the matriarch
A WORD BEFORE WE BEGIN
We all have these moments, moments as big as years, when we experience something so powerful or profound that, although it may last for only a very short time, it can be recalled decades later in all its vivid intensity. Life is full of them – moments of humour, excitement, adventure; moments of drama, relief and inspiration; moments that prove to be life-changing, life-enhancing and uplifting; and moments of quiet contemplation in the midst of wild nature. They mould our character and make us who we are.
This book is a bran tub of such moments harvested from fifty years among the mountains. There are no tales of gripping adventure on the world’s highest or most challenging peaks, nor are there accounts of horrendous accidents – I leave such stories for those at mountaineering’s sharp end. My climbs have been modest but exhilarating, and I have discovered, on reflection, that it is not often the summits themselves that stand out as highlights of my career. It’s the experiences won on and around the mountains that count.
Of course, days among mountains are not all blessed with sunshine. Clouds, whether they be drifting innocently across the summits or preludes to a storm, form an integral part of the mountain landscape, adding both movement and mystery.
My long walk among such clouds has left me with a rich store of memories. This collection is a celebration of wild places in all their seductive mystery – a commemoration of mountains and valleys; friends with whom some great days have been shared; people met along the way; the generosity of strangers; humour plucked from the most unlikely situation. A celebration of life. If there’s one recurring theme, it’s the sheer joy of being ‘out there’. The mountain world confronts all who enter it with a reality at odds with that of everyday living. In wild places the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Although this is an autobiographical collection, it’s by no means an autobiography. Some of the locations for these stories have been identified and the same goes for the friends who shared and enriched many of these experiences. A few are mentioned by their first name; a tiny minority have been given a different identity to avoid embarrassment.
There’s no chronological order to follow. This is not a book where you need to start at the beginning and work your way through to the end, so I’d suggest you open at any page and take pot luck.
Memory is like that, too – it doesn’t work to an orderly schedule. One of my favourite authors, John Stewart Collis, once likened the power of memory to a journey taken through ‘the unboundaried kingdom of the mind’. That’s how this book developed. Being something of an insomniac I often lie awake for several hours during the night experiencing once again days of high living – not as a nostalgic trek down memory lane, but as a spur to creating more such memories for the future.
For perhaps the first time in one of my books, my wife is referred to as ‘Min’. It’s not her real name, but it’s how she’s known. When we share long mountain trips we both keep journals and read them to one another months later. As we do, we’re constantly astonished at the differences. Written at the end of each day, either curled up in a tent or in a quiet corner of a mountain hut, we recall the happenings of that day with such contrasting emphasis that you’d think we’d been on different journeys. I have a loft creaking with the weight of these journals, but even so some memories are mysteriously absent from their pages – yet they come to me unbidden as fresh as the day they occurred.
Memory may play tricks, perhaps. All I know is that life is an adventure and we must cherish every moment to live it to the full.
Kev Reynolds
Froghole
Spring 2013
The Berber goatherd who daily visited our Atlas base camp in 1965 (Chapter 1)
Berber houses cling to the hillsides like swallows’ nests (Chapters 1 and 2)
Young, fit and fearless, Michael Adams balances on a pinnacled ridge at almost 4000m in the Atlas Mountains (Chapter 1)
Mules make backpacking unnecessary in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains (Chapter 2)
Left foot in France, right foot in Spain – Keith Sweeting scrambles along a ridge leading to Pic de la Mine (Chapter 6)
Enjoying solitude and pristine early-season conditions on the 3308m Pico de la Maladeta (Chapter 6)
Windswept in the Pyrenees – Alan Payne and I first shared a rope in the Atlas Mountains in 1965 and subsequently made numerous expeditions to the Alps, Pyrenees and Himalaya over the next 40 years (photo: Peter Smith)
The Arrémoulit refuge nestles in a Pyrenean landscape of granite and water (Chapter 11)
Hugh Walton emerging from a hidden crevasse on the Vignemale’s glacier (Chapter 16)
Dawn light on the north face of the Vignemale, one of the most imposing of Pyrenean walls (Chapter 16)
With the ultimate Pyrénéistes, Pierre (left) and Jean Ravier at Tuzaguet in 2006 (Chapter 19) (photo: Michèle Ravier)
Piz Bernina and Piz Roseg in summer – very different from a mid-winter moonlight view seen from a camp on Piz Corvatsch (Chapter 20)
Glemmtal guide Fredi Bachmann, with the Hohe Tauern as a backdrop (Chapter 23)
The ladder route to the Pas de Chèvres above the Cheilon glacier (Chapter 26)
The approach to the Mountet hut used to cross the Zinal glacier below the Ober Gabelhorn (Chapter 30)
At the head of the Gasterntal, Roland Hiss studies the ice cliffs of the Kanderfirn (Chapter 33)