The following essay is the outcome of an argument between
its author and the Club Treasurer on the ethics of boulder trundling, in the course
of which the former averred that this practice had received the sanction of
many reputable mountaineers, and had, in particular, been mentioned with
approval by Leslie Stephen in The Playground of Europe. Wilding threw doubt on
the former statement and categorically denied the latter. On further examination
he withdrew this denial but maintained that Stephen's remarks were not meant
seriously. It was finally decided that the two disputants should argue their
respective cases before a gathering at the Club Hut, and that the decision should
be left to a single arbitrator. The parties agreed on Pryor as the judge, and
that the following three questions should be submitted for his decision:
1. It
is possible to justify Boulder Trundling?
2. ls there reasonable evidence that
any mountaineer of repute consistently practiced Boulder Trundling ?
3. Was
Leslie Stephen serious in this passage from The Playground of Europe regarding
Boulder Trundling?'
The cases were duly pleaded by their respective advocates
before alarge and enthusiastic audience (fortified by one of Burton's'brews of rum
punch in which the flavour of spirit could be distinctly smelt). At the end
Pryor gave judgment for Wilding on the first two counts and for Forrester on
the third. It had been agreed that all bets were to be settled by the Judge's
ruling; but afterwards Pryor himself asked the jury for their opinion as a
matter of interest, and found that they disagreed with his judgement on the
second count, while agreeing with the other two. What follows is substantially
the plaintiff's case, cut down and also slightly modified to suit the new circumstances
of presentation. This explanation has been deemed necessary in order to make
clear the general form of the essay. It has not been found possible to persuade
Wilding to publish his counter-arguments. — Ed. R.C.J.
Boulder Trundling may be defined as the propulsion of fragments
of the Earth's crust down mountain slopes of suitable inclination sooner than
would occur from the interaction of natural forces. Like other sports and
pastimes it has different phases and degrees. No one could object to pushing a
stone weighing (say) 2 ounces down a 2 yard slope to drop 2 feet into 2 fathoms
of water; while even l should draw the line at sending some tons of rock down
High Tor Gully into a train full of widows and orphans on their way to Buxton. The
sport, then, as l understand it, lies somewhere between these two extremes, and
is one calculated to afford pleasure and profit to many right-minded persons
and offence to few; that is, if practiced reasonably,with due regard to time
and place. I may mention one particular spot where I have spent many profitable
hours in moving some tons of rock downhill a little before it was due to go in
the course of nature. This is a gully on the right of the Alport, some little
distance below the waterfall. Surely there could be no valid objection to this:
no one should get hurt; and although it leaves some marks, they seem without
desecration.
Another charming boulder shoot is a Bowfell gully above Angle
Tarn; the remembrance of a crowded half-hour of life in this gully is very
sweet, and the marks left here are less obvious than on the gritstone. In any
case it is quite arguable that the marks made look more natural than the nail scratchers
of rock climbers. The latter, of course, are inveterate Boulder Trundlers. How
often in reading the account of a new climb, do we not come across something
like this: "The leader carefully examined a large slab on the left which
would have been of great help in this difficult pitch, but it looked unsafe and
moved slightly when tested. The leader and second therefore gave it a wide berth,
while the last man, after being anchored from above, managed to send this
dangerous rock hurtling down the
gully."
All this however is beside the point. Boulder Trundling as l
understand it is done for the sheer joy of the sport: there is no thought of
the future - the present suffices. Consider a long slope, up which you have
painfully toiled in the wake of a hardened grough-hound. At the bottom maybe is
a vertical drop or a mass of jumbled rocks, and at the top there is a stone of
inviting appearance and precarious tenure. You sit down above it, and after a necessary
rest the feet are pressed against the rock. It moves perceptibly, but you can
do no more from that point. You shift your ground and try again; still no luck!
You excavate a little on the underside and have some more. You are not strong
enough: some help is wanted and you shout for your companion. The force is now
sufficient, and with the expenditure of a few buttons or perhaps some part of
your braces the rock is moved from its bed and makes a revolution. lt gathers
momentum . . . soon it is going really fast, and no matter what its shape it
elects to travel on the longest axis. Speed increases rapidly now; sometimes
the boulder will take great bounds and at other times scuttle close to the ground
like a rabbit.
The zenith of Boulder Trundling is attained if it now meets solid
rock in full face: the crash does one good to hear; the rock breaks into shivers,
while part of it is ground absolutely into smoke. Favourable winds bring the
scent of this smoke to you . . . and what an indescribably beautiful scent it
is. Chesterton must have known of this delectable odour when he wrote of: "The
brilliant smell of water, the brave smell of a stone." Or there is Boulder
Trundling in a rock gully with great slabs - lots of them together walloping
down in a confined space. A tarn on the Rhinogs has a steep face of bare rock on
one side where you may trundle straight into deep water. Time was short on the
only occasion l was there, so that I hope to go again to work out the course
properly. I cannot analyze the delight of Boulder Trundling, nor say why it
pleases — better men than myself have tried and failed. I can only say that it
affords perhaps the purest joy we can expect in this terrestrial life. The
first Boulder Trundler of whom we have any record is Sisyphus, who was so addicted
to the sport — in fact he seems to have spent his whole life at it — that we
really know nothing else about him; so that for our first instance of a well-known
mountaineer who practiced the art we must turn to Moses.
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Moses was the most
celebrated climber of his time and has at least three first ascents to his
credit, namely Mounts Horeb, Sinai, and Pisgah. In addition, he led a very
difficult traverse of the Red Sea, which was effected without mishap despite
the unusual size of his party. The magnitude of this achievement can be gaged from the fact that another party which attempted to repeat the traverse suffered total disaster. ‘The Red Sea by Moses's Route is now considered
unjustifiable and has not since been attempted.
As regards Boulder Trundling by this great pioneer, it is recorded
that on his way down after the first ascent of Mt. Sinai he came upon a slope
of surpassing excellence,on viewing which he had but one idea in mind - to push
the handiest rock down it. This rock unfortunately bore most important
inscriptions, and Moses got into serious trouble for giving rein to his
inclinations. I have always felt the greatest sympathy for him on this account.
Before passing on to recent times let us take one glimpse at a medieval devotee
of our sport. I quote from Arnold Lunn's book The Alps (pp. 30-31). "The
Stockhorn is a modest peak some 7,000 feet in height. Simler tells us that its
ascent was a common-place achievement. . . . Its ascent by Muller, a Berne professor,
in 1536, is only remarkable for the joyous poem in hexameters which records his
delight in all the accompaniments of a mountain expedition. Muller has the true
feelings for the simpler pleasures of picnicking on the heights. Everything
delights him, from the humble fare washed down with a draught from a mountain stream,
to the primitive joy of hurling big rocks down a mountain side. The last
confession endears him to all who have practiced this simple. if dangerous amusement."
I now come to modem mountaineering, and the first case I will
cite is the behavior of Whymper on the occasion of the first ascent of the
Matterhom. It will be remembered that there was a race between the Italian and
English parties. On getting to the top and finding that the Italians had not
yet arrived Whymper looked down the mountain side to see where they were, and
on finding them wished to attract their attention. He writes in Scrambles
amongst the Alps:“‘Croz! Crozl come here I’ ‘Where are they, Monsieur ?' ‘There
- don't you see them - down there!’ ‘Ah ! the coquins, they are low down.’
’Croz, we must make those fellows hear us.’ We yelled until we were hoarse. The
Italians seemed to regard us - we could not be certain. ' ’Croz, we must make
them hear us: they shall hear us l’ : I seized a block of rock and hurled it
down, and called upon my companion, in the name of friendship, to do the same.
We drove our sticks in, and prized away the crags, and soon a torrent of stones
poured down the ' cliffs. There was no mistake about it this time. The Italians
turned and fled."
Boulder Trundling in the dark sounds attractive, to judge by
an incident during the ascent of Mont Pelvoux, as described in the same book. “This
night we fixed our camp high above the tree-line, and indulged ourselves in the
healthy employment of carrying our fuel up to it. The present rock was not so comfortable
as the first, and, before we could settle down, we were obliged to tum out a
large mass which was in the way. It was very obstinate, but moved at length;
slowly and gently at first, then faster and faster, at last taking great jumps
in the air, striking a stream of fire at every touch, which shone out brightly
as it entered the gloomy valley below, and long after it was out of sight we
heard it bounding downwards, and then settle with a subdued crash on the
glacier beneath."Another mountaineer of repute who practiced the noble sport was Sir Martin Conway, who says quite casually during his account in The Alps
from End to End of an ascent of the Wilde Kreuz Spitze: "We amused ourselves
by throwing stones down the slope we had come up and watching them vanish in the
fog." It might be thought that although the sport was practiced by
amateurs, no reputable guide would ever have anything to do with it; but this is
not the case.
One of the most celebrated, perhaps the most justly renowned of
all Alpine guides, is not found wanting. I refer to Jean Antoine Carrel. l
quote once again from Amold Lunn's The Alps, where, describing an early attempt
on the Matterhom by Carrel, his brother, and Gorret. he says:"They mistook
the way; and, reaching a spot that pleased them, they wasted hours in hurling
rocks down a cliff - a fascinating pursuit." I think it is not straining matters
too far to suggest that ‘wasted’ is here used in the Shakespearian sense. as
when Portia speaks of. . companions ..'That
do converse and waste the time together", no sense of reprobation being
implied.The following passage is of supreme interest: "We waited patiently
a long cold hour for the views that did not appear, and our geologist had ample
opportunity to indulge in the innocent
pastime of stonebreaking. We had plenty of fun too in heaving great rocks over
the giant precipice. This is a sport the fascination of which few members of
the Alpine Club can resist, and I for one must in my time have rolled hundreds
of tons from the tops of mountains." It might have been thought that l had
invented this quotation especially for use on this occasion. Not at all ! it is
the work of a very eminent mountaineer, of whom I may safely say that there are few men whose
words would carry more weight in the mountaineering world. The author is the
late Mr. Slingsby, and the words occur on page 106 of his book on Norway.
Later
on page 379 in the same work we come across the following: "A small cairn
was hastily raised, and we hurried along a saddle to the south-western or
highest peak. Loud were our hurrahs and many were the rocks which we threw over
the gaunt precipices. Most new ascents are commemorated in this manner." I strongly recommend this book of Slingsby's to the youthful
Boulder Trundler, as it contains several references to the sport. One more
quotation before we pass to our last point. This time it is from an article on
Skye in an early number of this Journal. ...
"We started at 10 o'clock and walked up the north branch
of the corrie, stopping to inspect a very deeply cut gorge, into which we
hurled boulders, which struck the pool at the bottom with a resounding
‘pomph'." And now for Leslie Stephen.The passage in The Playground of
Europe occurs during Stephen's discussion of Rousseau, and I must give it at
some length as the context is important to my argument. It seems clear to me
that the author is here engaged in a perfectly serious attempt to show that
Rousseau was a mountaineer at heart; and the reference to Boulder Trundling is
a definite link in his reasoning. To suppose that his intention is merely
flippant here is to suppose that his whole attempt to make out Rousseau a
mountaineer is just a joke. and that would be too pointless a joke for a man of
Leslie Stephen's wit. “Rousseau's sentiments must be gathered rather from the general
tone of his writings than from any definite passages.
In the Confessions indeed
there is an explicit avowal of his hatred for the plains and his love of torrents,
rocks, pines, black woods. rough paths to climb and descend, and precipices to
cause a delicious terror; and he describes two amusements so characteristic of
the genuine mountaineer that we feel at once that he is on the right track. One
is gazing for hours over a parapet at the foam- spotted waters of a torrent and
listening to the cry of ravens and birds of prey that wheel from rock to rock a
hundred fathoms beneath him. The other is a sport whose charms are as unspeakable
as they are difficult of analysis. It is described somewhere (if I remember rightly)
by Sir Walter Scott, and consists in rolling big stones down a cliff to dash
themselves to pieces at its foot. No one who cannot contentedly spend hours in fascinating
though simple sport really loves a mountain.’ No words of mine can emphasize this eloquent simplicity. When I go to Heaven, may my spirit join the spirits
of Leslie Stephen, Slingsby. and the illustrious Boulder Trundlers of the past,
present, and future, to spend eternity rolling asteroids and comets down the
infinite abyss of interstellar space to meet in cosmic collision the
multitudinous celestial bodies of the Milky Way; that in gorgeous impact all
may be resolved into the imponderable protons and electrons of ultimate matter.
SJ Forrester. The Rucksack Club Journal-1931
