UKH

How many of you on UKC have read Whymper's great classic?

It was the first book I read when I first became interested in mountaineering.

In reply to Trangia:
Possibly my favourite mountaineering book... his stamina is unbelievable! I also enjoyed On High Hills by Winthrop-Young..

In reply to maxsmith:

Agreed! Another great book. Those guys were tough when you compare the equipment they used compared with our modern lightweight and warm clothing and equipment.

They also had the Alps virtually to themselves.....

In reply to Trangia:

Yes, I read it a couple of years ago. Great book.

In reply to Trangia:

I've read it a few times now.
When he describes falling down the gully on the Italian side of the Matterhorn, being knocked unconscious and coming round a few feet above an enormous drop is remarkable. Even more so that he made his way back down safely to a hut and recovered to have another go a few days later. Incredible tales of Victorian mountaineering!!

In reply to Trangia:
I read it at the age of 16 just before I started climbing. It was one of the reasons I started climbing. It remains, for me, the all-time greatest mountaineering classic. As a matter of fact, I recently learned the final two-and-a-half pages of the book by heart, and recited it, without any notes or prompts, at a University of East Anglia reunion meet last year. By far the longest thing I've ever learned by heart in my life (I think it takes c.14 minutes).

In reply to Trangia:

I read it a few years ago, its one of the best books I have read.

In reply to Trangia:

I have

In reply to Trangia:

I read it but found it hard work at times as he often went rambling off on some random discourse unrelated to his actual climbs. In a way they are interesting as they give an insight into the Victorian mindset, I particularly remember his section about the high incidence of cretinism in the Aosta valley, but it doesn't make for an easy read.
I found Mummery's book more enjoyable.

In reply to Trangia: great stories, marvellous bottle (except they called it "pluck", didn't they?) but what an a**e! But you get the same sense of complete conviction of their own superiority from Wade's book about 1920's Everest.

In reply to colinakmc:


Never judge the past by the standards of the present. We're all a product of the times we live in.

In reply to Trangia:

of course

In reply to Trangia:

A.W Moores "The Alps in 1864" is well worth a read. Apparently it was never really intended for publication so includes the sort of details that are normally left out of victorian mountaineering memoirs.

In reply to Trangia:

I've had the book for 25years but never read it.

In reply to pec:
I do get that, but can you imagine spending a month in Whympers company.

In reply to colinakmc:


I don't recall coming to the same conclusion as you after reading the book but even if I had, if I were also a Victorian I'd probably think quite differently.

In reply to pec:

The cretinism section rings a bell. If I recall correctly, does he not also go into a fair bit of detail regarding mountain railways complete with diagrams? Lost my interest in those sections

In reply to Robert Durran:

Yes, and everything he says about mteering in the 2 pages before that is pretty sound too.

What I really like about the book it that it's a real labour of love, a work of art, with all his own engravings and sketches.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Miraculous book. One of those which were formative for me as a mountaineer. I am lucky enough to have a first edition . From a mountaineering point of view it is remarkably modern (though not as much so as Mummery).


Yes, the best advice for sports climbers ever given and still as relevant today as it was 150 years ago:

"Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without endurance and that a momentary pump may destroy the happiness of a whole day's redpointing. Do nothing in haste; look well to each rep; and from the beginning visualise what may be the send."

In reply to Robert Durran:
Freda has the lovely leatherbound 1901? edition that belonged to Puttrell. In the front it says 'To J. W. Puttrell' ... !! We found it in a 2nd hand bookshop and I don't think the significance of the inscription meant anything to the shopkeeper, so it wasn't astronomically expensive. I have the 1965 'centenary edition'.

In reply to Trangia:

First read it when I was 13 or 14. Got to the 'Climb if you will...' part and thought, 'What's he going on about?'

With each decade, those words have bitten deeper - for me, the best passage ever written about climbing.

Mick

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I have the 1871 edition - the first ?. Yes a classic - picked up from a bookshop for 45 shillings- obviously a few years ago!

In reply to nathan79:


Yes, lots of detail about cog railways! That's was what I found made it hard work at times, one minute you were reading about his preparations for an attempt on the Italian ridge of the Matterhorn and the next thing you realised you'd just read 5 pages about goitres and by the time you got back to the Matterhorn you'd forgotten where you were up to with the climbing.

I imagine its because back then the idea of larking about in the mountains for its own sake was still a bit frowned upon so the wider scientific/cultural observations gave it all a higher moral purpose. Indeed, I'm sure to a Victorian readership it may have all been very enlightening given that the Alps would have been as alien to most of them as particle physics is to most of us.
Mummery didn't seem so troubled by these considerations which is why, from a climbing perspective, I found it an easier read.

In reply to pec:

Yes, Mummery's book (My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus) is another great classic, but not as fine as Whymper's imho. It has another great concluding paragraph though re. 'the great brown slabs bending over into immeasurable space' (but still not as great as the close of 'Scrambles')

In reply to dgp:

Yes, 1871 was the first. That's how long it took for him to get it together (5 years), and an indication of the immense amount of care that went into it.

In reply to dgp:


As a matter of interest, does the title page say anything like "second printing" or "first 5000" (meaning not first 4000!) It seems that later copies of the first edition had this sort of thing. I'm trying to work out whether their absence in mine indicates a particularly early copy (ie very first printing).

In reply to Robert Durran:

It would be interesting to ask someone in the Alpine Club – or are in you member? Because I know they have every edition and every printing of Scrambles on one long bookshelf in the AC library.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Robert
The title page just says 'Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69 - nothing else. Out of interest have you read Whympers book 'Travels Amongst the Great Andes of the Equator'. My copy was published in 1892 and I assume it is a 1st Edition?
David

In reply to Robert Durran:

Some examples here, apparently (at least) two editions in 1871

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?an=edward+whymper&pics=...

In reply to dgp:


That's the same as mine then.


I have that too, presumably 1st edition since it doesn't say otherwise (I was lucky enough to inherit quite a collection). I admit that I havn't actually read it! Have you?

In reply to Trangia:

I like the engravings which are often drawn from a position away from the mountain, so that the reader is able to see the action as an observer and at the precise moment chosen by Whymper. Something not possible with a camera.

In reply to Trangia:

Great nook. What I got from it reading it relatively recently is that he had a sense of fun - he wasn't the desolate lonely disappointed man he became, he was a young man having fun ... scrambling about in the Alps, getting on with (most) of the locals, and enjoying a bit of fame and prestige that was beginning to attach to him.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Only have the 1936 sixth edition I'm afraid. However much is a first edition worth? Great book. An interesting portrait of the Alps at the time.

In reply to Trangia:
Get yourselves a copy of Mountaineering Literature by Jill Neate and all details of the editions will be revealed.
1st edition 1871
2nd edition (printing) 1871. No changes.
!st US edition 1872
2nd US edition 1873
and so on.
I am lucky enough to have the 4th edition from 1893. The de luxe edition bound by Zaehnsdorf and considered the definitive edition. It has its original box as well. Also known for its snowflake pattern binding.
It took me years to find one that I could afford and this is the book that I would save if my house was on fire. I now have a second copy which has a little damage.

In reply to Trangia:

I liked Leslie Stephens 'The Playground of Europe' as much as Scrambles.

In reply to Trangia:

Scrambles as the adjective in the Title has always seemed tongue in cheek to me; can see he portrays the fun but still reckon it is a deliberate understatement of what he had witnessed to be a dangerous pastime.
Happy to be corrected here but the only other nation that uses scrambling to describe low grade climbing with serious consequences is Canada. Whymper was paid by (I think) CN railways to come and promote the Rockies as a fine destination for climbing tourists so I assume that is the link.
As one who spends his life trying to break down the "scrambling's what you do without ropes" concensus (that goes along side my other pet hates of "face in to climb down", "3 points of contact", "never use your knees") I would like to see less of a seperation.
I frequently see climbers pitching (because it is graded Diff = a rock climb) from the foot of the First Pinnacle of Pinnacle Ridge of Gillean which frequently ends in benightment, escaping or epics. Equally I've talked to avid scramblers who do mental downclimbing of a grade3 scramble rather than even look at a single move Mod. (because that is a "climbing grade")
I did attempt to start improving comprehension by describing all of the Cuillin ridge routes with a scrambling grade and suffixed with a rock climbing grade- Pinnacle ridge is grade 3/Diff, Cuillin Ridge Traverse, grade 3/Severe, CG Bla Bheinn 3/Diff.
Love scrambling but hate the name

In reply to Allanfairfechan:


Yes, a beautiful read. Not sure how many people realise he was the father of Virginia Woolf.

In reply to Mike Lates:


I don't really mind the name, but I hate the distinction (scrambling is a subset of climbing not something separate). It really jars when people say they are ONLY a scrambler, not a climber* - of course they're a climber! As you say, I think the grades are what cause the problem. I would abolish scrambling grades - Easy and Moderate do the job perfectly well. And people will use the rope when they feel they need it, be that at Easy or E3.

I actually remember getting quite intimidated on Clach Glas because the guidebook described the N Ridge as Grade 3 - at the upper limit of the grade (whatever that means!) and very exposed. Of course it was actually Easy (and easy).

* Are joggers runners? Are ramblers walkers?