The steeper and higher a mountain becomes, the more severe are the forces of nature that serve to tear it down. Wind, running water, changes of temperature, swift avalanches, slow-moving glaciers, ricocheting falling rocks—these elements are ever at work taking a mountain apart, reducing it to low-lying sediments which, in ages to come, will rise again to new heights. Much of the skill of the mountaineer is devoted, during the specific acts of tearing apart, to being somewhere else at the time. He must know the objective dangers of mountains—those which the mountain thrusts upon him; knowing them, he may avoid them. The better he knows their exact limits, the broader the routes of safe travel between them will seem to him, and the greater may be his accomplishment in mountains; more important esthetically, in an absence of unnecessary worry, he can enjoy his mountains immeasurably more.
