with this compact little book the first mountaineering guide-book in English to the Alps of Jugo-Slavia, far away in the S.E, Coolidge tells us the old Austrian. dominions here were Slavonic-speaking, and that the natives loved not those who spoke German. In consequence the names in his list are no use now. Terglou is perhaps recognisable as the noted Triglav. Spik he knows not. We are of opinion that the principal Slovene town Ljubljana is that once called Laibach.

It is certain that this most useful publication will tempt the more enterprising to visit the Julian Alps. There is evidently much climbing besides hammer and piton work !

LA MONTAGNE.

Two numbers, Oct. and Nov. 1936, are largely given up to cave exploring (not bone-digging). Joly’s wire ladders are evidently much used, but Casteret and others work successfully with the narrow rope ladders. There are many magnificent photographs with articles on the Trou de Toro region and the Devoluy (Grenoble). We gather the future lies in the Pyrenees and the Hautes Alps.