The Education of an Alpinist

My objective in setting forth this series of mostly autobiographical vignettes was not to inspire a rash of juvenile delinquency but to have something on paper before the age of involuntary repetition set in. I don’t feel I owe much to Sir Walter Scott for cribbing the subtitle; he surely cannot have been the first grandfather to assemble stories for the benefit of a few young people of his acquaintance. Nevertheless, it’s a good one and I’m grateful. Having been blessed with better than average opportunities throughout most of my years, I have made friends and enjoyed experiences, particularly in mountaineering, that are the stuff of romance. But being myself, and not George Henty or Jack London, I have compiled the bulk of what seems to be the most educational of them in an order that makes sense to me — geographical, not chronological. Had I thought further ahead at the outset of these adventures in alpinism, I might have kept a fuller diary and certainly made better use of a camera. But in the beginning I was often too busy with life to think about this kind of future need, and a few of the reminiscences that follow are drawn largely from memory. However, the great majority of them can be verified by contemporary records in various mountaineering journals of North America and by several friends who helped make some of these memories as pleasant as they are. I offer them no thanks on this page, for their names and kindnesses are documented in the text following and though not every reference carries reverence or gratitude in its words, they certainly exist in my heart.