. As for myself, I profess to be little more
than a greenhorn above the snow-line. I have done but little and may do
but little more. Yet there are so many that have done nothing that the
plain account of a plain and long Alpine pass may interest them. I will
take one of the easiest, the Schwartzberg-Weissthor, and walk it with
them and with a friend of mine and two well-known guides.

The Schwartzberg-Weissthor, a pass from Zermatt to Mattmark in the Saas
Valley, is indeed easy. It is nothing more than a long "snow-grind," as
mountaineers say. It is supposed to take ten hours, and it can certainly
be done in the time by guides. But then guides can always go twice as
fast as any but the first flight of amateurs. My companion, though an
excellent and well-known mountaineer, took cognisance of the fact that I
was not in first-class training. And I must say for him that he is not
one of those who think of the Alps as no more than a cinder track to try
one's endurance. He was never in a hurry, and was always willing to stay
and instruct me in what I ought to admire. It is perhaps not strange
that a long walk in high altitudes does not always leave one in a
condition to know that without a finger-post. Sometimes he and I sat and
wrangled on the edge of a crevasse while I denied that there was
anything to admire at all. Indeed, he and I have often quarrelled on the
edge of a precipice about matters of mountain aesthetics.

We left Zermatt in the afternoon and walked up to the Riffelhaus, which
is usually the starting-point for any of the passes to Macugnaga, or for
Monte Rosa or the Lyskamm. It was warm work walking through the close
pine woods. In Switzerland, where all is climbing, one does what would
be considered a great climb in England in the most casual way. For after
all the Riffelhaus is more than 3000 feet above Zermatt, as high, let us
say, as Helvellyn above Ullswater. But then 3000 feet in the Alps is a
mere preface. We dined at the little hotel, and I went to bed early. For
early rising is the one necessary thing when going upon snow. It is the
most disagreeable part about climbing, and perhaps the one thing which
does most good. In England, in London and in towns, men get into deadly
grooves of habit. To break these habits and shake one's self clear of
them is the great thing for health. The disagreeables of climbing are
many, but the reward afterwards is great. To lie in bed the next morning
after having walke