With Ski

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... only show, on the other side, country already known to us, whilst we were to have many better opportunities of looking northward from points both higher and better situated. What settled the matter finally was the sight of our men just arriving at camp heavily laden with good things. We accordingly turned round and took the easy way downhill, glissading a good part of it on treacherous snow-covered ice. After supper another expedition was made down the glacier all along under the Pretender's face, in further investigation of the fault. It is only thus, by constant moving about beneath a great cliff, that one is finally enabled to realise its magnitude. One true measure of scale that a healthy man possesses is fatigue. When you have learned by actual experience that it takes several days' marching to pass the base of a big Himalayan mountain, you begin to feel the size of the thing. A precipice of 200 feet differs only in size from one of 2000 feet. To appreciate the majesty of the larger, you must become physically conscious of its scale. Such knowledge has to be laboriously acquired. No one, I imagine, who has not climbed the Matterhorn, can have any real conception of the magnitude of the pyramid beheld in the view from the Riffel; yet a consciousness of the magnitude is an essential element in the impressiveness of the view. I believe that only mountain climbers are in a position to thrill with perfect resonance to the glory of a mountain prospect. The passion for mountain-climbing derives much of its power over men from thus fostering and developing in them the capacity for admiration, wonder, and worship in the presence of Nature's magnificence. Next day (August 4) camp was again struck ASCENT OF THE MIDDLE CROWN 119 for an onward march, ...