GLOSSARY OF MOUNTAINEERING TERMS.
Aiguille—A needle-like rock-tower or pinnacle, isolated from a central mass.
Alpenstock—A long, stout staff, shod with a sharp, steel point, used by mountaineers.
Alps—High (white) mountains, specifically those of Switzerland. As a proper name in the plural, the great mountain ranges in Switzerland and neighbouring countries.
Alps, Alplands—The open grasslands, meadows and flowering slopes on a mountain side. In Switzerland, a pasture on the side of a mountain. (See page 36, Vol. I., No. 1., Canadian Alpine Journal.)
Amphitheatre—A natural circular area, surrounded by rising ground, usually rock or snow-masses.
Arête—The sharp ridge, edge or rocky spur of a mountain; used in connection with snow as well as rock.
Avalanche—Falling bodies of snow or ice, loosened from their hold by the heat of the sun. Sometimes rock.
Berg—The integral rock-mass rising above a snowfield; also, in the absence of snow, above the slopes of debris, or the alplands at its base.
Bergschrund—The crevasse formed between the edge of a body of snow or ice and a rock-berg. One of the chief difficulties to be overcome in mountaineering.
Boulder Clay—A stiff, tenacious clay containing boulders of all sizes; found in the moraines of a glacier; corresponds to "till."
Brule—The charred and fallen remains of a forest fire.
Cache—A hiding place; a store of provisions, etc., hidden for future use.
Canyon (Canon)—A narrow valley, generally with precipitous sides; corresponds to gorge, ravine, defile. Box Canyon—In the Rockies and Selkirks applied to the bed of a stream contained by perpendicular rock-walls.
Cirque—A circle of rock peaks.
Chimney—A steep and narrow rift in the rocks, roughly resembling a household chimney with one side removed.
Chinook—A warm, dry, western wind which frequently blows in the Rocky Mountains. Similar to the Fohn wind of the European Alps.
Col—The crest of a neck or pass between two mountain peaks, usually though not necessarily covered with snow.
Confluent Glacier—One tributary to a trunk-glacier; generally flowing from a greater elevation.
Cornice, Snow-Cornice—An overhanging edge of snow at the crest of a peak or ridge, caused by drifting; ice is formed by the snow thawing and freezing.
Couloir—A steeply ascending gully, gorge, or ravine in the side of a mountain or rock-peak; generally, though not necessarily, filled with snow.
Crack—A rift in the rocks, narrower than a chimney.
Crampon—A steel frame, set with sharp spikes, strapped to the boot to facilitate climbing on ice (climbing irons).
Creek—Name applied in Canada and the United States to small streams. It is also applied in mountain regions to torrents.
