
THE ALPS
SYDNEY SPENCER
MOUNTAIN CRAFT
EDITED BY
GEOFFREY WINTHROP YOUNG
WITH 28 ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1920
TO
THE MEMORY OF
GALLANT COMRADES IN THE MOUNTAINS
[Pg vii]
This book is for mountaineers; and a mountaineer is not only one whoclimbs mountains, but anyone who likes to walk, read, or think aboutthem.
I do not myself attach much value to mountaineering handbooks: anopen-air pursuit can only be learned by practical attempt and from goodexample. I used to read them for the fun of surprising some hero ofmy youth as he strained his imagination to squeeze a grave principleout of a random holiday memory, and for the sympathetic pleasure ofreconstructing for myself the real day of irresponsible adventure therecollection of which was bringing a thrill of forbidden joy to hismind before he composed his face to inflict it upon me in the form ofan edifying three-line precept. I can read them now no more than I canread the ‘climbing accident’ type of fiction popular with magazines,which used to prov