Year of publication 1960 - Fell and Rock Climbing Club

12 THE EVENING ALPSnice bed here, or the week-end overcrowding in theHohtiirli Hut? Why does it always have to be Saturday nighton which one chooses to visit the most frequented huts in theAlps? Every thought you can have about that and everythought about the choice in hand has a kind of vintagequality. One has lived through it so often before: all laiddown providently long ago to be retasted every year, ever thesame, even the jokes, as familiar and nostalgic as the fendantand the fondue: nothing more melting to resolution. Just asone 'decides'—with a self-indulgent secret relish—for thesensible thing, the cloud veil sways up, there is a sombregleam from the lake, and there you are again humping yourhut sack on through the streaming forest. Then it rains reallyhard, just where you can scuttle under the great limestoneoverhang where the path follows a horizontal shelf highabove the waters. Off come the sacks; how tiny already thelittle beetle-like bicycle-paddle skiffs scooting back now tothe shore under the drench.If the weather were finer in the Alps, how much less wewould see! One is always rushing on and, without a goodphysical excuse, our lingerings would perhaps have a shadetoo much of conscious intent. We would be pausing deliberately,expressly in order to study and enjoy the views: a thingwhich views, very naturally, don't care for at all. Whereaswhen it is rain that sits you down in chance-given shelter—there you are, no help for it, having to see the sights. In ameasure, of course, being out of condition, with no wind orstrength left, can do the same thing, if distress doesn'tintervene. All reasons, these—if you want them—for pityingthe perfectly fit, top-of-his-form mountaineer, in the midst ofan unbreakable beau-fixe season. What a chore! How doeshe keep it up? What? No respite? No release? I have beenon that fantastic treadmill, had it; but I don't recall that Ithen had any of these sorts of feelings!Where the path crosses the torrent and starts to wind upbeside it, another splash came on. We crossed to the Unterberglialpage for shelter again. It was deserted except for aman with a big umbrella who was sending crates of fizzydrinks up a wire to Oberbergli—which put appropriate ideasinto our heads.The path climbs two abrupt little steps above; greasy withmud they were. You watch the inexperienced and rather