The Virtual Rambler

Number forty four: 16^th January 2014

Taking Liberties

Only a century ago , mountainous regions remained on the fringes of all the blessings and burdens of “civilisation”. Even at the height of its reach and power , Rome had little influence on mountain lands beyond the military camps that the empire established on their edges for security. Later , when crazed emperors had given way to the Rome of St. Peter , it proved equally difficult for the Church to evangelise the herdsmen , woodcutters and independent peasants who lived among mountains. The lowlands were the province of a monetary economy among close-knit , stifling societies , hemmed in by a haughty aristocracy and an enforced legal system. There were the beggars , the insane , the handicapped , the poor and the sick , who were pitilessly locked away by a capitalist society that was attached to order and efficiency. Mountains were a refuge for liberty and ancient folk-customs , places where it was difficult to distinguish a poor man's house from a rich man's.

When I took up mountaineering in the 1950s⁽¹⁾ , its practitioners upheld some of those old traditions. They travelled to Snowdonia , the Lake District and the Scottish Highlands by bus , motorbike or by hitch-hiking. Dressed like tramps and brigands , they climbed on cliffs and wandered the hills by day and at night they slept in tents , bus shelters , under overhanging boulders , in barns or huts with bunk-beds. The evening interiors of these huts had then resembled cloud chambers , their stubble-chinned residents appearing like spectres out of a thick fug of cigarette smoke and drying socks. Fifty years later , the No Smoking signs were everywhere and fridges once crammed with cans of beer now housed bottles of spring water , tubs of yoghurt and cartons of skimmed milk. In parallel with early rock and roll , once-rebellious rock climbing had gradually been co-opted by more cautious , mainstream sensibilities.

The years passed. On camp sites favoured by climbing’s more recent disciples the boisterous moonlit parties of yesteryear became a distant memory. The new purists were tucked up in their sleeping bags by ten o’clock and any diehards stumbling back at closing time were treated to a finger-wagging lecture the next morning , when the munching of muesli replaced the sizzling rashers of yore. At the end of the climbing day , vulgar banter and high spirits were now confined to young locals in the nearby pubs. Silent rows of earnest outsiders in fleecy jackets and Ron Hill tracksters sipped fruit juice as they pondered their guide books like so many Yeshiva students silently tracing passages from the Torah with their fingers. Meanwhile , the cliffs on which we had climbed - as often as not the only people on them - were now the scene of queues below the popular routes and a cacophony of bellowing parties at work on them. Putting you on belay! Climb when ready! Climbing! Taking In ! The proliferating ‘Schools of Outdoor Pursuits’ had much to answer for.

Along with many other places once difficult of access , mountainous areas succumbed to the long reach of global commodification. It was a process which transformed the esoteric activities of an eccentric minority into a multi-million dollar Adventure Industry , with all its concomitant profits. Much of mountaineering's appeal had been its promise of an escape from thronging crowds going about their urban business , into high landscapes whose main population was sheep. Where Rome and the Church had struggled to exert an influence , modern capitalism rose to the challenge and colonised every last buttress and gully across the land , each island lagoon and forested interior across the sea. Far from the motorway convoys , the airport conveyor belts , the cruise ships and the guided tours of the Himalayas , the last refuge of liberty is now in your own head , among the mountains of the mind.


Wig

⁽¹⁾ There was much to recommend in a decade once characterised as dull and monochrome (particularly by those extolling the virtues of the 1960s). It pre-dated mass car- ownership , television addiction , home computers and the leisure industry. There was ample provision of public transport and (via local councils) public housing , equitable education prospects and a national health service. Entertainments had yet to descend to the lowest common denominator and a brief golden period of rock n’roll came into being.

Archive

Virtual rambler #1 – Posturing, 9^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #2 – Managerialism, 17^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #3 – Nostalgia, 27^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #4 – The Alpha Male, 13^th April 2010
Virtual rambler #5 – General Elections, 3^rd May 2010
Virtual rambler #6 – The Leisure Industry, 15^th May 2010
Virtual rambler #7 – Guide to The World Cup, 15^th June 2010
Virtual rambler #8 – Human Nature, 12^th July 2010
Virtual rambler #9 – Communities, 13^th August 2010
Virtual rambler #10 – Worlds Apart, 6^th October 2010
Virtual rambler #11 – Dawdling, 22^nd November 2010
Virtual rambler #12 – ELVIS, 24^th December 2010
Virtual rambler #13 – Transience, 4^th February 2011
Virtual rambler #14 – Regional Accents, 15^th April 2011
Virtual rambler #15 – The Afterlife, 21^st July 2011
Virtual rambler #16 – Bizspeak, 27^th August 2011
Virtual rambler #17 – Night Walks, 3^rd October 2011
Virtual rambler #18 – Bob Dylan and Charles Dickens, 8^th November 2011
Virtual rambler #19 – Another Nutty Professor, 16^th December 2011
Virtual rambler #20 – Customer Choice, 16^th January 2012
Virtual rambler #21 – Wearing Shorts, 18^th February 2012
Virtual rambler #22 – A Brief History of Progress, 17^th March 2012
Virtual rambler #23 – The Myth of Sisyphus, 16^th April 2012
Virtual rambler #24 – Natural History, 20^th May 2012
Virtual rambler #25 – European Self Importance, 26^th June 2012
Virtual rambler #26 – Sweet Dreams, 25^th July 2012
Virtual rambler #27 – Excess, 17^th August 2012
Virtual rambler #28 – In Denial, 20^th September 2012
Virtual rambler #29 – The Way, 21^st October 2012
Virtual rambler #30 – On Rambling, 14^th November 2012
Virtual rambler #31 – Gazing Into The Abyss, 18^th December 2012
Virtual rambler #32 – Intellectual Gloom, 25^th January 2013
Virtual rambler #33 – Great Human Achievements, 20^th February 2013
Virtual rambler #34 – Autobiography, 20^th March 2013
Virtual rambler #35 – Your Good Health, 21^st April 2013
Virtual rambler #36 – Deconstruction, 20^th May 2013
Virtual rambler #37 – My Home Town, 19^th June 2013
Virtual rambler #38 – Ancient History, 21^st July 2013
Virtual rambler #39 – Possessions, 20^th August 2013
Virtual rambler #40 – Sporting Stoics, 20^th September 2013
Virtual rambler #41 – Free Time, 20^th October 2013
Virtual rambler #42 – Ewan Don't Allow, 20^th November 2013
Virtual rambler #43 – A Literary Nexus, 20^th December 2013