Up into the Mountains

It's getting harder to sell second-hand books from a bookshop now. The world is becoming ever more virtual, maybe less tangible. I believe even most of the second-hand bookshops in London have closed down.
There are some of us though who seem to need the conveyance old books offer more than ever. Finding them is like mining for diamonds.

Regarded as the first modern mountaineer, Francis Sydney Smythe  ( 06 July 1900 - 27 June 1949 ) was unknown to me until now. Not only were his physical achievements more significant than most of us could consider accomplishing, he was also known as a botanist, author and photographer, even as one of the earliest environmentalists.

Over Welsh Hills was first published in 1941. This is how Francis Smythe describes the wind as he knew it, mountaineering:
"The sound of wind has been conventionalised by the theatre, the film, and the B.B.C. into a wailing and whistling, but that is not the sound the climber hears. The worst Alpine storm I was ever in was on the Schreckhorn in the Bernese Oberland. The wind made a noise rivalling the thunder that accompanied it, so that the wind and thunder were almost indistinguishable. There were times when it approached with a roar like an express train in a tunnel, whilst now and then it fell upon us with a sudden tearing, explosive sound as though it were rending the mountain in twain. I have heard this same rending sound in the British hills, a fearsome noise difficult to attribute to so fluid and transparent an element as air. But to appreciate the grandeur of wind you must struggle down through a storm of it and having reached shelter listen to it on the mountain above".( P. 34 )

 I'm not a mountaineer myself, and have no inclination to scale great heights. I do, though, love to get out into open landscape and feel all my senses come alive again after the captivity of city life.

Despite his protestations, this book is not only filled with marvellous photographs, but it is beautifully written. "Smythe's focused approach is well documented", Wikipedia informs us.

Here is Francis Smythe letting you in on a bit of insider knowledge:
"The great advantage of British mountaineering is that it is unnecessary to rise early. For me the early Alpine start, the inadequate breakfast, and rebellious stomach, the boot lace that breaks, the candle lantern that insists on unfolding the wrong way, the stumblings and cursings on the moraine are things that must be endured: they have long since lost their romantic charm. In the British hills a man can rise at a Christian hour, leisurely bathe and dress himself, and tuck away, in peacetime at all events, a substantial breakfast of bacon and eggs, toast, butter, and marmalade before setting forth on his climb". ( P. 25 )

The nearest I got to climbing any mountain was on a school trek in Victoria's high country during winter. As tough as it was - everything wet, the nights freezing, stuck on high spurs totally disorientated - it was delicious. You get to see nature at its rawest, and how it has existed almost eternally. You wake up or if you don't wake up, you fall.

He has the eye of an artist, Francis Smythe: "We climbed past hoary, lichen covered rocks, past trickles gurgling through the peat, and little waterfalls still nailed by the night's frost to the rocks in sheets of rough ice until we came to the snow line. There was not much snow, an inch or so riming the grass, except where the wind had spilled it into drifts, but even that sufficed to transport us to a new world. Up to then we had trodden grass, rocks and heather. Everything had been sunny and light, but up on the snow we entered into a World that was not merely bright but celestially brilliant, and this brilliance seemed to carry us not a few steps further but miles, so that the valleys instantly became dim and remote. To add to this illusion of being suddenly cut off from the world a cloud or two formed and came drifting by, mist so tenuous and thin that it did little to diminish the power of the sun which although low in the sky shone with almost Alpine intensity". ( PP. 29-30 )

The world races on emphatically, as fast as any wind. Necessary and laudable as growth and forward movement are, he, Faisal, the un-climber, says, sometimes I feel we are tourists, rushing from thrill to synthetic thrill, not stopping long enough anywhere to really know where we are, or even, maybe, to know what we are doing. So that is moving forward? Books - especially books like this - anchor me. I feel I am being imparted with rare, valuable information. I feel one of a long line of listeners or readers who hear and see more than the mundane world stops long enough to acknowledge.
The bookshop I work in will be closing soon. Is that a triumph of the new over the old? Perhaps, but perhaps too it's a fearsome rendering.
I'm fortunate to have my shelter and to know I can climb the steepest of gradients.