Above the pastures of Switzerland, it was believed, dragons and ghosts inhabited the realms of ice and snow. No one in their right mind considered climbing into the Alps and certainly not for pleasure. But what would the peaks tell us about the atmosphere, weather, and glaciers? So early pioneers like the Swiss geologist Saussure and his rival Bourrit set off, armed with gallons of wine, roast fowl, theodolites and barometers, walking in ordinary clothes up the sheer rocks into the unknown. These were followed by the British alpine adventurers, keen to plant their flag on every peak in the Alps.
The great mountains were conquered one by one, by insouciant public schoolboys and dogged tradesmen alike. More and more tourists came; the dragons were dead. This enthralling book is a hair-raising, hilarious account of the birth of mountaineering.
