Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69 #224969

In endeavouring to make the book of some use to those who may wish to go mountain-scrambling, whether in the Alps or else where, undue prominence, perhaps, has been given to our mistakes and failures and it will doubtless be pointed out that our practice must have been bad if the principles which are laid down are sound, or that the principles must be unsound if the practice was good. It is maintained in an early chapter that the positive, or unavoidable, dangers of mountaineering are very small, yet from subsequent pages it can be shown that very considerable risks were run. The reason is obvious — we were not immaculate. Our blunders are not held up to be admired, or to be imitated, but to be avoided.