17 October: Boreham on the Conqueror of the Heights

Scaling Dizzy Peaks
It is just a hundred years since survey calculations proved that Mount Everest is the world's loftiest summit.[1] It is therefore singularly fitting that the centenary should be celebrated by another attempt to scale its dizzy peak. For, all our modern triumphs notwithstanding, the fact remains that nobody has yet stood on the roof of the world. The real sky-piercers have never been climbed. The tallest pinnacles wrap their clouds about them and stand defiant and triumphant; they have never felt the proud heel of a conqueror.

It is true that men have reached a point within a short distance of the 29,000 ft. summit of Mount Everest. It is barely possible that one or two men have reached the top and been lost on the return journey; but no man has ever invaded that awful solitude and lived to tell the tale. As they confess who have attained the greatest altitude, it is the last pinch that presents the real difficulty. The physical obstacles are almost insuperable; the entire face is frozen; the bedrock is loose and unstable; the atmospheric conditions are at least as insufferable as those prevailing at the Poles.

In his "After Everest," Howard Somervell tells how, with comparative ease, he reached the 28,000 ft. level; but, beyond that point, progress was impossible. "My throat," he says, "was not only extremely painful; it was almost blocked up. I know not why." And so, with the peak scarcely half a mile away, he and his redoubtable companions were forced to descend. It was a heart-breaking experience, but it was inescapable.

The Best Is Yet To Be
It is good, both for our humiliation and our inspiration, that we should lay such pregnant records to heart. There are heights which still ache for conquest. It may be mortifying to be reminded that we have not been everywhere and discovered everything. But it would be simply crushing if we were assured that nothing remained to be discovered. There is a thrill in feeling that the dizziest pinnacles have yet to be climbed; the sweetest songs have yet to be sung; the stateliest poems have yet to be penned; the finest books have yet to be written; the most heroic exploits have yet to be achieved. The peaks still beckon, the topmost crags are calling, the Golden Age has yet to be ushered in.

These exhilarating records demonstrate, too, that there is a social element in mountaineering. The heights must be scaled, not by individuals, but by parties; and, within those groups, the laws of brotherhood are absolutely imperative. The golden rule is nowhere so clamant. On those high and glassy slopes, every task that presents itself has to be faced with a full recognition of its suitability to the capabilities of each member of the party. The slipping of the feeblest foot may easily jeopardise the lives of all. If the mountaineers be roped together, and one climber loses their foothold, the sudden tug may easily drag down the man in front and the man behind, and they, in turn, may tear the others from their grip upon the slippery track. Even if there be no cord, the principle is the same. For, if one member slipping, is hurled into the abyss, the survivor feels themselves in honour bound to institute rescue operations; such operations are extremely hazardous; and, in all likelihood, other lives will be lost in the attempt to retrieve the original victim.

It is only in life's loftier and rarer atmospheres that this sublime and basic law asserts itself so emphatically. The murky mists of the lowlands obscure the fact that we are indeed and in truth members one of another. No man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself. It is in giving due consideration to each other's frailties, and in bearing each other's burdens, that we fulfil life's loftiest law.

The Peril Of The Easy Path
One of the most startling revelations made by the men who have created the literature of mountaineering is the astonishing fact that the vast majority of fatalities occur on the easy tracks. A party will come upon a shelf of ice that seems impassable. Its gradient, its narrowness, and its curve threaten certain death, whilst it is so slippery that it glitters in the sunlight. The overhanging rocks add their formidable threats.

Dared by such a situation, each member of the party pulls himself together. Summoning all his resources of caution and vigilance, he plants one foot with scientific exactitude, bringing round the other with mathematical precision. Watching the poise of his body with meticulous care, he concentrates all his powers of mind and muscle so completely upon his task that inch by inch, he edges his way in safety along the apparently impassable track. Then, at the top, he sees nothing but a broad and easy path that a novice could negotiate. Flinging caution to the winds, he sets out upon that simpler stretch with a gay abandon; and, on that easy track, he meets disaster.

Life is like that. Although we commonly regard youth as the essential period of moral peril, the stark fact is that the most devastating collapses occur in middle life. Men deem themselves beyond the reach of those dangers that, in earlier years, seemed so terrifying. Cardinal Newman used to say that when a man has earned for himself a reputation for holiness, for integrity and for noble living; when he is conscious that all men look up to him, love, honour and trust him; he is in greater moral peril than he has ever before known.

Having made their way with trembling caution through the most crucial period; having successfully resisted the allurements, enticements, and blandishments peculiar to youth, such men set off with a reckless stride along the broader and even more even path that middle age presents. Thinking that they stand, they take no heed lest they fall, and are, in consequence, numbered among the tragic victims of the easy track.

[1] This editorial appears in the Hobart Mercury on September 1, 1951.

F W Boreham

Image: Mount Everest