Mountain Craft

Synopsis

This book is for mountaineers; and a mountaineer is not only one who climbs mountains, but anyone who likes to walk, read, or think about them. I do not myself attach much value to mountaineering handbooks: an open-air pursuit can only be learned by practical attempt and from good example. I used to read them for the fun of surprising some hero of my youth as he strained his imagination to squeeze a grave principle out of a random holiday memory, and for the sympathetic pleasure of reconstructing for myself the real day of irresponsible adventure the recollection of which was bringing a thrill of forbidden joy to his mind before he composed his face to inflict it upon me in the form of an edifying three-line precept.

I can read them now no more than I can read the ‘climbing accident’ type of fiction popular with magazines, which used to provide a less sensitive digestion with some acrid food for mirth. On the other hand I would still set myself to learn Chinese, if that would enable me the better to understand one more record of genuine mountain adventure or discover some unfamiliar attitude of the human mind towards the mountains and their symbolism.

Similar Bookshelves