Character Profile: James Forbes

"What gives the work of James Forbes its epic character is neither the glaciers, nor the laws of them, but the discovery of those laws; the methodical, truthful, patient, valiant battle between man and Nature, his final victory, his wresting from her the secret which had been buried for ages in the ice-caves of the Alps, guarded by cold and fatigue, danger and superstitious dread."

In this article I'd like to introduce my readers to a character who has gradually increased in importance for me over the past year and a half. I first learned about Forbes while reading the excellent book Killing Dragons by Fergus Fleming, and in the months since I have systematically hunted down every scrap of information I could find about this remarkable man.

James David Forbes was born in 1809 to a noble family, a native of Edinburgh and a Scot through and through. Forbes was of that charmed generation which saw Britain ascend from the chaos of war and enter a new era of technological supremacy: an era of opportunity for those with money and power. He was a sickly child ever since birth, and his early years were marked by several tragedies which affected his world view. His mother died in 1810, his older brother William in 1826, and his father in 1827. Consequently he was a solitary individual who made no friends until well into adulthood.

He studied for a legal career, and while his singularly brilliant mind allowed him to excel with relative ease, his heart was not in the work. Since childhood he had kept journals of scientific notes, almost compulsively, in a manner reminiscent of Isaac Newton. He entered the University of Edinburgh in 1825 (at the age of only 16!) to study the law, but worked simultaneously at his scientific studies and anonymously published a number of papers on natural philosophy. He abandoned his legal interests in 1830 and embraced a life of science. By 1827 he was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1833, at the astonishing age of 24, he became Professor of Natural Philosophy. His shyness disappeared and he became a self-assured, confident academic who lectured for half the year and went off on adventures for the other half.

Until his health gave out, Forbes never stopped. His character was simply relentless, as irresistible as the glaciers he devoted his life to studying. I am in awe of the amount that he achieved, from groundbreaking research on the polarisation of thermal radiation to the invention of the seismometer, from the first accurate maps of the Alps to the foundations of modern glaciology.

He first visited the Alps in 1826, and on subsequent visits, notably his epic campaign of 1842, he carried out a grand series of experiments intended to determine the truth behind the question of why do glaciers move at all? Until Forbes came on the scene, glaciers were shrouded with ignorance and folklore, poorly understood and shoddily studied. Forbes spent an entire summer on the Mer de Glace, Chamonix, taking measurements and subjecting himself to the most brutal extremes of mountain weather in the name of science.  He was also the first British explorer to summit a virgin Alpine peak (the Stockhorn above Zermatt) and was capable of walking thirty miles a day for a week across the roughest terrain. He did all this before the invention of modern mountaineering equipment, safety techniques, or even maps.

In short, his deeds were legendary.

His book, published in 1843, is a marvel of science and a worthy adventure story in its own right. In Travels Through the Alps of Savoy Forbes compares himself to his spiritual forebear, the great explorer H.B. de Saussure, and describes the almost mythical lengths he was willing to go to in order to discover the truth behind Alpine glaciation. Forbes' travels occurred over a decade before the celebrated Golden Age of Alpine exploration, and yet when we read his book we sense that his labours made that era possible.

This relentless pattern of work and Alpine exploration took its toll on his health, and after his marriage to Alicia in 1843 he suffered an attack of gastric fever that nearly killed him. He struggled against chronic illness for the rest of his life and would never again regain his former strength. In 1846 he returned to the Alps but was too weak to climb, and his doctors prescribed complete rest for his annual six month vacation. Needless to say, his active personality rebelled against the sentence of peace and quiet, and in 1847 and 1848 he conducted a geological campaign in the Western Highlands. In 1848 Forbes explored the north face of Ben Nevis. He was probably the first man to turn a scientific eye to the mountains of Lochaber and Glencoe.

When the Alpine Club was founded in 1857, Forbes was the first honourary member. He maintained a keen interest in the Alps but never again climbed: "My heart remains where my body can never be. My yearnings towards the home of my youth and towards the Swiss Alps are much on a par: both homesickness." He died in 1868.

Forbes' entire life is full of interest, but in my fiction I have chosen to focus on the mid to late 1840s when he was pining for the mountains and starkly aware of his own mortality. I see Forbes as a tragic figure, looking back to his great days of 1842 and afraid that he will never again have such an adventure as his health deteriorates.

I hope you'll all get to know James Forbes a little better over the coming months!

Oscar Eckenstein: the first true innovator of climbing equipment?

Eckenstein prototype "Ice Claw", or crampon, in my personal collection

"What the ice climbers of the future will be able to climb, I know not. But I find it hard to believe that we have already reached the limits of what is possible."

--Oscar Eckenstein, from his 1908 article on the future of ice climbing 

Oscar Eckenstein was an English rock climber and Alpinist of Jewish descent. By profession a railway engineer, in his leisure time he climbed in the Alps, the Lake District, and Snowdonia. He was a member of the early community of climbers who helped establish the foundations of the sport as we know it today.

By all accounts a difficult man to get on with, he had few friends but climbed with many of the pioneers. He was a particular friend of Aleister Crowley, O.G. Jones, and the Abraham brothers. I chose to use him as a character in my novel as I find him fascinating: pricky and easily offended, yet unassuming in the mountains (he rarely led routes) and the owner of a brilliant technical mind.

In this article I will talk a little about Eckenstein's greatest contributions: his inventions and new techniques. This is an important subplot in my book so readers may be interested in learning a little more on the subject.

First, some context. In the 19th century, ice climbing went through several phases. In 1800, the Alpinist generally carried a baton or Alpenstock, which is a simple wooden pole shod with a steel spike. Climbers wore ordinary hobnailed boots on their feet, and generally wore crampons of some description (usually ill-fitting devices with four points, although other types were used). The guide carried a small axe, often an ordinary hatchet, which he used to cut steps for the rest of the party. Some very difficult routes were climbed with this method, generally through the icefalls of glaciers; but ice climbing was simply a means to an end, ie. to ascend the peak by the easiest route.

Next, some climbers started combining the two tools of hatchet and baton by adding a pick or blade to the top of the pole. The average baton length also decreased over the course of the early 19th century.

The ice axe as we know it was born at some point in the 1850s, when most ice axes had a two-part head composed of a pick and an axe blade. During the course of the 1860s the blade turned horizontal (an adze) as this was found more convenient for cutting steps in snow. The axe was still generally very long at this point; anything between a metre and a metre and a half.

The use of crampons fell out of favour gradually in the middle part of the 19th century. By the 1890s, crampons were not generally used by British mountaineers, thanks to the advanced art of nailing boots. Edward Whymper's condemnation of crampons also helped to hasten their demise.

Ice climbers had grown used to the hazards of ascending steep ice: no safety from the rope, laborious step-cutting requiring enormous strength and stamina, slow progress over terrain often threatened by avalanche or rockfall. The technique of climbing was largely dictated by tradition and methods passed down from father to son. Climbers relied on their guides to do the hard work and keep them safe. Although by the early 1890s British mountaineers were encouraged to learn the craft of step-cutting, the average climber rarely had to put it into practice if he employed guides.

Guideless climbing became more usual in the mid to late 1890s, thanks to the exploits of A.F. Mummery and other leading figures. Suddenly climbers realised that ice climbing was damned hard and dangerous work. Interest began to grow in ways of making it faster and safer.

Enter Oscar Eckenstein.

He was the first man to apply reasoned, scientific thought to the craft of climbing ice. In the first years of the 20th century, he worked with a blacksmith named Henry Grivel, who lived in the Alpine town of Courmayeur. His vision was a simple one: to resurrect the crampon, and make it the centrepiece of a new advanced technique of ice climbing.

The original blueprints for the Eckenstein ice claw, from Alpinist magazine http://goo.gl/caXX9

The Eckenstein-Grivel crampon was a masterpiece of design for its day. It was designed to fit well (this would solve many of the problems of previous crampons). It was designed to be light, yet made of quality steel and very strong. It had ten long, sharp points to each boot. In short, it was the very first modern crampon which would actually be of use rather than a hindrance to the climber. Instead of cutting thousands of steps, the climber could simply walk up steep ice by turning his ankle and engaging all of the points with the slope. This was revolutionary stuff: it would make ice climbing faster and easier (hence safer).

Eckenstein's new technique demanded a revised ice axe. He designed a new model with an 80cm shaft, short enough to be used by one hand. Nowadays we may balk at the idea of one-handed cutting with an 80cm axe, but in 1908 this was a radical improvement. With Eckenstein's system, only occasional steps would need to be cut at the most difficult places.

The head of an ice axe similar to the one Eckenstein designed. The basic pattern was still in use 70 years later; this is a Stubai Aschenbrenner from the 1930s-1950s.

It was slow to catch on. Grivel manufactured them, but British Alpinists regarded them with suspicion and step-cutting continued to be the norm for several decades, into the 1930s and the 1940s in some areas. In Scotland, some climbers continued to prefer climbing in nailed boots (albeit with much shorter gully axes) well into the 1960s.

But the revolution had begun. By the end of the 1960s, a new generation of scientific minds had refined Eckenstein's idea yet further, using radically curved ice axes to climb directly up vertical ice. Front points on their crampons allowed them to walk up the steepest terrain without having to engage all ten points. (Front points were added in the 1930s, but again not generally used for this purpose until much later).

In the present day, climbing is a very different game, but the Eckenstein heritage is still obvious to see in the tools we use to climb. I own a pair of G12 crampons--still manufactured by Grivel in Italy, and although the design has changed, the philosophy has not.

The Grivel G12 crampon (2000s)

Comparison between G12 and Eckenstein prototype

Comparison between the Grivel "Alp Wing" ice axe (c.2009) and Stubai Aschenbrenner. One is designed for front-pointing ascents, the other cutting steps.

How does all this fit in with my work? In my novel, The Only Genuine Jones, Eckenstein takes his inventions further than he ever did in life thanks to a collaboration with Crowley, opening up a world of new possibilities. History is changed forever. Do I believe this could have really happened? Perhaps; given Eckenstein's genius and Crowley's drive, it would be surprising if they didn't concoct something wonderful between them. Ultimately my story is a whimsical 'what if?' look at the history of mountaineering and certainly shouldn't be taken seriously.

Professor Norman Collie: character profile

Part of a series of articles on the characters of The Only Genuine Jones. For other articles in the series, please click here.

PROFESSOR (JOHN) NORMAN COLLIE

J. Norman Collie was born in 1859 and is therefore one of the older generation of climbers portrayed in my book; certainly not middle-aged in 1897, but he began climbing in a culture different to the one just starting to emerge at the turn of the century. He achieved a tremendous amount in his life. By profession, he was Professor of Organic Chemistry at University College, London, and much of the research he conducted there was ground-breaking (including experiments that would lead to the first use of x-rays for medical purposes). He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1896.

In his private life, Collie nurtured a long love of the hills, in common with most of my other characters. He was one of the most accomplished mountaineers of the era, and while he was born too late to participate in the golden age of Alpine exploration himself, he drew inspiration from his heroic predecessors and continued the work they started. He admired men like James Forbes and Edward Whymper: explorers and pioneers, who climbed mountains to discover and learn, not just for the sake of climbing itself.

Collie was a true explorer at heart and, in addition to his many climbs in the Alps, he was one of the first British mountaineers to attempt a Himalayan peak: Nanga Parbat in 1895. The expedition ended in disaster when his companion, Mummery, and two Gurkhas (Ragobir and Goman Singh) were killed in an avalanche. Himalayan mountaineering continued to excite interest in British climbers (particularly Aleister Crowley and Oscar Eckenstein in the immediately following years) but from that point onward Collie concentrated his efforts on exploring the Canadian Rockies and his own native mountains.

It's nice to think that, while Collie was one of the world's most experienced 'greater ranges' mountaineer, he derived so much pleasure from climbing closer to home. Although best known for his many first ascents in Skye, Collie traveled broadly in the Lake District, Wales, and Scotland, and had friends at every mountain inn. He nurtured new climbers and had a reputation for being wise, fair, and tolerant. As a consequence he was widely loved.

Collie retired to the Isle of Skye and spent his last days at the Sligachan Hotel. He died in 1942 after a long and peaceful old age in the shadows of the peaks he had explored in his youth.

HOW MY CHARACTER DIFFERS FROM THE REAL PROFESSOR COLLIE

Collie is a supporting character in my book without a major role, yet I have tried my best to portray him in character with the real man. The changes I've made have been slight. While Collie was certainly a bold explorer and not a conservative man, he was also an establishment figure and in his later years he often spoke out against the new ways of mountaineering. I have portrayed him as being slightly on the traditionalist side of the fence, yet his fair and balanced nature means he is able to appreciate the other perspective and he has sympathies with the 'progressive' new climbers.

Aleister Crowley: character profile

Part of a series of articles on the characters of The Only Genuine Jones. For the other articles in the series, please click here.

ALEISTER CROWLEY

Born Edward Alexander Crowley in 1875, Aleister is an infamous figure in history. During the course of his controversial life, he accumulated a variety of pseudonyms and titles, most notable among them the Wickedest Man in the World, the Great Beast 666, Perdurabo, and the Laird of Boleskine (to mention only a few!) The name by which he is most frequently known, however, is Aleister.

Crowley grew up in the strict religious environment of the Plymouth Brethren. Rebelling against this inflexibility, he developed a lifelong hatred of Christianity, yet it also left its marks in other ways. Throughout the course of his life he dabbled in magic and all forms of the occult, and even invented his own religion which enjoys enormous popularity to this day: Thelema. He also played a key role in a schism of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn at the turn of the century. Today the majority of people think he was a Satanist, but this is in fact not true--he never worshiped the Devil.

He was accepted into Trinity College, Cambridge, in late 1895 where he studied Moral Sciences. He read a great deal but rarely attended lectures, and attained a reputation for preferring drink, drugs, and prostitutes to his studies. He soon switched to English Literature as he believed he would have a greater chance of obtaining his degree without doing any extra work. During his time at Cambridge he befriended (and soon fell out with) Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, and spent a lot of time climbing on the rooftops of the college with a band of 'night climbers'.

Although most widely known today for his role in the occult, Crowley was in fact an accomplished mountaineer in the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th. He climbed on Skye with Professor Collie, in the Lake District with John Robinson and O.G.Jones, and was a frequenter of the major Alpine centres including Zermatt and Chamonix. Young Crowley was extremely talented. He usually climbed solo, avoiding the usual gully routes and striking out onto the open faces and exposed ridges; he scorned tradition; he avoided employing guides at all costs, believing them to be incompetent penny-grabbers. He was accepted into the Scottish Mountaineering Club in 1894 at the age of only 19. His partnership with Oscar Eckenstein, another controversial figure in the annals of British climbing, resulted in a number of spectacular climbs including a very early attempt on K2 in 1902.

Also a 'progressive' like Jones, Crowley made use of a primitive version of modern crampons for some of his ascents on ice. His relationship with Jones went sour from the start, however. After Jones made his controversial ascent of the Kern Knotts Crack in 1896 using 'combined tactics', Crowley went out of his way to badmouth the older climber and they remained rivals for years.

His mountaineering career ended in 1905 after an attempt at Kangchenjunga resulted in four deaths, largely thanks to Crowley's own selfish and inconsiderate actions. Even Eckenstein refused to climb with him after this, and he was shunned by the rest of the mountaineering community for life.

For an excellent analysis of Crowley's climbing career, see this article on Footless Crow.

HOW MY CHARACTER DIFFERS FROM THE REAL CROWLEY

I have chosen the real Crowley as a starting point, and increased both his ambition and his abilities. The Crowley of my story has developed his use of crampons to a higher level, and is using them (combined with a short ice axe) to climb ice at a standard unheard of in the 1890s. His prodigious talent largely brings about the explosion of climbing standards that underpins the story of The Only Genuine Jones. However, Crowley is betrayed by his friends and allies. In trying to take back what he feels he deserves, he loses perspective and almost destroys the very thing he is seeking: a climbing culture free from the chains of the past.

The entire story is based around the dire consequences of one avalanche in the Alps--an avalanche that strikes Crowley, denying him the chance to be the first man to climb the North Face of the Matterhorn. After that moment, history changes and Crowley's actions have profound consequences for the small British climbing community.

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Owen Glynne Jones: character profile

In this series of articles, beginning with Jones himself, I will introduce the reader to the main characters in my novel, The Only Genuine Jones. Most of these characters are a fusion of fact and fiction, so I will be going to some effort to make the reader aware of how I have changed the real people to fit my fictional story.

OWEN GLYNNE JONES

Owen Glynne Jones (known to his friends as the Only Genuine Jones) is the main character in my novel; it's his story first and foremost. By profession, he was Master of Physics at the City of London School, but he lived for the holidays when he escaped to the mountains of Britain (and, once a year, to the Alps).

The conflict at the heart of Jones' character is his reputation. Although one of the best climbers in the world, he was a controversial figure who used climbing tactics widely frowned-upon during the 1890s: practicing climbs before making the first ascent, using a top-rope to protect himself, chipping holds, direct aid. He was short-sighted and often jumped for holds when he couldn't see them! These bold tactics yielded results, but also got him into trouble more than once, and he obtained a reputation for falling off and getting himself into disastrous situations. He was also a 'progressive' who sought an end to the conservatism and ancient traditions that he believed were holding climbers back.

The Kern Knotts Crack on Great Gable was Jones' long-term climbing project. Believed by some to be impossible, he kept trying it with a rope held from above for protection, until eventually he knew the climb well enough to make the 'first ascent' (which was witnessed by a number of friends and other climbers). This event poisoned his reputation due to accusations of cheating; accusations largely made by Aleister Crowley, who happened to be in Wasdale at the time and had formed a dislike for Jones. Crowley believed Jones didn't deserve his reputation and did his best to stir up trouble.

By the start of 1897, Jones had also alienated the climbers of Snowdonia with his poor behaviour and desire to collect information on their climbs for his guidebook. He still had loyal friends, but was largely shunned by the climbing world and treated as a maverick.

In reality, Jones was killed in 1899, together with several companions, during an attempt at the Ferpecle Arete of Dent Blanche in the Alps. It was one of the worst disasters in Alpine history and brought an end to a brilliant, but sadly short, career in the mountains.

HOW MY CHARACTER DIFFERS FROM THE REAL JONES

Out of respect for this great man, I have refrained from altering too much about Jones' character. His history and actions, however, do differ from the real timeline. In my story, I have given Jones the chance to alter his destiny and do some of the things he dreamed about doing in real life, but never got the opportunity to do. Without giving too much away (you'll have to read the book when it comes out!) circumstances place him in the position to make many spectacular climbs that were, in reality, not ascended until many years afterwards. His rivalry with Aleister Crowley is taken to a different level and the stakes are most definitely higher. Although my story is completely fiction with only a loose grounding in fact, I have tried my hardest to be true to the spirit in which Jones lived his life.

I have also modified the strict course of events regarding the first ascent of the Kern Knotts Crack. In reality the first 'official' ascent (after months of practicing on a top rope) occurred on the 28th of April, 1897. In my book I have condensed the amount of time in which things happened and his 'first ascent' is made in April 1896 instead.

LOOK OUT FOR

Forthcoming articles on Professor Norman Collie, Harold Raeburn, Aleister Crowley, and more.

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