The most honoured man there was Geoffrey Young, an Eton master, and the President of the Climbers' Club. His four closest friends had all been killed climbing; a comment on the extraordinary care which he always took himself. It appeared not merely in his preparartions for an ascent - the careful examination strand by strand of the Alpine rope, the attention to his boot-nails, and the balanced loading of his ruck-sack - but also in his caution on the rock-face. Before making any move he thought it out foot-by-foot, as though it were a chess problem.

Robert Graves, Goodbye To All That, Penguin, 2000, p. 49. (Original date of publication 1929.)


[Thanks to Martin]

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