Well might they stare; five hours and a quarter had sufficed for 6500 feet of ascent.(101) We screamed triumphantly as they turned in to breakfast. [Illustration: Map of the Brèche de la Meije, etc.] All mountaineers know how valuable it is to study beforehand an intended route over new ground from a height at some distance. None but blunderers fail to do so, if it is possible; and one cannot do so too thoroughly. As a rule, the closer one approaches underneath a summit, the more difficult it is to pick out a path with judgment. Inferior peaks seem unduly important, subordinate ridges are exalted, and slopes conceal points beyond; and if one blindly undertakes an ascent, without having acquired a tolerable notion of the relative importance of the parts, and of their positions to one another, it will be miraculous if great difficulties are not encountered. But although the examination of an intended route from a height at a distance will tell one (who knows the meaning of the things he is looking at) a good deal, and will enable him to steer clear of many difficulties against which he might otherwise blindly run, it will seldom allow one to pronounce positively upon the practicability or impracticability of the whole of the route. No living man, for example, can pronounce positively from a distance in regard to rocks. Those just mentioned are an illustration of this. Three of the ablest and most experienced guides concurred in thinking that they would be found very difficult, and yet they presented no difficulty whatever. In truth, the sounder and less broken up are the rocks, the more impracticable do they usually look from a distance; while soft and easily rent rocks, which are often amongst the most difficult and perilous to climb, very frequently look from afar as if they might be traversed by a child.