Aleister Crowley Diary Entry

Friday, 25 August 1905

 

 

The 25th was a more eventful day, for, having carefully pointed out to the Doctor [Jules Jacot Guillarmod] and Reymond [Charles Reymond], who had joined us at Camp II, the route to be followed, I thought I was safe in going ahead and finding a good spot for a camp. I did so, by a large square boulder, which I solemnly climbed, and proposed to call Pioneer Boulder, in delicate compliment to Sir Martin Conway’s Pioneer Peak. The points of analogy are salient; nobody ever saw it before nor probably will ever see it again. There is, however, this point of difference, that I certainly saw it at the time, and there is no doubt whatever that it is there to be seen. It is open to anyone who has been on the Baltoro Glacier to doubt the existence of Pioneer Peak.

     

Well, at Pioneer Boulder I waited all day, while the Doctor led his coolies in a circular direction round the head of the valley, letting them camp at the foot of the ridge (Pioneer Ridge), so that I had to run down and join them, in a mood to ice-axe the lot. I said little, however, having to bewail the fact that the rearguard was already becoming slack in the matter of sending supplies up. The Doctor’s excuse for stopping on his ridiculous glacier was the rumour that I had broken my leg on the moraine.

     

It may yet take generations to teach people that mountain accidents are always the results of incompetence. A man who breaks his leg on a moraine is only fit to walk up Ludgate Hill between steady guides.

 

 

[Vanity Fair - 20 October 1909]