Number in series 70; Year of publication 1986 - Fell and Rock ...

A. Harry Griffin 179merged together in a hazy, mixed-up picture of sun and sprindrift, good turnsand bad ones, superb swoops and ego-dashing falls, whereas I think I can recall,in some detail, all the dozens or scores of ski mountaineering days in their morenatural environment, far from the crowds. A fortnight's successful alpine hut-tohuttour, some wonderful mountain rounds in Scotland and, in Lakeland, a finecircuit of the sunlit Kentmere Horseshoe in superb powder snow, areremembered with particular pleasure.It has to be confessed, though, that my most recent skiing, with a daughterliving in Vancouver, has been on the beautifully-laundered pistes of CypressBowl and Mount Whistler in British Columbia and Mount Baker inWashington, USA, where skins — and even rucksacks — seemed unknown,where nobody walked or climbed more than ten yards, and where hired, fancylookingdownhill boots were used instead of my heavy ski mountaineeringfootgear. It was all so easy — by car on cleared mountain highways to the foot ofthe lifts and then up and down one run after another on superb, pisted snow, soflattering to one's style that I began to wonder, after all these years, whetherperhaps even I could really ski. There were no queues or crowds — we avoidedthe weekends — the sun blazed down all day and, from the top of the lifts, welooked across at wave after wave of real mountains. At 75 years of age there isnow the temptation to settle for this sort of thing — or might be if it was morereadily available — but, back home, the sight from my windows of snow-coveredHigh Street, Harter Fell, Red Screes or the Howgills is still alluring and, nowand again, and, indeed, as often as possible, I have, forgetting all the effortinvolved, got out on the tops. The skiing on these untracked snows may not beso neat and elegant as on the pistes — 'rough-neck skiing' is how RustyWestmorland described it in his 'It's Tough but It's Grand' in our 1948 Journal— although I can think of many splendid slopes in our fells that have providedperfect skiing. But, bagging winter summits in this way, you feel you have had areal mountaineering day.Regrettably, to a would-be ski mountaineer, probably most members of theLake District Ski Club are downhill fanatics — and some very good at it indeed.But we should commend the club for its energy and enterprise in hut building,tow construction, Scottish and Alpine meets, and, now, ski racing andcongratulate them on fifty years of mountain activity and much good fellowship.Skiing, whether on smoothed or untracked snow, is a wonderful outdoorexercise and for myself, as for many members of the Fell and Rock, there isalways the recurring problem in winter — whether to climb, walk or ski. LeslieSomervell started off a lot of things when, in the early 1900s, inspired byNansen's Greenland adventures, he made himself a pair of skis which were stillin use by younger members of his family 30 years later. He had the right ideaabout mountains and skiing, and perhaps in its next half-century more and moremembers of the club he helped to found — and other skiers as well — will beencouraged to leave the crowded pistes and seek quieter, but even morerewarding, adventures on the heights.m