LAST summer, in a mood of revulsion, a friend and I agreed that we would write no more accounts of climbs for publication. Having moral obligations to certain extortionate editors we were unable to resolve against mountain articles what- ever, a circumstance of which I was secretly rather glad because to me writing is at least as great a pleasure as climbing. But the articles must be free from all taint of self, or at least from any possibility of construction as advertisement. Now a well-known lady climber had once said to me: "What amuses me is that none of you ever climb for pleasure." The inferences of this statement were obvious enough, and they caused me a good deal of worry. So our mutual ’resolution gave me a good excuse for puzzling them out on paper, and the result was an article called "On Climbing for Pleasure." I showed it to a friend, and he informed me, what I already knew, that it was trash. It ended in the waste paper basket, and I was left unsatisfied: it had been a didactic piece of work, and didacticism is always a bore. But the Editor’s brow drew down at my lack of productivity, and as he is much bigger than I am, I was galvanised into renewed action. Moreover I was convinced of the value of what I wanted to say. I decided that I had been too abstract to interest, and that terms of every-day experience must be found. Inevitably, inexorably, I was led back, ring-in-the-nose, to writing accounts of climbs. This for explanation, prologue and apology: one must express oneself as one can, and this is a pamphlet. I hope you will see what I mean.

They were carrying in the hay from the tilted pastures as we four walked up in evening sunlight from Göschenen to the Salbihütte. We had arrived, refugees in a bad season from Chamonix, and a cold coming had of it. But a day of sunny rumination, chocolate-cheered, had thawed our souls: and now, as I tell you, we struck off the road and followed a remarkably steep path! through a pine wood to the upper alps. We came to a chalet after a time, standing in a clearing and entirely surrounded by deep mud, where we bought milk from the family of the "delightful old gentleman who spoke no known language but was perfectly comprehensible." David, who hates milk, was compelled to share a tap with the cows. Presently we came to the hut, which was deserted, and we were enchanted as anyone would be, for it is a perfect little place. We spent an unclouded evening and a dreamless night, for we had no doubts about the climb. We wanted to do the South ridge of the Salbytschin, and though we knew and hoped it would give us a modicum of technical interest we were sure of our power to take it in our stride. We were all friends and knew each other on the mountain. We were in training. It only wanted a fine day to give us a climb of unalloyed pleasure.

We got one. Rising at a gentlemanly hour when it was already light, we strolled across some tiresome scree to the foot of the ridge. A snow gully gave access to a system of chimneys. One of these proved quite difficult and forced me to take off my sack; it finished with a little overhang containing a triumphant vice-firm jam. A few slabs led to the top of the Zahn, whence a rappel landed us in a brêche. At this point or somewhere near it Dave dropped the old red tobacco tin which contained the party’s stock of cigarettes. It tinkled away down the Eastern slabs to an orchestration of groans from the smokers. Roger Chorley, as the expedition’s ace photographer, now asked David Fisher and André Kopczynski to go ahead of us, and we followed in their wake. We quickly came to a tall slab striated with vertical blades that one laid back from, up, over, across and round a corner, and that was the clue to the climb – when in doubt seize the nearest edge and layback.

Clouds were scudding up over the ridge, chasing the sunlight in and out of the pinnacles, but you knew that they were not in earnest and that it was really fine. The ridge soared ahead like a huge gust of laughter dispelling the gloom of weeks, red, firm, spectacularly handsome. Pitch followed pitch, mostly about grade IV, always exposed. Roger led an awkward little wall out of a notch and belayed at the foot of the key passage with a meaning expression. However, I had seen André’s solution, and started up the slabby wall; no snob, I clipped into all the pitons, and reached a very exposed position on the sharp crest of the ridge where someone had thoughtfully provided a stirrup of wire on which one could pause to reflect on the scenery. Then hands on the saucer-edge of the world, feet flat on the wall, and so up to a very small stance. The climb maintained its quality to the last. It is the South ridge of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey in miniature, and similarly does not end on the summit. After some interesting climbing up and down the final towers, it becomes necessary to traverse across to the South West face route and climb some steep earthy cracks to the summit ridge. Along this to the West is a forty foot shark’s fin on which is the true summit. Inevitably you climb it as a layback, by now an automatic movement, and pose on its two-foot-square top for your photograph. "Sitting room for one on top – pass right down please." Fortunately its descent is assured by a ring-spike cemented in the summit.

When we had all done this and some had sung a Dies Irae over the lost tobacco, we looked around and saw weather making, so we went down the cow-track which is the ordinary route and arrived at the glacier in about ten minutes. Down this too, the snow soft, starting baby avalanches at each step. Then a couloir, one after the other, simple stuff, and back to the hut via some affable glissades. The climb had given us all we could have asked; views, situations, excitement, laughter, friendship, security, confidence, fine weather and a quick way down: all we had a right to expect, in a bad season perhaps more. Evening brought beer and Wiener Schnitzel and plans down in Göschenen. Contrast is the life-blood of the connoisseur of living. I look back to the day as the quintessence of pleasure.

The West face of the Pointe Albert has something in common with the South ridge of the Salbytschin. It is a pleasant short route on a low peak, suitable for climbing in dubious weather when bigger climbs may be out of condition. To the expert climber, I hasten to remark, both will seem very small beer: but they serve to illustrate my point, and to me the Albert was a different affair.

The face and I had some mutual history. At the end of August 1952 I had made an attempt in the company of a very much better climber than myself, but on the first V/VI pitch he had had the misfortune to pull out a piton and had fallen thirty feet or so. He was not seriously hurt, but had strained his back a little, and my hands were slightly the worse for wear. By the time we were sorted out it was late, the unknown crux still above us, weather making, and my morale not high. So we climbed down, and had the satisfaction of sitting in a hot bath in the Hotel de Chamonix, while the storm broke outside. Early in July 1953 I had re- visited the face with Roger Chorley and John Lawton, but new snow covered the rocks. Reflecting that we would not climb on Cloggy in such conditions, we gave up at the first ledge and went across to the easier North North East arête instead. Later in the month the face was climbed by two very strong British parties, all of whom were climbers out of my world. The season brought successes and failures in about equal numbers as, to me, every season does: though each brings equal enjoyment if the game is played honestly. Finally a prolonged bad spell sent Roger home in disgust, but I hung on hoping for one more climb. Joe Brown had just done the Albert, and was encouraging. I asked Eileen Gregory to come to the North face of the Dru. She replied that she didn’t want to do a TD. I countered by suggesting an ED, the Albert. This was just what she had been secretly hoping for, and she agreed at once. I had never done, far less led, an ED. We were not nearly such a strong party as on the Salbytschin, and we were uncomfortably short of rope. Altogether the issue seemed uncertain, but we decided to try hard and retreat if it didn’t work. This storm in the teapot of my emotions will seem ridiculous to many, but to me it was real enough at the time, and I mention it because it is relevant to my theme. The motto of British parties in recent years has been "have a go," and on the whole it has been wonderfully successful. The mountains cuff out and messily flatten their opponents, but they have a way of rewarding their true lovers.

Evening saw us at the familiar chalet, cooking and listening to the wild applause of the rain on the roof at the fierce gestures of lightning. We kept straight faces, went early to bed, rose proportionally late; and I tried to take no notice of the threatening sky or the butterflies in my tummy as we plodded up under that very vertical face. It wasn’t exactly hateful, but neither was it pleasure. A deliberate numbness really. But as soon as I touched the rock I felt a little electric shock of confidence, and knew I was going to climb well. We swung quickly across the switchback traverse that leads to the centre of the face and the hard pitches. A loose chimney and a little vertical wall led to a six inch ledge formed by the top of a flake. While we sorted out the gear I gave Eileen a short resume of the art of artificial climbing, to which she was about to be introduced. Then I went up to the overhang, leaned back, clipped in, pulled, and so on, and presently I was above it. This was where the fall had occurred, and I tested the pitons with loving care. The place was exposed but there war plenty of security. Finally it became impossible to move against the drag of the rope through the karabiners below, but I found a sloping ledge just big enough to hold both feet, and, sagging from a peg, brought up Eileen. Then a stiff little crack and some zig-zagging about led to a huge loose belay at the foot of the tall dièdre which is the main feature of the face. A hundred feet of delicate bridging up this led to .html "relai deux pieds." As I felt the next pitch to be morally the crux, my belay represented the ultimate in human ingenuity, and I left Eileen securely if unluxuriously trussed to four coupled pitons. A few moves on étriers brought me to a position where it was necessary to make a difficult and exposed move leftwards and upwards to escape out of the dièdre. There were words like a refrain in the back of my mind, but concentration prevented me finding them at once. The holds were awkward – what are those words? – then at full stretch I found a good little layback edge and swung round into the easy chimney above, which led to a giant ledge, and we were free of the dièdre. The words defined themselves... Cym Smith’s birthday on Cloggy: "The blackness of the sky above, the terrific sweep of du’r Arddu below and the poundings of the water on our backs made us suddenly conscious of the joy of living. No climb can be hard when you feel like that." Then in my own small way and easier circumstances I felt like that and for the only time in my life I knew that nothing could stop us.

Eileen produced some food but I was taut and keen to be off again. A loose gully of grade III followed, and I found it the most trying pitch on the climb. Then there was a delicate traverse to the right which reminded me of the Garden Wall Traverse at Cromford. At the end there was a curious move down and out over seemingly bottomless space to a boulder-cluttered ledge. Above this a short chimney led to .html ledge beneath a rebarbative overhang. Then I saw pitons out to the right and traversed on stirrups, feet swinging gloriously dear of the rock, until it was possible to pull over on to the slab above. The pitons here were among the least reassuring I have seen, as bad as those on the artificial pitch of the East ridge of the Crocodile. After the slab came a corner with inversed pitons. There seemed to be a ledge above so I reached up. What an edge! Slack, I shouted, slack damn you, but the drag was only the rope through the pegs, so I just pulled fit to bust the rope and mantleshelfed with savage physical pleasure on to a small flat comfortable nook twelve feet below the summit. When Eileen came I found I had the choice of an easy crack or a "retablissement violent "– no choice really: who could resist the latter? Over we went and on to the summit laughing. This is the move I had seen pictured in Pen y Gwyrd. The clouds had gathered; it was about to pelt. Parties could be seen racing down from the Blaitière. Little men, we could play the flea with nature, but if she showed her claws never so lightly we must scuttle away.

The rain came as we stepped off the glacier. Season’s end, and how better? It had not been pleasure to-day. Fear first, then a kind of sober divine madness, then joy. "Joy," I chanted inside myself, "joy," running down through the rain, singing.