When the Alps cast their spell - Trevor Braham

Drawn by their holy grandeur and majestic inaccessibility, climbers have tried to scale the White Mountains for 900 years. The sport was pioneered 150 years ago by a diverse cross-section of Victorian gentlemen, who followed in the footseps of the early local explorers who ventured onto the lower slopes in search of game and minerals. By the early years of the 19th century a growing interest in the study of geological and glaciological phenomena sent the curious to cliffs and glaciers but it was not until the latter half of the century that interest in the largly unexplored region of the Alps captured the public imagination. The 1850s saw a sharp increase in the numbers of those who tried to scale them and so intense was the level of exploration that the decade has come to be thought of as an Alpine golden age. By the end of the turn of the century, the new sport had not only expanded vastly, but had begun to acquire some degree of respectability. The development of new skills and techniques resulted in greater accomplishments, whilst retaining the spirit and traditions of the pioneers. In this comprehensive book the mountaineer and writer Trevor Braham illustrates aspects of the c