In the summer of 1969, after a trying year studying, or perhaps a year trying to study, the Imperial College Mountaineering Club decided to organize a summer trip to the Alps. Fortunately a few members had a little experience in such affairs. My own experience was limited to a year of climbing in Britain ever other weekend, a week in Scotland at Christmas spent ill equipped and shivering in the vicinity of Glencoe, and numerous Tuesday nights in the Union bar listening to the befuddled reminiscences of the "experienced Alpinists", themselves only just into their twenties. The inebriated ascents of various buildings and monuments in South Kensington polished off our training and added that little extra preparation for the "objective" dangers that we confidently expected to encounter in the "real" mountains, although personally I remained a little unclear as to what this much used technical term actually meant. It had a nice sound to it, though, when judiciously tossed in  between the chinking of the glasses and the bawling of Irish ballads....