The Project Gutenberg eBook, Rock-climbing in the English Lake District, by Owen Glynne Jones

Owen Glynne Jones

ROCK-CLIMBING
IN THE
ENGLISH LAKE DISTRICT
BY
OWEN GLYNNE JONES, B.Sc. (Lond.)
MEMBER OF THE ALPINE CLUB
With a Memoir and Portrait of the Author, Thirty-one Full-page
Illustrations in Collotype, Ten Outline Plates of
the Chief Routes, and Two Appendices by
GEORGE AND ASHLEY ABRAHAM
THIRD EDITION
G. P. ABRAHAM AND SONS
KESWICK, CUMBERLAND
1911
All rights reserved
Price 21s. net]

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.

The rapid exhaustion of the first edition of Mr. Owen Glynne Jones’ book on ‘Rock-climbing in the English Lake District,’ and further numerous enquiries for copies of this unique and invaluable work, induced us to make arrangements for the publication of another issue. A third edition has now become necessary.

Since the first edition appeared in 1897, several important new climbs have been made, most of which have been written about by the author, and are here found just as they left his pen. Of some of the other climbs nothing had been written, so, in response to the request of several climbing friends, two appendices, bringing the book up to date, have been added. The memoir by Mr. W. M. Crook, which is accompanied by an excellent portrait of Mr. Jones, will, we are sure, be welcomed by all as a valuable addition to the work.

We are glad to avail ourselves of this opportunity of acknowledging the kindness of several friends for much valuable advice and assistance given.

G. P. ABRAHAM & SONS,
Keswick.

PREFACE.

I feel I owe a word of apology to the readers of this brief and inadequate memoir of a dead friend. At the request of Jones’ most intimate friends I have compiled it in the scanty leisure moments of a few weeks of a busy life, too few to do justice to my theme. I wish to return my heartiest thanks to those of his friends who have so quickly and generously aided me with the materials at their disposal, especially to Mr. F. W. Hill, Dr. W. E. Sumpner, the brothers Abraham, of Keswick; Mr. W. J. Williams, Mr. Harold Spender, and M. Spahr, of Evolena. I hope if any inaccuracies are detected by these or other friends, they will communicate with me. It has been difficult to avoid them, for all the written documents do not agree in facts and dates. I trust, however, that this brief record of great effort, great achievement, and great tragedy will be more acceptable than no record at all.

W. M. CROOK.

National Liberal Club,
Whitehall Place, London, S. W.
Feb. 26th, 1900.

Region separate, sacred, of mere, and of ghyll, and of mountain,
Garrulous, petulant beck, sinister laughterless tarn;
Haunt of the vagabond feet of my fancy for ever reverting,
Haunt and home of my heart, Cumbrian valleys and fells;
Yours of old was the beauty that rounded my hours with a nimbus,
Touched my youth with bloom, tender and magical light;
You were my earliest passion, and when shall my fealty falter?
Ah, when Helvellyn is low! Ah, when Winander is dry!
William Watson.

OWEN GLYNNE JONES.

CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE AND FIRST CLIMBS

Owen Glynne Jones was born on November 2nd, 1867. A Welshman by blood, he was a Londoner by birth, for he first saw the light of day in Clarendon Street, Paddington. His father, Mr. David Jones, was a carpenter and builder, and the son commenced his education at a local school. Of his early life there is little to tell. He seems to have spent his holidays in Wales, and there to have developed, among what may without inaccuracy be called his native mountains, that passion for climbing which made him famous, and which led to his early and much lamented death.

In 1881, when not yet fourteen years of age, Owen Jones was sent to the Central Foundation School in Cowper Street, City Road, of which Dr. Wormell was head master. Those who knew him there speak of him as ‘a bright, promising schoolboy.’

He remained at Dr. Wormell’s for three years (1881-1884). He distinguished himself in science and won several prizes while at the school. On leaving he was awarded the Holl scholarship, and passed to the Technical College at Finsbury, under the City and Guilds of London Institute.

Jones spent two years (1884-1886) at Finsbury. During that time he passed through the complete course of instruction in the Mechanical department there. He worked with conspicuous ability and success at mechanical engineering, mechanical drawing, mathematics, and chemistry, as well as in the mechanical laboratory and in the wood and iron workshops. When he left, his teachers spoke of him in the highest terms. ‘Mr. O. G. Jones,’ said Professor Perry, ‘was as able, as earnest, as promising as any other whom I can now remember.’ Mr. John Castell-Evans speaks of his ‘eager enthusiasm and scrupulous conscientiousness;’ and Professor Silvanus Thompson wrote of him: ‘He is imbued with modern methods, ... and is possessed of a healthy enthusiasm for his work that is infectious.’ At the close of his course he passed with a Clothworkers’ Scholarship to the Central Institution in Exhibition Road, South Kensington, where he passed the next three years of his life.

The three years (1886-1889) he spent in the Engineering Department, and at the end of his course he had attained the highest position in the class-list of any student of his year, and he received the diploma of Associate of the Institute. On the completion of his course he was appointed assistant in the Mathematical Department. During his life at South Kensington he made the same impression as heretofore on all with whom he came in contact. Intellectually alert, diligent, energetic, enthusiastic, he seemed bound to make some mark in the world.

In the year following the completion of his course, and while he was an assistant at South Kensington, I first met him.

It was during the Easter holidays of 1890. Having broken away from the party with whom I had been spending most of my holiday in Borrowdale, I made my way to Wastdale Head Inn. I picked up a chance acquaintance with two young fellows in the inn, and we agreed to go together to climb the Pillar Rock—with the aid of a ‘Prior’s Guide’ which I had in my pocket.

When we commenced the ascent, which proved very easy—I believe we went up the easiest way—the dark, slim young fellow somehow naturally assumed the lead. Before we started he had discovered that I had been to Switzerland and had done some climbs there, so he was very modest about his own powers. A few seconds on the rocks dissipated all doubt. With great confidence and speed, climbing cleanly and safely, he soon showed he was no ordinary climber. I had been out with some very tolerable Swiss guides, but never before with a man to whom rock-climbing seemed so natural and easy. My curiosity was excited. He could not be one of the great climbers, for he had never been out of the British Islands, but he could climb.

On the top we found a small, rusty tin box, in which were a number of visiting cards. One of these belonged to Mr. A. Evans, of Liverpool, and a subsequent visitor had written on it the date of his death in the central gully of Llewedd. One of us produced a card, on which the other two wrote their names. The dark young fellow signed his name ‘O. G. Jones.’ I wonder if that card is there still.

That afternoon and the following day he plied me with questions about Switzerland. How did the climbing there compare with these rocks? Had I climbed the Matterhorn? Did I think he could do it?—absurd question—and so on. Restless, eagerly active, very strong, good-tempered, enthusiastic, he was a man one could not forget. We parted after a day’s acquaintance. I never dreamed I should see him again.

His companion on that occasion was another South Kensington man, Dr. Sumpner, now of Birmingham. The next time we met was at Jones’s grave in Evolena. During our conversations at that first brief meeting I learned that Jones was at South Kensington; he told me he first learned serious climbing on Cader Idris; I marvelled at his wonderful grip of the rocks, his steady head, his extraordinary power of balancing himself on one foot in what seemed to me then almost impossible positions, and I felt that his enthusiasm would soon lead him to the Alps, if any opportunity offered. His heart was already there. Yet he was so ignorant of the ‘lingo’ of the climbing world that my use of the words ‘handholds’ and ‘footholds’ considerably amused him.

The following Easter he was again among the Lake Mountains, having devoted the Whitsuntide and Christmas holidays of the preceding year to his favourite pursuit, the last mentioned period being spent in North Wales. I hurry over his climbing in the Lake District for the very sufficient reason that in this volume, so characteristic of its author, his work there is described by himself with all the accuracy of a trained scientist, and with all the enthusiasm of an ardent mountaineer. Descriptions of all these climbs were kept by him in numerous small notebooks, full of neat shorthand with dates, proper names, &c., written in, and with occasional pen and ink sketches of his routes up crags and gullies to illustrate the shorthand notes. Full of mournful interest are these touches of a vanished hand, these silent echoes of a voice that is still.

It was, I believe, during this Easter of 1891 that he met Mr. Monro, to whose enthusiasm he was subsequently wont to attribute his first visit to the Alps, which took place in the autumn of that year. The result of that meeting and the wonderful amount of climbing in ‘the playground of Europe’ that Jones managed to cram into eight short years must be reserved for another chapter.

CHAPTER II
CONQUERING THE ALPS

In the autumn of 1891 Owen Jones was an unsuccessful candidate for the Professorship of Physics at University College, Aberystwyth, and almost immediately afterwards he was the successful candidate for the post of Physics Master in the City of London School, which he was occupying at the time of his death. In the previous year, 1890, he had taken his B.Sc. degree in London University, coming out third in the list of First Class Honours in Experimental Physics. These facts are mentioned here now, somewhat out of their proper chronological order, because, with the exception of a few papers he contributed to magazines (the Alpine Journal, the Climber’s Journal, and Cassell’s Magazine) and sundry newspaper articles, they are the only facts that need be mentioned in his otherwise uneventful, though busy, life.

Jones’ real life was lived among his beloved mountains. His devotion to them was unsurpassable, his zeal was consuming, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. In the summer holidays of 1891 he had his first introduction to the Alps. His most original work was undoubtedly done among the rocks of his native Wales and in the English Lake country, but he flung himself into Alpine work with all the ardour and energy of which his peculiarly ardent and energetic nature was capable. He spared neither time, money, nor comfort in his devotion to the noblest and most exacting of all sports—that of mountaineering.

The following table—very imperfect, I fear—compiled by his own hand up to the close of 1897, and for 1898 and 1899, from letters kindly sent to me by his friends, will give some idea of his marvellous physical endurance and the extent of his knowledge of the Alps. His own portion of the list was found in his handwriting in his copy of Cunningham and Abney’s ‘Pioneers of the Alps’:—

I cannot pretend that this list is perfect, and the brief notes I append are intended rather to give in a small space some of the points of human interest in the above bald list of names than for his mountaineering friends, to whom anything that could be printed here could convey little or nothing that was new.

It is a coincidence that he commenced his acquaintance with the Alps in the very valleys—Ferpècle and Arolla—in which he spent the last days of his life, and down which his friends mournfully escorted his body eight years later. It was on one of the Dents de Veisivi (the Petite Dent) that, in 1898, Professor Hopkinson, one of Jones’ numerous climbing friends, met his death with his two daughters and his son. As we walked down the Arolla valley the day before he fell from the Dent Blanche, Owen Jones was chatting, with a wonderful freshness of recollection of detail, of his climb up the Grand Combin during his first season in the Alps, and I believe the guide who led him up then was one of the search party from Evolena who found his body on the rocks of the Dent Blanche.

The earlier climbs of 1892 were described by him in a paper entitled ‘The Dom Grat and the Fletschhorn Ridge,’ which appeared in the Alpine Journal in 1898. A brief quotation from his own account will give some idea of the easy vivacity of his style.

Speaking of the Saas peaks which ‘were designed in pairs,’ he writes:—

‘It is, perhaps, to our credit that we took an easy pair first—the Mittaghorn and the Egginer—but our stay at Saas that year was to be short, and we could not afford to fail at higher work. A couple of Saas loafers undertook to guide us, but proved to be lamentably weak. They shed tears and ice-axes, and required much help from us dismayed amateurs. Then we left the district, and before my next visit my comrades were scattered over the globe, beyond the seductive influence of axe and rope.’

How characteristic of poor Jones the whole of that passage is! The unconcealed evidence of his own great physical strength, the playful sense of humour—his friends will remember how he used to explain his own initials, O.G., as standing for the ‘Only Genuine Jones’—in the words ‘they shed tears and ice-axes,’ and the touch of pathos, in the light of after events, of the phrase ‘beyond the seductive influence of axe and rope.’

The omission of the names of the Mittaghorn and Egginerhorn from Jones’s own list in 1892 shows that even his own record cannot be regarded as complete, a thing not to be wondered at considering the enormous amount of work he did.

It will be noticed that in this year, as in the year before and in 1894, Jones has entered the names of peaks and passes that in the succeeding years he would have considered quite unworthy of serious notice.

But next year he ventured on a feat that, so far as I know, was not only extraordinary for one with comparatively so little experience of the higher Alps, magnificent climber though he was, but it has remained, I believe, unique in the annals of the great mountain on which it was performed. At Easter, 1893, Jones climbed the Dent Blanche, the mountain with which his name will be for ever associated in the climbing world. The ascent was made on the 25th and 26th April, and the expedition took thirty-six hours, a wonderful feat of strength and endurance. M. Adrien Spahr, the landlord of the Hotel de la Dent Blanche at Evolena, and of the new Kurhaus at Arolla (from which Jones started the day before his last, fatal climb), has kindly favoured me with the following brief note in reference to that expedition:—

‘C’est bien le 25 Avril, 1893, que Monsieur Jones a fait l’ascension de la Dent Blanche avec les guides Pierre Gaspoz et Antoine Bovier père d’Evolène. Je suis redescendu moi-même avec lui depuis Evolène à Sion.’

In an interview which appeared in the press in 1894 Jones said of this climb, one of the most difficult things he ever did:—‘The longest day I ever had afoot was at Easter, ’93, doing the Dent Blanche. We took two guides and a porter, and had great difficulty in getting them to attempt the last two hundred feet. We were out in the open for thirty-six hours, with very short rests, no sleep, and excessive labour, but we revelled in every minute of it. The mountain was in a dangerous condition, and the last five hours on the way home we spent in wading, waist-deep, through soft snow. It was rather painful, of course, but there was a certain pleasure even in our pain, for it helped to make philosophers of us. We agreed to think of other things in the midst of our sufferings, and we succeeded creditably well. I believe now that I could stand almost anything in the way of pain or exposure.’

In 1894 he commenced in the Engadine and then went on to the Dolomites, where his great skill as a cragsman and his familiarity with all sorts of rock-work made him much more at home than he yet was among the snow-peaks, as his list shows. On rocks I think it is not using the exaggerated language of friendship to say that he probably had no superior among his countrymen at the time of his death, and comparatively few equals. Among the great snow-peaks he had not attained so high a level. Had he lived he would, I believe, have ranked with the greatest, for he had not done all he was capable of; and when he met his death he was still in his prime, and he was a man of great courage, immense resourcefulness, and phenomenal physical endurance.

In 1895 he devoted himself largely to the reduction of the great peaks in the Zermatt district, some of which he already knew. In that year also he returned to the Dom Grat and the Fletschhorn Ridge, whose acquaintance he had made in 1892. The following passage from the Alpine Journal derives an added interest from the fact that Elias Furrer was his guide then, as he was his guide on the last, fatal climb:—

‘In August, 1895, Elias Furrer took me from the Täsch Alp to the Mischabeljoch, and thence over the Täschhorn and Dom to Randa, a course of seventeen and a half hours, including halts. Shortly afterwards Mr. W. E. Davidson followed our route from the Mischabeljoch. During the same week Furrer showed me a third pair of the Saas peaks. We bivouacked on the Eggfluh rocks one bitterly cold night, and next day traversed the Südlenspitze and Nadelhorn. The usual grande course is to include the Ulrichshorn, and descend to Saas again; but Furrer had business and I fresh raiment at Zermatt, and we hastened over the Stecknadelhorn (or was it the Hohberghorn?), and thence by the Hohberg Pass and Festi glacier down to Randa in fourteen hours from the start.’

His energy in climbing this year was remarkable, I had almost said stupendous. In addition to the long climbs referred to in the above extract, it will be seen from the list given above that he twice ascended the Zinal Rothhorn, traversed the Obergabelhorn and Matterhorn, and did two important climbs without guides. The ascent of the Rothhorn from Zinal was the first that Mr. Hill and he made together in Switzerland. The traverse of the Rothhorn and the ascent of the Weisshorn he did without guides, in company with the Hopkinsons, who perished in 1898 on the Petite Dent de Veisivi. Mr. W. J. Williams, who climbed much with Jones in the Alps, has kindly placed in my hands a very characteristic post-card of Jones’s, giving, in his own brief, vivacious way, a clearer idea of his boundless enthusiasm and energy in his favourite sport than anything that anyone else could write. It is dated ‘Bellevue, Zermatt, Monday, Sept. 2, 1895,’ and reads as follows:—‘The Hopkinsons and I traversed the Rothhorn without guides in grand style. Reached the summit from the Mountet in 4¼ hours, including ¾ hour halt. Had a shock of earthquake on the top. Next day we went up to the Weisshorn, bivouac in open air, and the day after managed the Weisshorn. It was delightful. Then they went off to their people at the Bel Alp, and I stayed on at Zermatt ever since. The weather was bad at the end of the week (Weisshorn on Friday), but on Monday I crossed the Furggenjoch with Elias Furrer, whom I took on for 14 days at 20 francs, and Tuesday traversed the Matterhorn; Wednesday, the Monte Rosa hut; Thursday, Monte Rosa from the Lysjoch, a lengthy expedition, but magnificent; I carried my camera the whole time; Friday, the Fluh Alp; Saturday, the traverse of Rimpfischhorn from the Adler pass, dangerous by falling stones, but very jolly; Sunday, I rested and photographed down here. To-day I go to the Täsch Alp, and to-morrow shall attempt the traverse of Täschhorn and Dom in one day. If the weather still holds I shall then traverse the Dent Blanche, which is now in fine condition, like ourselves. Love to all.—Owen.’

Lived there ever a keener mountaineer? On the day before he was killed, as we were walking down the Arolla Valley together, I expressed surprise at the vast amount of eager work he was crushing into every week. He replied, ‘You see there are only a few years in which I can do this sort of thing, and I want to get as much into them as possible.’ Alas! Owen Jones had not twenty-four hours more; the years were ended.

The season of 1896 was a terribly bad one and Jones suffered with less energetic and less daring mortals. In the Alpine Journal he laments that he only did six peaks, but he crossed the Col du Géant twice, traversed the Aiguille de Charmoz, and did the North peak of the Périades by the Arête du Capucin. And the disappointments of that summer season had the effect of sending him to the Alps in the following winter—his first winter visit. He deserted his favourite Christmas hunting grounds, Wastdale Head Inn and Pen-y-gwrwd, for the Bear Hotel at Grindelwald. It so happened that I was there when he arrived. On the last day of 1896 I had made an unsuccessful attempt on the Schreckhorn after being out fourteen and a half hours, and after an accident to the leading guide, which confined him to bed for three weeks. I returned to Grindelwald and thence to England. Jones, who had just come out, determined to climb the Sehreckhorn. The first attempt failed, as the snow was in very bad condition, and he only got as far as the hut, where he spent a far from comfortable night. A few days later, however, he made a second attempt with successful results. Both in print and in manuscript he has left an account of the two expeditions. I quote a short passage—it has not too close a relation to the climbs, but it illustrates the playful humour which made Jones so charming and vivacious a companion, alike in an alpine hut or in the smoke room of ‘P.Y.G.’

‘I approach for a moment with some delicacy the threadbare topic of the insect population of alpine huts, the fauna of the alpine bed. In summertime the traveller must not assume that the straw on which he lies is more dead than alive. Carelessness in this respect may cost him his peak next day; he should bring Keating and use it liberally. But in winter he is almost safe and unmolested. Some say that the fleas go down to the valley with the last autumn party, and come up in the early summer with the first tourists. Others think that they hibernate in the warmest corners of the hut and make it a rule to emerge only when it is well worth while. An occasional winter tourist is probably too tough, his attractions too few. The solution of the problem I must leave to others. It will probably be offered by some conscientious German biologist, in an exhaustive illustrated monograph, published in the Mittheilungen.’

The autumn holidays of this year were again very busy ones. Jones spent them in the Alps, and, as his list shows, his climbs included the traverse of the Aletschhorn, Aiguille du Moine, and Pic du Tacul. He did the Portiengrat and Weissmies in one day, and the Fletschhorn and Laquinhorn in another. Young Emil Imseng was his guide, and he found Jones rather too hungry for peaks to be the easiest sort of patron to travel with. When they had done the Portiengrat he had had enough for one day, so he suggested that Jones should rest. But he did not know his ‘Herr;’ the Weissmies was taken that day likewise.

In 1898 Jones again paid a winter visit to the Alps. Grindelwald was a second time his centre. He crossed from there to Rosenlaui by the Wetterhorn-Sattel, and crossed the Finsteraarjoch and the Strahlegg.

In the Summer of 1898 he went first to Chamounix, and afterwards to Zermatt, and got through a portentous amount of work. He began by attempting the traverse of the two Drus, but failed owing to bad weather. However, he climbed the Grand Dru, and then in rapid succession the Grépon, Dent du Requin, Aiguille du Chardonnet, Aiguille du Midi, Mont Maudit, traversed Mont Blanc, climbed the Aiguille du Géant, and finished up in that district by accomplishing his formerly thwarted purpose, and traversing both the Grand and the Petit Dru.

Then he came on to Zermatt. He climbed the Riffelhorn again (by the Matterhorn Couloir), did the two peaks of the Lyskamm (in conversation with me the last time I met him he seemed to think this the most difficult thing he had ever done) and Castor, Strahlhorn and Rimpfischhorn, Wellen Kuppe and Gabelhorn, Allalinhorn and Alphubel, Dent Blanche (by the south arête), the Täschhorn by the Teufelsgrat, and the traverse of the Dom, Täschhorn and Kienhorn.

I was standing outside the Monte Rosa Hotel, in the main street of Zermatt, one bright sunny day, that summer, when early in the afternoon Jones, with his two guides, came in from one of these climbs. He had been frequently doing two peaks in one day (I believe he had once done three). All the party showed signs of wear and tear, but Jones was the freshest of the three. His face and hands were as brown as berries, covered with dust and sweat; his clothes were literally in rags, torn to pieces on the rocks. Yet in a few minutes he had washed, changed into the garb of civilization, and reappeared as fresh in body and as vigorous and vivacious intellectually as if he had undergone no fatigue at all. Twenty hours’ physical work did not appear to take as much out of him as five hours does out of humbler mortals.

It was just about this time that his friends the Hopkinsons were killed in the Arolla Valley. Jones was a good deal upset by the news, and knocked off climbing for a couple of days, a wonderful thing for him; but then he resumed as busily as ever. Of the climbing skill both of Dr. Hopkinson and of his young son, who was killed with him, he spoke in the highest terms. He had frequently climbed with both.

I have said little of Jones’s British climbs, for the simple reason that the fullest and best record of his work in Lakeland is contained in the book to which this brief memoir is prefixed, and his work in Wales (which he also intended to describe in a volume) is not so easily accessible or so fully recorded in any published documents as is his work in the Alps. Apparently there does not exist among his papers any list of his Welsh climbs, though he kept voluminous shorthand notes of almost everything he did in the climbing world; but it is not possible, in the short space and time at my disposal, to attempt to give from them any complete picture of the work he did in Wales. The Messrs. Abraham, however, have kindly placed in my hands the following brief notes of some of the most remarkable experiences they have had in company with Jones, both in Wales and in the Lake District:

‘Two climbs with Mr. Jones are most strongly impressed on our memories, and these two would probably rank as the two finest rock climbs made in our district.

‘These are Scawfell Pinnacle from the second pitch in Deep Ghyll in 1896, and the conquest of the well-known Walker’s Gully on the Pillar Rock in January, 1899.

‘Both of these were generally considered impossible, and it is probably no exaggeration to say that no leader excepting Mr. Jones would have had confidence to advance beyond the ledge where the last arête commenced on the Scawfell Pinnacle climb.

‘The same thing might be still more emphatically said of the last pitch in Walker’s Gully, and to those who know the place it is almost incredible that the climb could even be commenced under such conditions as prevailed during the first ascent.

‘We visited North Wales with Mr. Jones in 1897, and explored the climbs in the Cader Idris district. The finest climb in this district is the Great Gully above Llyn-y-Cae on Mynydd Pencoed, and Mr. Jones was the first explorer and climber of this and most of the Cader Idris climbs. Some time was also spent at Penygwryd during this visit, but unsuitable weather prevented any climbs of importance being done.

‘Shortly after Easter, 1899, Mr. Jones paid his next visit to North Wales, and on this occasion much new and first-class climbing was done from Ogwen Cottage as centre.

‘The second ascent of Twll Du was made by a party led by Mr. Jones, and shortly afterwards the two great gullies to the right of Twll Du were first ascended under Mr. Jones’ leadership. Amongst several minor first ascents the gully in the Eastern Buttress of Glyder Fach and the first direct ascent of the Northern Buttress on Tryfaen from Cwm-y-Tryfaen are most worthy of note.

‘The following Whitsuntide again saw Mr. Jones at Ogwen Cottage, but the weather conditions were such as to prevent any very notable climbing being recorded.

‘Of course it is impossible to give in the space at my disposal any idea of the large amount of climbing done in these various districts by Mr. Jones.

‘To one with his abnormal physical powers, and true love and enthusiasm for the mountains the most was generally made of every opportunity to climb.

‘He was never so happy as when in a really ‘tight’ place, and to many climbers the spirit and energy shown by him under most trying circumstances will act as an incentive to worthy imitation.

‘As a climber he was unique, and many years must elapse ere another can hope to fill his place worthily; but, as a friend under all circumstances, he was always to be depended upon, for the weakest and heaviest members in every party were generally his special care, and many can never forget his true unselfishness and the kindly way in which personal blunders were criticised.

‘Whether the party was struggling up a waterfall or resting shivering and wet under a huge chock-stone, or clinging desperately to a wind-swept ridge or icy couloir, everyone felt happy with Jones as their comforter and leader.

‘The musical gatherings in the evenings seem now to lack one voice, and nought but sadness can be left for many of those who remember companionships which can never be replaced.’

CHAPTER III
THE LAST SEASON IN THE ALPS

I come now to the last season in the Alps, the season of 1899. The first part of his holiday was spent at Zermatt, and then he and Hill met by arrangement at the Kurhaus at Arolla. They soon got to work, beginning with the two Dents de Veisivi (the scene of the accident to the Hopkinsons the previous year) and the Dent Perroc, in twelve hours from the Kurhaus and back. Then followed the Aiguille de la Za by the face, a traverse of all the peaks of the Aiguilles Rouges, Mont Blanc de Seilon and the Pigne d’Arolla in one day, the Dent des Bouquetins, and the traverse of Mont Collon. A slight accident to one of the party of which I was a member, necessitated an unexpected descent on the evening of August 26th to Arolla, in the hope of finding a doctor. There was none there, but we found many friends and acquaintances, among them being Owen Jones. On the morning of Sunday 27th, our party left for Evolena just after breakfast, as we heard there was a German doctor there, and we wanted our wounded member attended to without delay. Just as we were starting we found Jones and Hill leaving also, intending to traverse the Dent Blanche, climbing it by the west arête, which had only been done twice before, and we all hoped shortly to meet again in Zermatt.

It was a bright sunny morning, hot and dusty. For a good part of the way from Arolla to Haudères I chatted to Jones. We did not go very fast on account of the damaged member of our party, about whom Jones was very solicitous. He himself seemed very fit, and was full of life and enthusiasm for his favourite passion. He chatted freely of all his climbs, of our first meeting nine years before, of all that had happened since, of frostbite on the Dom, and the remedy—sticking his fingers into boiling glue—worse than the disease. His traverse of the ice arête between the two peaks of the Lyskamm and his Easter ascent of the Dent Blanche seemed to me to have made the deepest impression on him of all his achievements in the mountains. He was rather inclined to underrate his wonderful rock-work in North Wales and in the Lake District, a department in which, in my opinion, he was really greatest, though his feats of endurance in the Alps were something off the common. He told me that his ambitions inclined towards a tour in the Himalayas, if circumstances allowed of his realising that dream.

At Haudères we parted company. Hill and Jones, with their guides, who met them at Haudères, turned up to Ferpècle; we went on to Evolena. If my friend’s health permitted, I had arranged to see Jones in Zermatt on Tuesday afternoon. Difficult as was the expedition he was undertaking, the awful reality of the morrow never crossed my mind even as a possibility. A stronger or more well-equipped party I had never seen start on an expedition. It was about 12-30 when we all said good-bye.

At Evolena the doctor ordered our invalid a day or two of complete rest. So on Monday morning the third member of our party, with his guide, started for the Col de la Meina to return to his wife, whom he had left in the Val des Bagnes, from which we had come. For the sake of the walk I accompanied them to the top of the Col. About 9-15, just before we lost sight of the west arête of the Dent Blanche, I searched the arête with my field glasses to see if any trace of Jones and Hill’s party could be detected. None of us could see anything, so we concluded, as the mountain was in very good condition, that they had probably already got to the top, and were then descending by the south arête. But they were still on the arête, though we failed to see them on the dark rocks. Had it been three-quarters of an hour later we might actually have been witnesses of the accident.

On the top of the Col de la Meina we were caught by a storm of mist and rain, blowing up from the west. I bade adieu to my friends and hastened back to Evolena. That was the mist which caught Mr. Hill on the gendarme in his descent after the accident and detained him 22 hours alone on the great mountain.

But of the accident no one dreamed. No premonition, no presentiment, troubled our thoughts. Monday and Tuesday passed quietly and uneventfully for us.

On Wednesday morning my friend got permission from his doctor to walk up to Arolla for lunch. We gladly availed ourselves of the new freedom.

At Arolla we found many of Jones’s friends hoping to meet him shortly in the Zermatt Valley. On our way back to Evolena we passed the body of the Tiroler guide, Reinstadler, of Sulden, which was being carried down the valley. He had been killed on Monday, August 28th—that black and fatal day in the Evolena Valley—by falling into a crevasse on the Pigne d’Arolla.

As we re-entered the garden of our hotel, M. Spahr met us looking very grave. ‘Had we heard of the great accident on the Dent Blanche?’ For the first time the thought of danger to Jones and Hill crossed my mind. I quickly asked him for details, telling him why I was apprehensive.

He had had a telegram from Dr. Seiler from Zermatt, which he showed me. It was in French and ran something like this: ‘A tourist and three guides have fallen from the Dent Blanche. A caravan of guides is starting from Zermatt to look for the bodies, which will reach Haudères about six o’clock to-morrow evening. Have four coffins ready at Haudères. I am coming round myself.—Seiler.’

Four bodies! This could not be Jones and Hill’s party, there would be five or three, for they had intended to make the ascent on two ropes, three and two respectively on each. If all five had been roped together, one could not have been saved. My mind grew easier. So we reason when we do not know.

But I could not avoid thinking of the awful accident, and as I thought my fears returned. No other party had left the Evolena Valley for the Dent Blanche that week. The bodies had fallen on the Evolena side. It was improbable they had climbed from the Zermatt side. Could it be that the fifth body had not been seen? One climber and three guides was a most unusual party? I grew uneasy again, and finally telegraphed to Dr. Seiler: ‘Have Messrs. Jones and Hill arrived?’

While we were waiting for dinner and a reply, a voice hailed me by name out of the gathering gloom. It was that of Mr. Harold Spender, who had just driven up the valley with his sister and a younger brother, Mr. Hugh Spender. We exchanged greetings and discussed the accident. I told them what I feared.

We were sitting in the balcony outside the hotel in the summer darkness when a villager put a yellow telegraph envelope in my hand. I hastily tore it open, and this is what I read: ‘M. Hill arrived safely this morning, but Jones and three guides fell an hour and a half from the top on Monday morning.—Seiler.’

Owen Glynne Jones was dead. My mind almost reeled at the fact. Intellectually I knew it must be so, but I was utterly unable to realise it. I could almost hear the sound of his voice and the rattle of the nails of his dusty boots on the stones that last Sunday morning. But his voice was stilled for ever.

And Hill! He had escaped, but how? Where had he been since Monday morning? Out on the mountain alone, without guides, or food, or drink. The thing was incredible, impossible. But the impossible and the incredible was true.

At eleven o’clock fifteen guides and Mr. Harold Spender started as a search party. My injured friend and myself went with them as far as we could. The little village was already in darkness, swathed in sorrow. For the telegram that brought me news of Jones’ death announced the death of a village guide too.

In the chapel only lights burned. It was the vigil round the body of Reinstadler. Silently and sadly we tramped up the valley along the carriage road to Haudères. Then in single file, like an army on a night march, we marched up the steep and narrow path to Ferpècle. Far below us, on our right, the torrent roared. We picked precarious steps by the light of our lanterns and the aid of our axes. We talked little and in muffled tones.

We reached Ferpècle about 1.30 a.m. on Thursday. The hamlet was asleep. The guides broke eight huge poles out of the fences of the fields and from the outbuildings. Grim duty! The poles were to make four rude biers on which to carry the bodies down.

Between 3 and 4 a.m. we gained the Bricolla Alp, where Jones and Hill had slept the night before the fatal climb. The kindly shepherd provided us with milk and a fire—it was now very cold—and we produced provisions from our rücksacks and had a much-needed meal. It was a curious sight—the little stone hut, a big wood fire blazing in a hole in the floor, pails of milk all round the walls on shelves, a circle of rough weather-beaten men, their faces lighted by the flickering flames and by the uncertain light of one or two of our lanterns. Rembrandtesque—and profoundly sad.

A little after four we went out. The grey dawn was just breaking, but a cold, thick, clammy white mist had swept down on the alp and chilled us to the bone. At the top of the moraine my friend and I had to turn back. We should only have been a hindrance had we gone on, as both of us were damaged. Spender and the guides went forward. Let Mr. Spender describe the rest.

‘At four the column resumed its way. Rain had begun to fall and a dense mist was closing down upon us. But it was soon light enough to put out our lanterns, and courage came with the dawn. We rounded the alp, and then began to climb the long, dreary moraines which lead up to the glacier. The guides went at a terrific pace. But it was good to be taken into this noble fraternity—to be accepted as a comrade and not as a “climber”—to be honoured by a share in the generous quest.

‘But the pace soon slackened. We halted on the edge of the glacier, roped in fours, and began to search gingerly for a way through the terrific ice-fall of the glacier. We were mounting by the old approach to the Dent Blanche, up the ice-fall, now long since abandoned. The glacier was, of course, quite changed since any of these guides had last visited it. The ice was split and rent into every conceivable shape. We were surrounded with leaning towers of ice, threatening at any moment to fall on us and crush us.

‘A great pile of seracs on the Northern ice-fall, across the ridge, fell with a mighty crash. Away to the right we could hear the thunder of avalanches. But never for a moment did the guides hesitate. Steadily and unflinchingly they threaded their way between the menacing seracs. Crossing broken fragments of ice, balancing between profound crevasses, not thwarted but ever searching for a way. At last we suddenly struck upon the tracks of Jones’ party away to the North side of the glacier close to the rocks. There we scrambled up, half by the rocks and half by the ice, and then at last, after many hours, found ourselves on the great plateau beneath the long snow couloir running down from the West Ridge. There, if anywhere, they were likely to be. And there, high up among the rocks, we could just see, with the aid of a good telescope, some dark objects which were not rocks.

‘“There are our friends,” said the guides.

‘Yes, there was no doubt of it. It was now ten o’clock and the sky had cleared. A party was formed, and mounted the rocks to fetch the bodies. As they climbed, suddenly another army of men appeared below us, above the ice-fall, advancing swiftly. They were the party of the Zermatt Guides. They came on unroped, climbing fast. It was a magnificent sight to see this troop of giants in their own element, a troop of equals, masters of peril. They halted below the rocks and sent up another small band to join the Evolena Guides. There was a long pause, and then they all began to descend, bringing the bodies.

‘I will draw a veil over what we found. Men cannot fall many thousands of feet and lie in artistic attitudes.... But it was four o’clock before the Bricolla hut was reached, and darkness had fallen before the bodies came to Haudères. The Zermatt Guides were out for twenty-four hours, and the Evolena Guides over twenty.’

Mr. W. R. Rickmers, a German resident in England, and a member of the Alpine Club, sends the following to the Alpine Journal:—

‘Mr. Seiler sent out thirty guides under Alois Supersaxo. Dr. R. Leuk, Mr. K. Mayr, and Mr. W. R. Rickmers joined them. We left the Staffelalp at 10 p.m. on August 30th, reached the Col d’Hérens at 6 a.m. on the 31st, in fog and snow, which cleared away later on. Descended Ferpècle Glacier towards termination of W. ridge of Dent Blanche, and ascended the small glacier which comes down from point 3,912 on the S. arête. At the spot under the “g” in “Rocs rouges” this glacier forms an icefall (moderately difficult), and besides that a bit of the Glacier de la Dent Blanche hangs over the narrowest part of the W. ridge. We then came to the foot of a great gully. On the map it is the first one from W., and it is very clearly indicated. In the rocks to the right of the couloir (looking down) and about three hundred feet above the rim of the glacier, the bodies were found. It was about 10 a.m., and a party of Evolena guides, accompanied by Mr. Harold Spender, was already on the spot.

‘The height above sea-level was ca. 3,600-3,700 m. Straight above, on the ridge, one saw a smooth cliff (ca. 400-500 feet below summit), and if that was the fatal mauvais pas the fall must have been about 1,500-1,700 feet in a series of clear drops of many hundred feet. The rope was intact between Furrer and Zurbriggen.

‘The guides did their work well; the icefall, of course, caused a great deal of trouble.’

While the search party was crossing the glacier and the snow-fields, I watched them through my glasses. Presently the sun got the better of the morning mist, and the pure white snow gleamed beautifully. Then from the Col d’Hérens there swept a tiny, serpentine black line, moving fast. It was men. I turned my glasses on them. They were the Zermatt party, some thirty strong, advancing at a rare pace. It was a beautiful sight, so masterful, so sure was their progress.

As the long, hot hours of mid-day passed, I descended to Ferpècle, and sent up a boy with food and drink for the certainly wearied searchers when they returned from their sad duties. At length they came, drawing the bodies over the grass slopes till they reached a path where they could be carried on their shoulders. Darkness had fallen when we reached Haudères.

Late on Friday night Mr. Hill came round for the funeral. His voice seemed to me strangely altered. Otherwise he had come through his terrible experience wonderfully, thanks to a splendid constitution and nerves of steel. Then first I heard the true story of the accident. I reproduce his own account from the Alpine Journal. All had roped together early in the climb, and the accident took place about ten o’clock. Mr. Hill says:—

‘When I reached the level of the others, Furrer was attempting to climb the buttress, but, finding no holds, he called to Zurbriggen to hold an axe for him to stand on. Apparently he did not feel safe, for he turned his head and spoke to Jones, who then went to hold the axe steady. Thus we were all on the same level, Vuignier being some twenty-five or thirty feet distant from them and also from me. Standing on the axe, which was now quite firm, Furrer could reach the top of the buttress, and attempted to pull himself up; but the fingerholds were insufficient, and before his foot had left the axe his hands slipped, and he fell backwards on to Zurbriggen and Jones, knocking them both off, and all three fell together. I turned to the wall to get a better hold, and did not see Vuignier pulled off, but heard him go, and knew that my turn would soon come. And when it did not I looked round, and saw my four companions sliding down the slope at a terrific rate, and thirty feet of rope swinging slowly down below me.

‘It is difficult to analyse my sensations at that moment. My main feeling was one of astonishment that I was still there. I can only suppose that Vuignier had belayed my rope securely to protect himself and me during our long wait on the traverse.

‘It must be admitted that Furrer did not choose the best route; but his choice is easy enough to understand, for the only alternative did not look inviting. At all events, it is certain that he acted on his own initiative. I say this reluctantly, and solely for the purpose of contradicting a statement I have read in an account of the accident—that he was induced by Jones to climb straight over the gendarme instead of going round it. It is a pity that historians, who must of necessity be ignorant of the facts, should go out of their way to make such conjectures.

‘The problem before me was a difficult one. It was quite impossible to climb down alone, and I could not expect to succeed where guides had failed; the only course open was to attempt to turn the gendarme on the right. This I succeeded in doing with great difficulty, owing to the ice on the rocks and the necessity of cutting up an ice slope in order to reach the ridge. In about another hour I gained the summit, and was greeted with a faint cooey, probably from the party we had seen. I could not see them nor make them hear, so made my way down with all reasonable speed, hoping to overtake them. When I reached the lowest gendarme—the one with a deep narrow fissure—a sudden mist hid everything from view. It was impossible to see the way off; and while I was trying various routes a snowstorm and cold wind drove me to seek shelter on the lee-side of the rocks. There, tied on with my rope, and still further secured by an ice-axe wedged firmly in front of me, I was forced to remain until mid-day on Tuesday. Then the mist cleared, and, climbing very carefully down the snow-covered rocks I reached the snow arête, where most of the steps had to be re-cut. The next serious difficulty was the lower part of the Wandfluh; I could not remember the way off, and spent two or three hours in futile efforts before I found a series of chimneys on the extreme right, leading down to the glacier. The sun set when I was on the high bank of moraine on the Zmutt Glacier, and in the growing darkness it was far from easy to keep the path. The light in the Staffel Alp inn was a guide as long as it lasted, but it went out early, and, keeping too low down, I passed the inn without seeing it, and being forced to stop by the nature of the ground, spent the night by the side of the torrent. It was late in the morning when I awoke, and then a scramble of a few minutes brought me to the path, near the sign-post, and I reached Zermatt at half-past eleven.’

Mr. Hill’s escape is one of the most wonderful in the history of mountaineering. His endurance and courage are not less remarkable. To have been out alone, in bad weather, without anything to eat save five raisins, and with nothing to drink but ice and snow, on a difficult and dangerous mountain, and to have returned safely is, I believe, a record in climbing annals. I may add a few details, given me by Mr. Hill when I first met him after the accident, which he has not reproduced in the above narrative.

He thinks his companions were killed instantaneously. They uttered no sound; they made no apparent attempt to save themselves. With arms outspread they rolled helplessly down the awful face of the mountain. He watched them for a few seconds, powerless to help, if help would indeed have availed, and then turned from the sickening sight.

During the last part of his descent, even his great strength began to fail. Once, on the Wandfluh, he lost his axe and had to spend an hour in climbing down to recover it, as it was absolutely essential to his safety. After he left the Zmutt glacier in darkness, he appears to have become delirious. He was constantly talking to imaginary companions. He fell into holes in the ground and went to sleep without strength to rise. He wakened from cold, called to his companions to go on as it was time to be leaving, stumbled, and fell asleep again.

On Saturday morning Dr. Sumpner arrived, having travelled straight through from Birmingham to Evolena. Friends tramped down from Arolla, others had come from Zermatt, the secretary of Jones’s section of the Swiss Alpine Club came from near Neuchâtel. A carriage bore Jones’s plain black coffin, with a gilt cross on it, down from Haudères. We buried him and the Evolena guide, Vuignier, in the little graveyard of the Roman Catholic church, almost in sight of the glorious, but terrible, mountain on which they met their fate. The scene in the village almost baffles description. All the villagers, men and women, attended the funeral, clad in coarse white robes. The grief of the women, especially of Vuignier’s poor old mother, was heart-rending to witness. The little Roman Catholic chapel was crowded, the congregation all in white, save the acolytes, two village boys, who served the altar in their coarse brown, everyday clothes, and the choir, whose strong voices rang through the whitewashed, humble building. A little knot of Englishmen, sunbrowned, of another faith or of no faith at all, joined in the impressive and solemn service. It was a sight that no one present can ever forget.

After the service, we bore the two coffins to the graveyard. Rev. Mr. Scott, the Anglican chaplain, read the English burial service over Owen Jones’s grave. Mr. Hill sent a beautiful wreath of edelweiss and the foliage of the Alpine rose. A rude wooden cross marked the spot till Jones’s friends erected a suitable gravestone. The lovely warm sunshine and the bright blue sky, and the gleaming snows on the slopes of the Dent Blanche, formed a curious contrast to the mourning of the village in that Alpine valley.

Thus perished, as he would, I doubt not, like to have died, Owen Glynne Jones, a brave and dashing mountaineer, a cheery and kindly friend, whose presence will be long missed by all who had the privilege of knowing him. His death was due to a pure accident, occurring when he was in the plenitude of his powers, and when he seemed just about to reap the reward of long years of patient, ardent toil.

W. M. CROOK.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

OUTLINE DRAWINGS OF THE CHIEF ROUTES

INTRODUCTION

Some eight years ago chance led me to the Lake District for the first time, and a kindly acquaintance whom I then met at Wastdale taught me something of the joys of rock-climbing. Since that occasion every holiday has been spent on the mountains, either in Cumberland or North Wales or Switzerland, and they have taught me much that is worth knowing and that when once learnt can never be forgotten. Men with the highest literary qualifications have written of the charm of mountaineering, and every aspect of the subject has been touched upon with fullest justice and with a grace of style that has captivated many a non-climber in spite of his prejudices. Yet I cannot refrain from adding my own humble tribute of praise to the sport that has done so much for me and my best friends.

It satisfies many needs; the love of the beautiful in nature; the desire to exert oneself physically, which with strong men is a passionate craving that must find satisfaction somehow or other; the joy of conquest without any woe to the conquered; the prospect of continual increase in one’s skill, and the hope that this skill may partially neutralize the failing in strength that comes with advancing age or ill-health.

Hunting and fishing enthral many men, but mountaineering does not claim the sacrifice of beasts and fishes. Cricket and football are magnificent sports, and it is a perpetual satisfaction that the British races are becoming enthusiastic in their appreciation of keen contests in these games. Yet there is something repulsive in the spectacle of five thousand inactive spectators of a struggling twenty-two, and the knowledge that the main interest of many players and observers is of a monetary character does not tend to convince one of the moral benefits that these sports can offer. On the other hand, it is scarcely fair to judge a sport by those who degrade it in this manner, and we all know that genuine cricketers and footballers play for love and honour.

The mountaineer does not reap any golden harvest by his exertions—even if he writes a book on his subject. He does not exhibit his skill to applauding thousands; and his vanity is rarely tickled by the praise of many. He must be content with the sport itself and what it offers him directly.

Probably the scientific mountaineer gains most. He is certain to acquire rare and valuable knowledge of facts in zoology, botany, or geology, if he starts with the necessary intellectual equipment. The physicist’s mind is perpetually exercised by the natural phenomena he witnesses; mist bows, Brocken spectres, frost haloes, electrical discharges of the queerest description, mirages, all these offer him problems of the most interesting kind. But the fact is, there is so much to do that is directly connected with the climbing itself that the natural sciences are usually left to themselves, and their consideration reserved for special expeditions.

On the other hand, science can often assist the climbing. The engineer can triumph with applications of the rope. He can tell us some facts worth knowing on the value of friction as an aid to stability, on the use of an axe as a support or as a lever, or on the safe methods of negotiating loose stones. The man who knows something of geology is a useful member of an exploring party; he is often able to guess correctly where available passages occur in a wilderness of rock, and can judge at a distance what quality of climbing the party may expect. The expert in mountain weather does not exist; perhaps he does not dare to, or perhaps the subject is too complicated for a nineteenth-century scientist. However this may be, it is worth while paying a little attention to meteorology and noting the quality of weather that follows any definite condition of the wind, the barometer, or the atmospheric temperature.

The causes that have resulted in the publication of this little book are as difficult to define as those that produce a rainy day in the Alps; and, now that the book is written and nothing remains but an introduction, I wish that the reverse order of proceeding had been adopted, and that the introduction had been written as a peg on which succeeding chapters might have been definitely hung.

From the outset the illustrations have been regarded as the chief feature of the book, and it was my good fortune early to obtain the co-operation of Messrs. G. P. Abraham & Sons in the production of good photographs of the most interesting pieces of rock scenery that the Lake District affords. Messrs. George and Ashley Abraham have accompanied me on several climbing excursions with the express purpose of obtaining artistic and yet accurate photographs of the main difficulties that beset the cragsman’s course, and I am bound to add that they are as skilful in tackling severe pitches as they are in taking successful pictures. The practical troubles in manipulating heavy photographic apparatus where most people find work enough in looking solely to their own safety, the frequent impossibility of finding a sufficient contrast in light and shade among the crag recesses, and the subsequent difficulties in development of such awkward subjects, will convince the reader that theirs has been no light task, and at the same time will offer sufficient excuse for certain small defects that we have been unable to eliminate from the photo-mechanical reproductions. These are in collotype on platino-surface paper which shows the fine texture of the rock structures.

For the benefit more particularly of climbers several outline diagrams have been introduced to explain the outlines of those more important crags up each of which many different routes have been found, lines of ascent that cannot be readily recognised in the photographs themselves, and that cannot be briefly described in words. Some of these are purely diagrammatic, where it has been found impossible to base them on good general views. The others are outlined from photographs, and can in most cases be compared directly with the corresponding views from which they are derived.

With the knowledge that I was getting substantial aid in the illustrative portion of the book, the management of the rest has been much simplified. There are very many people who come regularly to the English Lake District to ramble about on the fells and to make the ordinary ascents. Of these, by far the greater number steer clear of the precipices and other steep parts, wisely recognising the danger that attends the inexperienced in such places. Nevertheless, they enjoy the mountains and are charmed with the scenery. They do not know much about the innermost recesses of even their favourite peaks. To many of them Mr. Haskett Smith’s little book on ‘Climbing in England’ must have been a revelation; for it indicates with sufficient clearness that every crag in the country of any considerable dimensions has been explored with wonderful thoroughness by Alpine climbers, and that these abrupt walls and gloomy gullies are the happy hunting-ground of many an enterprising athlete. If my accounts of the different ascents were briefly stated in the orthodox climbing-guide form, the book could appeal to none but the elect; only an athlete in excellent training could digest such solid diet. If, on the other hand, they were recorded in narrative form, with a little expansion of detail where serious difficulties occurred during the expeditions, the book might at the same time appeal to many a tourist who loves the country and who likes to learn more about it. The latter course has been adopted, and it is sincerely to be hoped that the succeeding chapters will interest such tourists.

There was another and more important consideration which helped to decide on the form actually taken. Our Alpine climbers of the highest rank are born, not made. But most of the others, taking with them some natural aptitude and plenty of money, are made abroad. Why do they not take their preliminary training for a year or two in Wales, or Cumberland, or on the Scottish hills? It would be much wiser and cheaper to support the ‘home industry’ so far as it goes, before making their débuts on the high Alps. Our British hills can give them no glacier practice, but they can learn a vast deal concerning rock-climbing before they leave the country. To such as these the book is primarily dedicated. There are no professional guides in Cumberland who know anything about the rocks. The amateur must come out and manage for himself. But it is here intended to show that the Cumberland school is a well-graded one; that the novice can start with the easiest and safest of expeditions, and can work his way up to a standard of skill comparing favourably with that of the average Swiss guide. There is nothing so instructive as guideless climbing, be it ever so humble in character. It makes the man wonderfully critical when taken in hand by guides later on, and renders him also much more able to profit by their practical instruction.

For such beginners, the mere statement of the position of a gully and the number and character of its chief obstacles would be quite useless. He requires something more; a suggestion here and there of the manner in which the troubles can be avoided or overcome, and a comparison of these difficulties with others. It is natural that every man has his own way of employing the limbs; my way of dealing with a pitch might not at all suit another climber, who perhaps relies less upon balance and more on strength of arm than myself, or vice versâ. It is therefore unwise to appear dogmatic in describing methods, and I hasten to assure those knowing critics that I have never meant to appear so. And yet it is none the less a definite object throughout to render the accounts in sufficient detail for those who want assistance in repeating the ascents. I have not hesitated to draw on old experiences, gained when the ground was comparatively new to me; for there is a tendency to depreciate, or indeed to overlook entirely, the difficulties in any familiar route after constant practice has removed those elements that introduce risk or uncertainty of success, and a novice can often explain to a novice far more effectively than an expert.

The Lake District is becoming more popular every year as a centre of operations for cragsmen. Yet there is no corresponding development of a set of professional guides out there, though I believe they would thrive exceedingly, and all stock information about the mountains is confined to a few manuscript books, and to Mr. Haskett Smith’s little publication already referred to. The new comer is continually at a loss for details; he has no means of learning what is difficult or easy, how to circumvent dangerous obstacles or to discover the safe points of attacking them; he is dependent for such facts on chance acquaintances made in the country or on correspondence more or less painfully elicited from authorities. When unsuccessful in these ways he is sometimes tempted to launch out on his own account and wrest the information from the mountains themselves. This heroic method is undoubtedly the most effective, but it involves too much risk for the unpractised hand, and the wonder is that so few serious casualties occur in its application. Such accidents do occur through ignorance of the district, and always will so long as the necessary knowledge that gives safety to the explorer is confined to the few.

Mr. Haskett Smith’s book serves in the fullest manner to indicate where good scrambling can be obtained, to define the few technical terms in the cragsman’s vocabulary, and to give general advice concerning the best centres. It has been of the greatest use to the climbing fraternity, who owe their thanks to him. But he gives no detail of the scrambling itself. He has appealed more particularly to the expert, who can manage all his pioneering for himself. Notably is this the case with the Pillar Rock—practically his own particular preserve—where most of the routes have long since been made out by him. For years he knew the Rock as no one else knew it; every chimney and ridge and wall was within his ken. Yet in his little handbook there is scarcely an indication of the possession of all this unique knowledge. Most climbers expected some expansion in the description of his early explorations; but he has kept rigidly to his scheme of treatment, and dealt but scant justice to himself throughout the work. This book, then, is to be regarded in some sense as supplementary in character, the cordial witness of the good sport obtainable by following his advice and general directions.

There are many men who think well of the sport, but speak slightingly of the narrow field offered for it by the Lake District. No doubt the Alps offer far more scope both in range and quality. But we cannot very conveniently reach Switzerland at every season of the year. At Christmas and Easter it is entirely barred to most people. The expense of foreign travel is a consideration, and the question of length of holiday is rarely negligible. Cumberland can be reached in a night from London; the district is an inexpensive one for tourists. The fact that there are hundreds of climbs at our disposal in the Alps is no great inducement in itself; we can never climb more than one or two at a time, and for most of us there will always remain scores of ascents that we shall never have the opportunity of accomplishing. One can learn how to swim as effectively in a swimming-bath six feet deep as in an ocean; and one can gain an extensive and practical acquaintance with rock-climbing in a district where the whole set of climbs can be accomplished by the expert in a few short holidays, as in a country where the choice is unlimited. Personally I should always go to the high Alps when the chance offered itself, but Cumberland serves remarkably well to allay the desire for mountain air and vigorous exercise when Switzerland is out of the question.

What does it matter that a climb has been done before? Climatic conditions and the members of one’s party introduce sufficient variety. Years ago an expert reporter was trying to teach me shorthand. His method was to induce me to copy out the same report again and again; it was an excellent idea, and the system was well vindicated with apter pupils. Likewise in climbing, an apt pupil will learn rapidly by repetition of the same ascents.

This introduces a point on which I am scarcely qualified to speak, that of physical aptitude on the part of the would-be climber. Mr. Clinton Dent in the Badminton volume bestows a chapter on the subject of ‘Mountaineering and Health.’ Here we have an authoritative summary of the physical qualifications required by the mountaineer, and of the bodily ailments he may possibly incur. A perusal of the chapter will convince the reader of the suitability of a mountainous region such as our own country can offer for preliminary training before the high Alps are approached. There is much less likelihood of over-strain; snow-blindness, frost-bite, and mountain sickness are rarely met with here.

Climbers are absolutely incapable of any sustained effort when they reach certain altitudes, and the limit depends on the individual. It is the misfortune of some to feel an uncomfortable perturbation of the heart when once a definite level is passed. They are well enough able to exert themselves below that level, but can hope for no pleasurable exercise above it. With every desire to climb, with muscle and mind enough to excel in the sport, they are nevertheless debarred from enjoying the high Alps. Let them therefore make the best of our British hills for a while, and then perhaps proceed to the Dolomites in the Austrian Tyrol for fuller applications at a safe low level of what they have here learnt.

Solitary scrambling is universally condemned. Most climbers of experience have learnt something about it, and are unanimous in their unfavourable judgment. Nothing teaches the scrambler so quickly, if his nerve is sufficiently strong; but the penalty paid for slight mistakes is often extreme, and the risk is too great for him to be justified in deliberately choosing the single-handed venture. A party of two makes the strongest combination for most of the ordinary Cumberland climbs; three are generally better for the severest courses. Any beyond that number will to a greater or less extent increase the difficulty of the ascent and the time spent in effecting it.

A rough classification is here appended of over a hundred well-known courses judged under good conditions. They are divided into four sets. The first are easy and adapted for beginners, the second set are moderately stiff, those of the third set rank as the difficult climbs of the district, and the last are of exceptional severity. Some attempt has been made to arrange them in their order of difficulty, the hardest ones coming last; but the variations of condition of each due to wind, temperature, rain, snow, or ice are so extensive that no particular value should be attached to the sequence. But even if only approximately correct, the lists may help men in deciding for themselves where to draw the line that shall limit their own unaided performances. As for the items in the fourth class, they are best left alone. Mark the well-known words of an expert (Mr. C. Pilkington): ‘The novice must on no account attempt them. He may console himself with the reflection that most of these fancy bits of rock-work are not mountaineering proper, and by remembering that those who first explored these routes, or rather created them, were not only brilliant rock gymnasts but experienced and capable cragsmen.’

Easy Courses.

Deep Ghyll, by the west wall traverse.
Cust’s Gully, Great End.
Traverse across Gable Crag.
‘Sheep Walk,’ Gable Crag.
D Gully, Pike’s Crag.
Broad Stand.
Needle Gully.
‘Slab and Notch’ Route, Pillar Rock.
Great End Central Gully (ordinary ways).
South-east Gully, Great End.

Moderate Courses.

West Climb, Pillar Rock.
C Gully, Pike’s Crag.
A Gully, Pike’s Crag.
Bottle-nosed Pinnacle Ridge.
Westmorland Crag, Great Gable.
Penrith Climb, Scawfell.
Scawfell Chimney.
Old Wall Route. Pillar Rock, East Side.
Deep Ghyll (ordinary route).
Scawfell Pinnacle (short way up).
Dolly Waggon Pike Gully.
Raven Crag Chimney, Great Gable.
Crag Fell Pinnacles, Ennerdale.
Gable Crag Central Gully (ordinary way).
Black Chimney (High Stile).
Pendlebury Traverse Route, Pillar Rock.
Combe Ghyll.
Fleetwith Gully (easy way).
Arrowhead Branch Gully
Smoking Rock, Great Doup, Pillar Fell.
Professor’s Chimney.
Needle Ridge, Great Gable.
Pillar Rock, the Arête.
Arrowhead Ridge, by Traverse from East Side.
Eagle’s Nest Ridge (ordinary way).

Difficult Courses.

Deep Ghyll West Wall Climb.
Great End Central Gully (chimney finish).
Pillar Rock by Central Jordan.
The Doctor’s Chimney.
Shamrock Buttress.
Pillar Rock by West Jordan.
Kern Knotts Chimney.
Little Gully, Pavey Ark.
Great Gully, Pavey Ark.
Gable Crag Central Gully (direct finish).
Oblique Chimney Gable Crag.
Gable Needle.
Arrowhead Ridge (direct climb).
Pillar Rock Far West Jordan.
Gimmer Crag Chimney.
Doe Crag, Great Gully.
Pillar Rock by the Great Chimney.
The B Chimney, Pike’s Crag.
Scawfell Pinnacle, by Steep Ghyll.
Pavey Ark, Crescent Climb, and Gwynne’s Chimney.
Keswick Brothers’ Climb.
Pillar Rock, West Jordan Crack.
Doe Crag Buttresses (ordinary routes).
Sergeant Crag Gully (ordinary way).
Mouse Ghyll.
Pillar Rock (by north face).
Smuggler’s Chimney, Gable Crag.
Rake End Chimney, Pavey Ark.
Moss Ghyll (by branch exit).
Bowfell Buttress.
New West Climb (Pillar Rock).
The Brothers’ Crack, Great End.
Sergeant Crag Gully (direct).
Keswick Brothers’ Climb (variation finish).
Stack Ghyll, Buttermere.
Bleaberry Chimney, Buttermere.
Deep Ghyll (by various routes).
Collier’s Climb, Scawfell.
Raven Crag Gully, Glaramara.
Moss Ghyll (by direct finish).
West Jordan Gully, Pillar Rock.
Shamrock Chimneys.
Fleetwith Gully (direct).
Shamrock Gully (left-hand route).
Kern Knotts West Chimney.
Shamrock Buttress (Route II).
Shamrock Gully (ordinary route).
Pisgah Ridge, by the Tennis Court Ledge.
Iron Crag Chimney.
Engineer’s Chimney, Gable Crag.
Eagle’s Nest Ridge by Ling Chimney.

Exceptionally Severe Courses.

Doe Crag, Intermediate Gully.
Scawfell Pinnacle, High Man (direct from Deep Ghyll).
Gimmer Crag, B route.
The Abbey Buttress, Great Gable.
Screes Great Gully (direct).
Doe Crag, North Gully.
Gimmer Crag, A Route.
Toreador Gully, Buttermere.
Birkness Chimney, Buttermere.
Warn Gill, Buttermere.
Haskett Gully, Scoat Fell.
Doe Crag, Easter Gully, O. G. Jones’ Route.
Scawfell Pinnacle viâ Low Man by Deep Ghyll, Gibson’s Chimney.
Scawfell Pinnacle by Deep Ghyll, O. G. Jones’ Route.
Kern Knotts Crack.
North Face Pillar Rock, by Hand Traverse.
Doe Crag, Easter Gully, by Hopkinson’s Crack.
Doe Crag, Central Chimney.
Eagle’s Nest Ridge, Great Gable.
Doe Crag, Easter Gully, by Broadrick’s Crack.
Walker’s Gully.
C Gully, the Screes.
North West Climb, Pillar Rock.
Scawfell Pinnacle (direct from Lord’s Rake), O. G. Jones’ Route.

In every expedition the party should be provided with a sufficient length of rope—varying from twenty to fifty feet for two men, thirty to eighty feet for three—according to the character of the climb and the lengths of its individual pitches. It is very unwise to dispense with the rope, even on simple courses; the fact is patent in the Alps that amateurs take a long time to learn how to look after their portion of the rope when busily engaged on rocks; they are apt to leave all such details to the guides in front or behind them, and would do well to practise regular independence in that respect.

Ice-axes are generally necessary during the colder months of the year. They are inconvenient to manipulate on very difficult rocks, whether the climber is going up or down. But in the rapid descent of easy crags, face outwards, they are invaluable as aids to balancing; and steep grass or scree can undoubtedly be descended better with their assistance. The Cumberland crags are too smooth to make scarpetti (Kletterschuhe) worth trying. These are rope-soled shoes that grip better than nailed boots when the texture of the rock-surface is sufficiently rough, but our expeditions are best made without them.

ROCK-CLIMBING

CHAPTER I
PIKE’S CRAG

The Pikes of Scawfell are bold and picturesque, but their precipices are slight and climbers can find but little on them that needs the use of a rope. One genuine exception must be made in favour of Pike’s Crag, the rock that guards the Pikes end of Mickledore. Here a good deal of practice may be obtained, and although in comparison with Scawfell Crag over the way we may feel that everything is in miniature, yet the quality of the work is good and some of the pitches really severe. Few people seem to have troubled to examine the detail of the cliff until September, 1894, when Messrs. Fowler and Wilberforce spent a few days on it, and prepared the effective diagram of the lines of route that they subsequently transferred to the Wastdale book.

The crag is visible from the road near the head of Wastwater, and its three chimneys show up as black recesses of inviting steepness and difficulty. These retain their interesting appearance all along the walk up Brown Tongue, and it is surprising that at Hollow Stones everybody turns off to the right towards Deep Ghyll, when straight ahead they cannot but observe the opportunity for novelty that Pike’s Crag can offer them.

Between the Pulpit rock that overlooks the Mickledore screes and the main mass of the Pikes is a little col or neck that can be reached with ease from either side. A gully runs up to it behind the Pulpit from the Mickledore screes, with no difficulties whatever to obstruct the walker. Another (D) leads to the same spot from the Lingmell side, starting near the foot of the great buttress of the Horse and Man rock, and boasting of two pitches. Between D and a scree gully well away to the left lie the three chimneys, A, B, and C, and the best climbing of these crags is here concentrated.

It is true that we can get some pleasant scrambling up the outside of the Pulpit. A grass gully shows well in the illustration, close to the right-hand edge of the picture. The square tower of rock to which its left branch leads overlooks the D gully and offers fair sport. There are probably a few interesting problems in the short gullies leading from D towards the Horse and Man ridge. But to cover the best ground in a single expedition I can recommend the ascent of A and descent by C, then the direct climb up the right branch of B and a return down the two pitches in the D gully. Such was an afternoon’s work that I was advised to undertake when inquiring of those who knew best how to gain a general knowledge of Pike’s Crag. My companion was unacquainted with Lake District climbing; it was his first day in Wastdale, and during our walk homewards, after following as rigidly as we could the directions given us, he was reluctantly compelled to admit that Cumberland climbing had good points that he had never hitherto attributed to it.

PLATE I.

THE PIKE’S CRAG GULLIES.

AA is about 300 feet high.

a Initial Variation in the A Chimney.
b Left Branch of the B Chimney.
c Great Pitch in the C Chimney.
D Easy Gully between E and F.
E Horse and Man Rock.
F Pulpit Rock.
G Easy Grass Gully.

We bore up from Hollow Stones directly towards the A chimney, over a good deal of rough ground and an occasional snowslope. It is the longest climb of the three, and the hand-and-foot work commenced at once. A block at the bottom, some fifteen feet in height, was turned by a vertical crack on the left, with excellent holds on the side wall. An easier way is by the right, up a series of steep, wet, and mossy ledges. This block was crowned by long tufted grass, and more moss in the bed of the gully indicated clearly that we were not on a much frequented route to Scawfell Pikes. A few feet higher we noticed a grass terrace stretching across the face of the crags to the right. There proved to be several such terraces on the same buttress between us and the B chimney, and we concluded that it would be possible to climb up from one to the other and so avoid the chimneys altogether. Soon our route became steeper and careful clambering was necessary. The gully was narrow and its walls smooth, and no chance of further side-exit was open to us. Then came the first genuine pitch, in three portions of increasing severity, though the hardest is not in any way difficult or dangerous. We worked first over a small boulder, then a bigger one followed, and we were brought to a standstill at the entrance of a narrow cave. We decided in favour of the right wall, which showed good holds up near the level of the roof. It looked a bad bit to surmount, but when once the right leg of the climber had been swung on to a sloping ledge on the wall, it was only needful to edge along towards the jammed boulder and step off into the bed of the gully again. The whole pitch is about thirty feet high. Walking up the scree that now presented itself, we were rather disagreeably impressed by the appearance of the second pitch that confronted us. It was a mossy wall about ten feet high, and water streaming down it gave us but little hope of continuing the climbing beyond it with dry garments. Nevertheless the reality was not so objectionable. The wall stretched from side to side of the gully and offered many routes up. Taking a course to the right of the middle, we found small footholds beneath the moss that gave the chance of using the fingers and toes only. Clammy embracing we avoided, and our satisfaction on reaching the top was altogether disproportionate to the actual difficulty we had overcome, and will be unappreciated by those who tackle the gully in drier weather. It seems to be still better to work up the left corner.

Forty feet higher we could see the third and last pitch. The gully is now very much more open. We made a digression on the right again, and peered inquisitively down the hole at the top of the B chimney—the hole that was said to discriminate nicely between a thin man and a thick. The buttress was considerably broken about here, and offered admirable scrambling of a heterogeneous description; but we had yet one more stage in our own direct course, and returned to finish it. Several boulders had combined to form another cave, whose interior appeared to be rather complicated—judging by the number of times I knocked my head in exploring its upper regions. We tried hard to force a route up the right wall, but after twenty minutes had been wasted in futile attempts we decided to take the regulation route to the left, and leave the variation for another day that might find us there with an ice-axe. The left wall is sufficiently provided with holds to make the climb easy; but at the top there were several stones to be passed that report said were in a shaky condition. We were not troubled by them, and after passing over, a glance at the screes that remained above gave assurance that the presence or absence of a few loose stones at the head of the pitch would be quite fortuitous.

After a short halt called for photographic purposes we made for the head of the C gully, the next to the west that actually reaches the sky-line when viewed from below. It was nearly all scree at a steep angle, and we had good reason to be thankful that no exploring parties were further down. There were two or three places passed in our descent where the craggy bed of the gully jutted out through the layer of loose stones, and at such spots, though no actual climbing was necessary, the danger of one man bombarding the other with projectiles made us both proceed with an excess of caution. The one difficulty in the gully, which we were now preparing to descend, is by far the finest looking pitch on Pike’s Crag. A large boulder with square edges roofs in a cavern thirty feet high; a stream of water pouring down the gully spreads over the boulder, and forms a thin curtain of spray stretching from side to side of the cave entrance. The two walls of the gully are black and glistening, the floor of the cave is slippery, and slopes steeply down to the foot of the ghyll. The only safe way up or down the pitch is by a series of ledges in a square recess on the left, well marked in the opposite illustration.

We were ignorant of the character of the climbing here, but there was no resisting the conclusion forced upon us by a peep over the edge of the pitch, that the recess on our right offered us the only chance of descent. The ledges were tufted with thick grass that now and again threatened to give way. But on the whole we felt very safe, and when the actual corner of the recess was reached, the difficulties vanished and we had a simple traverse back towards the waterfall. The descent of six or eight feet to the foot of the fall was partially under the spray, but haste on such slippery ground was out of the question, and we moved one at a time with a solemn indifference to the damping influences around us, that might have argued a whole day’s previous exposure and the absence of a vestige of dry clothing. We had a steep slide down the snow banked up at the foot of the gully, and then picked a way across to the B chimney, the centre of the series and the most attractive.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

THE PIKE’S CRAG GULLIES

A and C may be reasonably called easy. They are not too hard for muscular novices, and are comparatively safe. But the central chimney is decidedly stiff, and should not be indiscriminately recommended with the others. It is very narrow all the way to the jammed stone at the top; it is about as difficult to get out, when half-way up, as it is to continue the direct ascent, and suitable belaying for the leader or his followers cannot be found at the hardest parts of the climb. I tried the chimney once when there was a considerable quantity of water coming down, and was compelled to give it up: it is probable that even with a second man to help me I could not have managed it.

We found our way safely to the entrance of our chimney and started up. Almost immediately we passed the branch gully on the left. It looks very formidable, and indeed its first pitch is undoubtedly hard. It consists of a two-storied cave, the first floor composed of three jammed stones, which are passed by backing up the crack and traversing outwards. The second pitch is of a simpler character, consisting of a cave that can be passed on either side. We had no designs on this variation, and were contented to throw a casual glance towards the lower obstacle as we proceeded up the rocky bed of our central chimney. Our field of view soon became very limited, for the clean-cut parallel walls on either side were scarcely five feet apart, and the average slope of the gully exceeded forty-five degrees. During the first hundred feet the work was distinctly safe and easy, but a glance backward at the point whence we had started, seemingly the first stop in the event of our falling, made us both inclined to imagine dangers in our way. The side walls in intense gloom formed a fitting frame to the narrow picture of the distant sunlit fells. The general aspect of the situation closely resembled that of the upper half of Collier’s climb on Scawfell, and of the Oblique Chimney on Gable Crag, though in each of those cases the chimney is at a considerable angle to the vertical, whereas here the fissure in the rocks is almost perpendicular. We were a little perplexed by some ice that had frozen in large rounded knobs to a thickness of eight or ten inches over a steep six feet of the gully. An axe would have summarily disposed of any icicles of doubtful security, but we had not expected any such evidences of cold and were unprovided. The ice was not absolutely continuous; here and there we could kick out levels for our feet, and to our relief the trouble was passed in a few minutes. Then came the worst bit of the ascent—the scene of my discomfiture eighteen months before. First came a vertical wall stretching across the gully, and rising twenty feet above our somewhat insecure standing. Beyond that the gully sloped evenly to the dark recesses of a cave, the jammed boulder of which almost appeared vertically above our heads. We mounted an upright block at the foot of the wall, and prospected for holds. None were visible. I peered at the sides in search of scratches, which would show whether the earlier party or parties had backed up the chimney. No! they had not availed themselves of that process. Then, with the conviction that an indirect way must exist, we examined the walls a few feet below the pitch, and at last hit upon a way of mounting higher. I was belayed by a rope passing round the upright block already referred to, and proceeded to walk along the horizontal edge of a thin crack on the right wall, leaning across to the other side of the gully for general support on the hands. I had implicit trust in the rope and the man at the other end of it, or the manœuvre would have given me agonies of apprehension. Just as the second step was being made along the crack, its thin edge broke away under my foot and I slipped a few feet down the gully, till the rope tightened and brought me to a stop. A second attempt was more successful. The edge was followed till it expanded into a respectable foothold, and then, holding myself straight, I was able to reach good ledges for the hands. It was now easy to stride across to the left wall and climb directly upwards along its crest to a platform large enough for both of us; hither my companion followed me, adopting almost the same tactics and taking but half the time. We were now virtually out of the gully, and found the sunshine pleasant after so much darkness. But the joy that might have attended our remaining efforts in working up to the head of the chimney was marred by the reflection that we had not conquered the chief difficulty; we had only avoided it. This is right and proper for snow-climbers, but distinctly unorthodox for cragsmen. Our doubts grew as we advanced, and at last I proposed to descend again and settle them finally. This suggestion was met with a very prompt approval, and ten minutes later found me at the foot of the vertical wall again. It did not look any easier, and I am not prepared to say how narrowly I missed a second failure. After leaving the upright block the scanty holds soon disappeared, and with some desperate struggling I found myself backing up the chimney with the feet thrust hard against the left wall. Both sides seemed dangerously smooth, but cautious wriggling for a distance of two or three feet brought a handhold within reach, and the top of the wall was gained. The only other ascent known to me was by a man with a singularly long reach, and in some marvellous way he managed to climb the wall without any backing up.

Thence to the cave was fairly easy after a few mossy loose stones had been flung down, and the finish was effected by a neat little ledge along the left wall, passing out just at the edge of the pitch. The hole through the cave is not so small as the first investigators imagined; the trouble in passing through is due to its crookedness, but the name of the chimney is generally supposed to indicate with proper remoteness the garment that is here threatened with a complete inversion.

We hurried across the top of C gully and round the Horse and Man to the Pulpit rock. The D gully had a great deal of snow in it, and we indulged in sundry glissades. The snow was not too hard nor the angle too great, otherwise ice-axes would have been necessary. The upper pitch was passed on our left with perfect ease. Then further snow led to the lower pitch, a much more imposing sight. Two sharp-edged boulders of immense size formed a cave. On the side of the Pulpit rock there seemed to be no chance of passing it. The other side, though mossy, might easily be made to go. In our descent we kept a little further away, and came down ledge after ledge with excellent holds to the foot of the pitch. Then more glissading brought us down to the open fell again. We spent a quarter of an hour watching with much interest a party coming down Scawfell Pinnacle by Steep Ghyll, and having seen them safely into the lower part of the ghyll, where the steady click of the leader’s axe intimated slow progress over ice-covered rocks, we turned our backs to the fell and moved leisurely homewards.

CHAPTER II
DEEP GHYLL. THE GREAT CHIMNEY AND PROFESSOR’S CHIMNEY

Deep Ghyll.—This will remain for long a favourite resort of climbers, partly because the two pitches are always interesting and may be turned in so many different ways, partly because the gully gathers annually a big snow drift, which can generally be relied upon between Christmas and Easter to afford some practice in the use of the ice-axe, and partly because the rock scenery is of the finest character throughout. The ghyll has been familiar to the visitors of Scawfell for many years. It was first ascended in March, 1886, by Messrs. Geoffrey Hastings and Slingsby, and an interesting account of the expedition appeared in the ‘Alpine Journal.’ It had been descended twice before, in 1882, by Messrs. Mumm and King, with heavy snow blocking the pitches, and in 1884 by Mr. Haskett Smith. The quickest way of reaching the foot of the ghyll is to walk up Brown Tongue till within a couple of hundred feet of the level of Hollow Stones. It is here unnecessary to keep straight over towards the centre of Mickledore, for a shallow depression to the right of Brown Tongue may be traversed obliquely upwards, and the scree struck close to the well-defined edge of the lower crags of Scawfell. Thence it is best to keep close under the cliffs, following an easy gradient up to the Lord’s Rake. This is the large scree gully passing up to the right, under the main mass of Scawfell. The scree forms at the foot of the Lord’s Rake the usual fan-shaped talus, which here stretches down towards Hollow Stones. In summer it may occasionally be worth while making directly up the centre of the scree.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

DEEP GHYLL, FIRST PITCH

Just opposite the corner round which one turns into the Lord’s Rake a rather slightly marked gully starts up from the side of the rake. It becomes better defined a few yards higher, and leads directly into Steep Ghyll. Almost at the same spot a ledge is to be noticed passing round to the left of the huge wall fronting us at this corner. This is the start of the Rake’s Progress, the happy name given to the well-known terrace leading to Mickledore. We shall have further occasion to allude to this ledge, but we now pass up the Lord’s Rake till in a few feet we come to a magnificent gully on our left, recognizable under any conditions except the most snowy by the cave at its foot. A fine View of Deep Ghyll and its surroundings may be obtained by scrambling up to the low ridge that faces us as we look outwards from the cave. The ridge is somewhat broken up, and the terrible accident that caused the death of Professor Milnes Marshall at this spot must be a warning to any who wander up without thought of danger.

The orthodox route up the first pitch in Deep Ghyll is by the cave and chimney. It is the most interesting way, and probably in dry clean weather it is the easiest. When the chimney is cased with ice the route may become impossible. In that case a recess in the right wall (right, of course, when looking up at the climb) is often taken as a winter emergency exit; for although the holds are slight in summer, loose stones well bound up make it quite feasible in frosty weather.

The hardest way up the pitch is by the thin cleft between the big boulder and the left wall.

Passing up for about 150 feet we find a steep slope of rock occupying the left half of the gully. The scree in the other half leads up into a cave whose black rectangular aperture may have been observed from the Lord’s Rake ridge. The cave is formed by the ubiquitous jammed boulder, and no through route can be effected. A thin chimney cuts between the rock slope and the huge vertical left wall that rises with scarcely a break to the Low Man on the Scawfell Pinnacle. This chimney constitutes the easiest and safest route over the second pitch. On the right face an irregular ledge leads to a larger chimney (Robinson’s), which with some trouble can be followed till a level about twenty feet above the top of the cave pitch is reached. Thence a small terrace offers an easy promenade to the upper bed of the gully. A third way of taking the difficulty has been found; indeed, it is the most obvious way, though much the hardest. It is to climb the left wall of the cave entrance, and then wriggle up between the rock slope and the cave boulder.

There are many pleasant reminiscences of parties in Deep Ghyll. The hardest struggle I ever had with the first pitch was on Christmas Day, 1897. The rocks were badly glazed, and though we had no trouble in penetrating to the inmost recesses of the cave, we could find no easy way of getting higher. We were loth to try, seeing that one of our party had, with a mistaken philanthropy, loaded his rücksack with preserved fruit, prunes, and Carlsbad plums, and proceeded forthwith to dignify our primitive lunch with these unwonted luxuries. A halt called to consume a beef sandwich may be quickly terminated—and that, moreover, without a sense of sorrow, unless the beef is very bad—but those who know Carlsbad plums will realise how easily we were demoralised by their seductiveness, and how much we preferred to sit in our cave and argue on complicated topics with the plum-box open. But the owner was a man of some resolution, and heroically vowed that we should see no more of the plums till we reached a small recess at the top of Moss Ghyll, where we should ensconce ourselves after climbing the gully. So we made a start at once. The back way out of the cave promised well at first. It showed no trace of ice, but on emerging from the chimney (at the spot where the lower figure is shown in the View facing p. 12), and looking straight down to the entrance of the cave, it was found that a thin sheet of ice covered all the rocks. Generally speaking it would be better to let the rocks alone on such an occasion—in fact always, unless Carlsbad plums are at stake. Then, perhaps, the second man may be held firmly by the rope from behind while he gives the leader a shoulder. This help is of no use unless the leader can venture to trust the icy handhold above him, by which he is to swing round the awkward corner to the right. Some such scheme our party devised, after many futile attempts to fix an axe firmly as a foothold, and the leader dragged himself up the glazed surface to the deep snow above. In the ordinary state of things, be it remembered that where the climber emerges from the hole, he has first to stride round to a small ledge on the right. He can use as a take-off the rough surface of the boulder, and can reach a rigid handhold of small dimensions but good shape. Thence to the top of the pitch is easy scrambling, though care is needed.

The snow in the gully was in grand condition for kicking steps, and after the last man had been brought up the pitch in safety we marched to the upper cave and discussed the question of route over the second pitch. The direct way was ruled out of court at once, for its largest ledges are but half an inch wide, and ice on these rendered them useless. With a keen recollection of our trouble down below, we thought of the Robinson Chimney on the right, which is quitted by crossing on to a slabby rock that slopes down towards the centre of the gully. With ice on this an attempt to force the way up would more likely find us shooting over to the foot of the cave. Such a finish to our little day would no doubt exactly coincide with the anticipations of our more sanguine relatives and friends, but for the moment we had to consider each other’s feelings and I suggested the easy way up. There was a smiling unanimity of agreement in the party which pleased me far, very far more than a hundred strictly impossible ascents. We descended the gully again to the foot of the rock slope, and rounded into the little chimney. Things went very well for a few feet. But as we rose the ice became more troublesome, until it was necessary to chip it away from each diminutive ledge, and to proceed upwards with the utmost caution. The first part finished with a little snow patch twenty feet above the top of the cave boulder and the bed of the ghyll. Some years before, when first I visited Deep Ghyll, we had found it impossible to climb directly upwards from this point, and a man was let down by the rope into the ghyll. He cut steps up until he had obtained a higher level than the others waiting, and then induced them to traverse out a bit and jump into the snow below. The process was possible only with a long rope. Here we could all rest and contemplate the rock slab opposite which finishes the Robinson Chimney. Forty or fifty feet higher we could see, well marked out by the snow, the upper traverse that enables a careful walker to pass up Deep Ghyll without any hand-and-foot work. It is readily accessible from the Lord’s Rake, a few feet higher than the ordinary entrance to Deep Ghyll, and leads at an easy angle to a point in the main gully some hundred feet above the second pitch.

Looking up at the left wall of the Ghyll we could see that our slender chimney was but the beginning of a long crack that cut obliquely into the wall, and curled upwards in a fine sweep of eighty feet towards the summit of the Low Man. The curtain of rock that closed in the crack on its right hand made our next few yards rather troublesome, for it encroached on our ledge and rendered the work too open. Facework is always more trying than chimney climbing, especially when ice is about. But the leader’s recollection of the ease with which this part could be overcome in summer time divested it of all its fancied terrors and perhaps of some of its real dangers, and he had therefore a better time of it than his companions, whose extremities were somewhat benumbed by their patient waiting in awkward places, and whose activities were confined to their vivid imaginations. All actual danger was over when a horizontal ledge was reached well above the centre-level of the gully, which we followed with ease to the broken rocks that almost form a third pitch for Deep Ghyll.

Here the pleasantest way of finishing the day was to cut steps in the snow up the central gully, the angle gradually steepening from 35° to 55° at the top. That way we therefore took, and were soon enjoying the plums. But a rise of a few feet will show the Professor’s Chimney immediately to the left, cutting deeply into the rock between the Scawfell Pinnacle on the left and Pisgah on the right, and terminating at a fine-looking notch, ‘The Jordan,’ in the sky-line. Exactly opposite, on the right-hand side of the ghyll, is the Great Chimney, a black and formidable square-walled recess crowned by a jammed boulder. This was for a long time regarded as impossible and scarcely ever attacked, but at last it yielded to the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blake and Southall, and has since shown itself to be very amenable when approached with due precaution.

First pitch, New route.—The Christmas Day of 1896 was very windy and cold. Our party had fought continually against the weather all the way to Deep Ghyll, and inasmuch as we had only the previous day arrived at Wastdale our limbs were scarcely fit for such a desperate grind. I had the pleasurable responsibility of guiding a lady, Mrs. H., who had been persuaded to accompany her husband on a winter excursion. We had a great deal of very soft snow to get through on our way up, and I was looking forward to a long halt in the lower cave, where we should at least be protected from the wind and snow. Great was our distress when we found the entrance completely blocked up by a huge drift. It must have been fully twenty feet deep in front of the cave, and the prospect was most disheartening. In disgust I clambered up the wall immediately to the right of the boulder, and at last managed to reach the aperture leading into the cave from above. It was festooned with huge icicles, and at first the entrance looked effectually blocked. Smashing down the ice with the energy of despair, the tremendous clatter suggesting to my friends that of a bull in a hardware shop, I discovered that the chimney was only iced at its entrance, and that the upper storey of the cave could be reached. Some of the others quickly followed, and we found ourselves in a spacious chamber into which the great heap of snow had scarcely encroached. This was delightful. We threw ourselves into the drift that blocked the main entrance, and cut away at it with vigour till at last we had tunnelled through to the daylight. The biggest man of the party yet remained outside and we persuaded him to insert his legs into the aperture. Without giving him time to change his mind we seized his boots and hauled hard. For one dread moment we thought him jammed for ever, but immediately afterwards we found ourselves lying on our backs in the cave with a yawning opening in the snow-drift, the while our massive friend measured his diminished circumference with a loop of rope. The others then came in and made themselves at home on ropes, ice-axes, and other people’s cameras. We were a party of ten, large enough to be a merry one. Our surroundings were weird and savage, unlike the British notions for a Christmas Day, but I remember that we behaved like civilized people in perhaps one respect. We discussed the year’s literature. Fancy Troglodytes discussing ‘Trilby’! Then it occurred to us that our feet were very cold, and that we should not have much daylight for climbing if we waited longer. Our intention had been to climb Deep Ghyll in two separate parties, by the ordinary way. But the drift suggested a trial of the crack up the left-hand side of the first pitch. The snow would serve as a high take-off, and also a good cushion to soften the fall if the leader were destined to fail. The first difficulty was to get safely into the crack; then it was found that the holds were very scarce, and the recess somewhat too constricted to allow any bracing across from one side to the other.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

SCAWFELL PINNACLE AND THE PROFESSOR’S CHIMNEY

Think of a foothold; double it. Put your whole weight on to it as you straighten out. Take away the hold you thought of, and you will find yourself wondering how you got there. In some such vague way are very bad bits climbed, and while gasping for breath at the top the climber usually feels that it was the worst place he has ever been in. Seriously, however, this route is severe at all times. In summer the drift is absent, but with rocks slightly wet, as they usually are in that corner, the effort of working upwards is extreme. It is probably best to keep one’s back to the boulder all the way up.

My section of the party came up first. We were very cold, and some fear that Mrs. H. would have frost-bite prompted us to change our minds concerning Deep Ghyll, and to traverse away to the left towards the foot of Steep Ghyll. The others came up the pitch by our route, led in good style by Mr. H. V. Reade. They expressed regret at our untimely departure, and worked laboriously up the ghyll. It was ungenerous of us that evening to gloat over the fact that they had had a terribly cold time of it higher up.

Our route out of the ghyll was known to Mr. Haskett Smith in 1882. It is not often used, and, indeed, in winter it offers certain risks of its own. Starting from the top of the pitch we bore directly down towards the entrance to Lord’s Rake, and when within a reasonable distance of the snow, jumped down to it, sinking in up to our necks. Hurrying down to Hollow Stones as fast as our limbs would carry us, we endured the pangs of returning circulation in our hands and feet, and finished the descent in exhilaration, and with a sense of having well earned our share of the Christmas festivities.

Second pitch, Variety routes.—A description of the direct way over the second pitch is scarcely necessary. The leader must start just at the entrance to the cave, and work up the corner to the recess between the jammed stone and the cave boulder. The holds are minute, and the necessary stress on the finger tips excessive. He should try it first when there is snow below him, and with his second arranged to pay out twenty feet of rope from the innermost corner of the cave. If the leader is destined to slip, it will take place at the point where the slope suddenly becomes easier, for then his fingers are fatigued, his centre of gravity wants for the first time an onward as well as an upward motion, and his foothold will fail him at the crisis. Therefore his centre of gravity will describe the ordinary parabola back into the snow, and the tremendous jerk on the rope will make the man wonder whether the remains of his centre of gravity are worth retaining. Supposing that he has safely rounded this awkward edge, the utmost caution is necessary for six feet till the scree is reached. Then comes the trouble of manipulating the rope without shaking down stones on the next man who is to pass up. If the leader wants the rope to be in actual tension on his account, he has a hard task in bracing himself firmly without dislodging the scree from under his feet. This trouble of course is minimised when good firm snow can be cut to supply him a footing.

On the whole this direct route over the second pitch may be regarded as too risky, except under the best possible circumstances—such, for example, as existed when Messrs. Robinson and Creak found the two pitches in Deep Ghyll entirely covered with snow, and an easy route available straight up the middle from bottom to top. Then there was no second pitch!

The chimney on the right is excellent, but is not a course open to beginners. It is in two parts. At the two places where it must be quitted the route lies up the buttress on the left. I recall the remark of an unenterprising follower as he looked up at the vertical walls above him; he had been in difficulty down below and was inquiring my intentions. His patience had been all but exhausted, and he said so, adding: ‘It is not merely steep parts that so upset me. They can be borne, but I don’t like this infernal dangling.’ The discussion was diverted into a side issue, as to whether the adjective was permissible, but in justice to his memory—he never visited the Lakes again—be it said that very few climbers like the sensation of suspense.

The Great Chimney.—The position of this has already been defined. Its ascent affords the best finish to the Deep Ghyll climb if snow is absent from the gully and the screes are wearisome. The aspect of the chimney is most forbidding from below, and there is probably but one way of vanquishing it. I had been told how the first party had proceeded up it, and had also heard an account of their defeat at a second attempt. There is much likelihood of defeat even when one knows the way, by reason of the awkwardness of the corner that needs careful negotiation, and I am bound to admit that a first ascent rapidly accomplished may help the climber very little in his second attempt. At the time of my visit the rocks were warm and dry, our party of three had just come up Collier’s Climb, and were keen on completing their knowledge of Scawfell by making for the only chimney with which they were unacquainted. We all gathered together high up in the recess, and then, when the rope had been satisfactorily arranged for a long run out, I started working up the right wall by some small but strong ledges till the roof of the cavern was approached. Then it became necessary to work out of the cave and round by the jammed stone. Just outside was a ledge within reach for the hands; but to work the body up the corner so as to kneel on the ledge was very awkward, the main trouble arising from the depressing effect of the corner of the jammed stone which forced head and shoulders almost to the level of one’s feet. The prayerful attitude realized, I could anchor myself a little by looping the rope round a stone in the roof and had then only to stand up and clamber between the boulder and the living rock, trusting to footholds on the latter. A few feet landed me in safety and the others came up like smoke, carrying my cap that the gymnastics round the corner had shaken down to them. A short scree and a few easy rocks completed the gully, which both in regard to the aspect from above and to the form of its one great difficulty reminded us of the Shamrock Gully over in Ennerdale. The main differences in these two pitches are that the Shamrock Gully pitch looks easier but proves to be harder, also that it has less cave and more boulder. Neither pitch is suitable for beginners.

By walking across to the foot of the lower part of Professor’s Chimney—a name, by the way, given first to the easy exit on the right of Pisgah—a pitch of some severity can be taken or left, as fancy dictates. The platform above this pitch leads well into the chimney and the climb again gets stiff. A direct ascent of the pinnacle is probably feasible from this level, but the first thirty feet will need the utmost enterprise on the part of the daring aspirant to fresh honours in this well-explored region.

The Professor’s Chimney.—This looks almost as difficult as the Great Chimney opposite, but is more a test of style than skill, the only trouble being that of loose rocks. Though unworthy of perfect confidence at all times, it may become most friendly in times of frost; many loose stones occur that can be safely pressed though dangerous to pull, so that with a slight modification of style they are rendered highly useful. Then of course two loose stones may share one’s weight when one cannot take it.

The introduction of all this elementary practical mountaineering is due to my recollection of a huge stone that came away near the top of the Professor’s Chimney when my party were coming up it. I was out of harm’s way on the Jordan above, but in wrestling with the last part of the chimney, a portion that slightly overhangs, the second in the party pulled away the rock. It bounded down, ricochetting from side to side, and for a moment placed the startled climbers in imminent peril.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

SCAWFELL CRAGS FROM THE PULPIT ROCK

In conclusion, just a word to pedestrians who have come out to climb only by telescope. The ascent of Scawfell from the Lord’s Rake may be safely and rapidly accomplished by following its lead past the entrance to Deep Ghyll.

The best plan is to keep as straight a course on the scree as the up-and-down nature of the Rake will permit, with the steep rocks immediately on the left. A pinnacle is almost at once passed on the right that in former times was oft mistaken by the unlearned for the great Scawfell Pinnacle, more especially because a cairn had been erected on its crest as a decoy, by the wily discoverer of the true pinnacle. Then it becomes necessary to descend a little, taking care not to slither down to the right with the loose debris. After a few yards the slope again rises for a while, and an easy gully shortly discloses itself on the left, following which the tourist will find himself in a few minutes on the stony plateau that at an easy inclination travels away westward to Burnmoor. In clear weather he will see the huge cairn that crowns the top of Scawfell, at a slight elevation above the top of the gully, and can safely make a bee-line for it. Climbers often descend by this route in bad weather when the Broad Stand appears to elude their anxious search.

The quickest way down from Scawfell is to make for the head of this gully, and then, instead of descending, leave it on the right and follow the edge of cliff straight towards the head of Wastwater; where the edge is deflected to the left, a scree-run to the foot of Brown Tongue takes us over rough but safe ground to the diminutive footpath that starts at the stone wall. It should be learnt first in clear weather, if possible, as there is no royal road to safety for the befogged novice on the fells.

CHAPTER III
THE RAKE’S PROGRESS AND CERTAIN SHORT CLIMBS NEAR IT

The Rake’s Progress.—This happy title dates from about 1881. The Progress is an easy ledge leading from the lower end of the Lord’s Rake to the point where the Mickledore ridge joins the main mass of Scawfell. It runs along the base of the vertical walls of this mountain, and though at a great elevation above the huge Mickledore hollow, is scarcely entitled to the thrilling adjective vertigineuse of the French climbing vocabulary. Yet it is capable of carrying one into the finest situations; and even the hardened expert, with his steady head and well-trained muscles, realises while on it that danger is hovering about him at every step, though it does not touch him. Years ago I read, in Freshfield’s ‘Italian Alps,’ of the Pelmo traverse in the Ampezzo Dolomites, and memory seized on the Rake’s Progress as the nearest approach to it that mountain experience had then afforded. Let there be no rise on the Mickledore; make the Progress thrice as long, and a little more rakish; change the rock from porphyry to magnesian limestone; let the drop below the ledge be a few hundred feet instead of a few score; make it necessary to crawl on all fours in one or two corners, and the resemblance will be perfect! In a few yards after the preliminary scramble on to the ledge, the crags are broken on our right by the short chimney entrances to Steep Ghyll and Moss Ghyll. These cannot be mistaken, inasmuch as they mark the last possible points of attack on these cliffs for one-half of the traverse.

Passing the entrance to Moss Ghyll, to which we must return for the ascent of this fine gully, a steep rise marks the accomplishment of one-third of the course. A little further a thin cleft cuts obliquely up the cliff towards the left. It is wonderfully straight, and the slabs of rock on either side are hopelessly smooth. The crack widens higher up, but until 1897 the terrific simplicity of its lower portion had warned off all who examined it with the view of storming this side of Scawfell. The upper half, reached by an ingenious zig-zag route on the face, is now well known as one of the safest and best climbs on Scawfell. Shortly afterwards we reach a rectangular recess looking as though it had been quarried for a gigantic monolith. Here again the great difficulty of starting up is manifested at a glance, though in the same direction up above the recess is so much more deeply cut and the sides so much nearer to each other that one’s safety is assured for the second half of the climb. In this case also, the middle is reached by a slight detour on the left. A few yards further along the Progress are two thin cracks uniting at a height of twenty feet and leading to a platform ten feet higher. Thence a perfectly safe cleft passes directly up for another forty feet, till a grassy ledge, clearly visible only when marked by snow, takes one easily to the middle of the long chimney. To mount the chimney is an undertaking well within the powers of the average rock-climber, and with the additional merit of being perfectly safe for a party of three.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

The Ascent of the Broad Stand

(Face page 30)

Such are the Keswick Brothers’ Climb and Collier’s Climb, two of the best conceived problems of the district and worthy of their discoverers. The lower half of the latter is undeniably severe; even the best have failed at it, and I propose in a separate section to describe an ascent in detail, to point out the method our party adopted to eliminate the risk that the climber is popularly supposed to accept as inevitable, and to indicate how the Keswick Brothers’ route enables us to avoid the worst piece altogether.

The next halt we make close to the Mickledore, within thirty-five feet of the end of the Progress. Here a thin cleft, known as Petty’s Rift for the last twenty years, leads to a square recess ten feet up, and marks the start of the North or Penrith Climb up the Scawfell crags. These are now only a few score feet above us. The illustration facing page 26 shows how the upper outline of the cliff and the Mickledore ridge approach to within a few feet of each other.

Having reached the Mickledore ridge it is well worth while walking along it to its furthest end, and then bearing to the left on to the Pulpit rock, for the sake of the fine view of the climbs we have just been enumerating. The Eskdale side of Scawfell is terminated by an abrupt vertical cliff that seemingly offers no sort of route for the cragsman. Half way down to the corner of this cliff, a gully cuts deeply into the mountain, and passes upwards at an apparent angle of 45° towards the tops of Moss Ghyll and Collier’s Climb.

The gully—Scawfell Chimney or Mickledore Chimney, as it is sometimes distinctively called—has its own peculiar difficulties in wet or snowy weather, but when at its best it may be attacked by comparatively inexperienced men, if they are properly equipped and exercise ordinary precautions. On the other hand, the gully represents the drainage channel for a considerable area, and is usually wet.

Undoubtedly the easiest way from Mickledore up to the ridge facing us is by the Broad Stand. The start is made in the cleft half way between Mickledore and the foot of Scawfell Chimney. Three short pitches, each less than ten feet, take us on to an easy slope that can be followed to the upper part of the chimney. To keep up between the chimney on our left and the steep cliffs to our right is an easy matter in clear weather, till Pisgah appears on our right, the descent into Deep Ghyll straight in front of us, and the cairn-crowned summit of the mountain a hundred yards away towards the left.

This finishes the preliminary survey of the eastern face of Scawfell, during the perusal of which the reader is recommended to examine the diagram facing page 46.

The Broad Stand.—My first climb in the Lake District was up the Broad Stand. Dr. S. and I had planned a week’s walking tour over the Cumberland fells, guided by Baddeley and Jenkinson, and ignorant of the existence of any regular rock practice hereabouts. We walked up from Langdale one Sunday morning in heavy snow to the top of Rossett Ghyll, and then studied the guide book for information concerning the small tarn that lay a few feet beneath us. ‘Deep and clear, and good for bathing,’ we read; so we bathed. It was long ago, and neither of us has bathed during a snowstorm since. Our feet got benumbed standing on the snow while we were dressing ourselves, and we had much ado to restore circulation. Then as the day advanced and the air cleared a little, it seemed possible that we might find a way up Scawfell Pikes, which, we had read, was the highest point in England. With much ploughing through soft snow, loaded with heavy knapsacks, and supported by but one broken walking stick, we reached the topmost cairn in perfect safety and realised the height of that Easter ambition. Then it was that Dr. S. read aloud to me a thrilling description of the Mickledore chasm, which presented an almost impassable barrier between the Pikes and Scawfell, a terrific gap that only hardy cragsmen of the dales were able to traverse. The ice-cold bath on that Sabbath morn had done much to quench our spirit, but we had partially recovered ourselves, and a burning desire to scale the majestic peak opposite flamed up in each of us simultaneously, and drove us down towards the Pulpit rock that sentinels the Mickledore. The guide-book was not wanting in detail. There were three Ways of attacking Scawfell from Mickledore; first the Chimney, then Broad Stand, and then the Lord’s Rake. I believe we guessed the position of the chimney correctly, for after all there is something to show for the name; but we were hopelessly at sea with the other two. Dr. S. argued that Lord’s Rake sounded so much worse than Broad Stand that we were bound to go for it wherever it might be and however easy its aspect. Nobody at home would believe us if we described a Broad Stand as a vertical wall hundreds of feet in height, glistening with ice, and guarded above by overhanging boulders ready to pulverise the bold invader. On the other hand, the Lord’s Rake seemed remotely to suggest Jacob’s Ladder, and offered the imagination a goodly choice of adjective and epithet. Where, then, was the Lord’s Rake? We had little time to consider, and rapidly decided that the Broad Stand was away down in Eskdale on the left, and the Lord’s Rake straight up from Mickledore. Wherein we were wrong, as the previous pages may show the reader. Then we tried to get up the wall just where the Mickledore ridge strikes the cliff, but the cold soon drove us to seek some easier start lower on the left. Thus it was that fate took us to the actual Broad Stand, up which, inexperienced though we were, we could scarcely help finding the correct route. Place a man at the right starting point, and he will easily find the upward line of least resistance, though not so swiftly as he would trace out the downward line if he slipped.

Twelve yards down from the Mickledore we came to a deep recess in the mountain side, large enough to penetrate if one is not burdened with a knapsack. (A confirmation of the right spot is supplied by a thinner crack six feet lower down the screes.) Wriggling up into the recess and then out on to the slightly sloping platform above it was a matter of only a few seconds, and we then found facing us a wall of from eight to ten feet in height offering very little hand or foothold for a direct attack. But by descending the sloping grassy ledge at its foot we could see some iced ledges (clear rocks show the marks of many boots) that suggested the circumvention of the difficulty. To these we in turn trusted ourselves, and by passing round the somewhat awkward left-hand corner of the wall we found an easy though steep route to its flat top. Then a smaller wall of about seven feet barred the way. It was easier than the last, though in those days the frost had not scooped out the hollow on the edge, and by the help of my comrade’s shoulders I reached the summit. The difficulties were obviously over; we could walk up by the right on to the snow slope, above which, as our early inspection from the Pulpit rock showed, there was an easy route to the top of Scawfell. Unfortunately my friend was not up the last step. I could not reciprocate his kindness and offer him my shoulders. We had no rope, and the rocks were all glazed. I had not intended to mention our ropeless condition, but the truth will out sooner or later; neither had we nails in our boots. But apparently we had sense enough to realize that an accident might happen if we tempted Providence any further, and with some sorrow we decided to descend again. We found our way down the Mickledore screes and Brown Tongue to Wastdale, and there learnt that we had tried conclusions with the Broad Stand at its worst. We also learnt that from the top of the third step which I had reached the route lay up the snow slope to the broken rocks, then slightly to the left until the easy part of the chimney could be looked into, then obliquely up to the right over rough ground to the small cairn overlooking Deep Ghyll. Many times since then, rattling down the Broad Stand when the rocks were dry and our party well acquainted with every inch of the ground, have we recalled that Easter Sunday and our first essay of the Broad Stand. There have also been many occasions to remember the golden rule in the descent of these crags. First find the top of the Scawfell Chimney; keep it on the right till its one pitch is just below. Then bear to the left down the grassy slope and hunt for the notch in the top step of the Broad Stand.

The usual thing in a fog is to find oneself down in Eskdale. I remember a photographic friend once leaving his camera at the foot of Deep Ghyll while he went for an hour’s round of Lord’s Rake, Scawfell Cairn, and the Broad Stand. The dense mountain mists gathered about him at the top, and rendered useless his efforts to steer the true course. That night he discovered himself at Boot, and three days elapsed before he found his camera, suffering from the effects of over-exposure as much as himself.

The North Climb.—This starts at Petty’s Rift, already referred to on page 31, about twelve yards from Mickledore along the Rake’s Progress. From a distance it looks as though the climb would necessarily include the funnel-shaped gully below the Progress, and the whole aspect of the work is somewhat forbidding. Nevertheless the difficulties are concentrated in the first six feet. When once the climber can get a foot on to the floor of the little square recess, his safety is assured. In the photograph facing page 40 the positions of the three members of the party indicate sufficiently well the course usually taken. The last man is taking off with his left foot, and has his right hand at the edge of the recess on to which he intends to climb. The face is very exposed in wintry weather, and several stories are told of parties who have suffered here from frostbite. It is not a safe place to descend when ice is about the rocks.

The following account of the North or Penrith Climb is taken from Mr. C. N. Williamson’s article in ‘All the Year Round.’ Introducing, as it does, Mr. Seatree’s original description, I make no apology for quoting it in full: ‘There is yet another and a more direct way of climbing the Scawfell cliffs from Mickledore, which, for want of a better name, we may christen the “North Climb.” The route is known to very few. It was discovered for himself in 1874 by Mr. George Seatree.... Major Cundill had already climbed it in 1869.

‘From the ridge we traversed a ledge of grass-covered rock (the Rake’s Progress) to the right until we reached a detached boulder, stepping upon which we were enabled to get handhold of a crevice six or seven feet from where we stood. To draw ourselves up so as to get our feet upon this was the difficulty. There is only one small foothold in that distance, and to have slipped here would have precipitated the climber many feet below. Having succeeded in gaining this foothold, we found ourselves in a small rectangular recess with barely room to turn round. From here it was necessary to draw ourselves carefully over two other ledges into a small rift in the rocks, and then traverse on our hands and knees another narrow ledge of almost eight feet to the left, which brought us nearly in a line with the Mickledore ridge. From here all was comparatively smooth sailing.

‘The detached boulder may be identified with certainty by noticing that it is imbedded in the Rake’s Progress close to the top of a funnel-shaped grassy gully about ten or twelve yards from Mickledore. None but experienced climbers should attempt the North Climb from the Mickledore.’

Scawfell Chimney.—A year after our first sorry attempt on Broad Stand Dr. S. and I were being shown the merits of Cust’s gully on Great End as a school for step-cutting, by an enthusiastic wielder of the ice-axe, Mr. C. G. Monro. Neither of us knew much about the subject, but it was pleasant to be well instructed, and on reaching the summit of Great End we wondered where we could cut steps next. Monro suggested an adjournment for lunch at Mickledore and a subsequent passage up the doubtless snow-filled chimney: to which we all agreed.

On reaching the chimney, Monro took the lead and hopefully ploughed through heavy wet snow as a preliminary. Unfortunately, the snow became softer and deeper as we advanced, until at last we were up to our waists in slush, and wet through. The pitch was not very far to seek. We saw long dripping icicles barring our direct route onwards. Both sides of the gully were heavily glazed with wet ice, and we foresaw an anxious time of waiting while the leader prospected. At the time we were not aware that the usual exit was upon the right-hand side of the pitch, by a couple of easy broad ledges. Nor could we see that the pitch was in two parts, cave upon cave, with a large resting-place between; for the icicles hung in an impenetrable curtain. Monro attacked the icicles valiantly. Twice he succeeded in working half way up between the centre and left wall, but twice he was repulsed vigorously, and found himself landed in the snow below. I was getting cold and impatient. Monro was willing to take a breathing space. I unroped and made for the left wall. Cutting little steps for hands and feet in the ice that covered the wall, and using the fingers for all they were worth, in some ungainly fashion I reached the level of the top of the pitch and traversed on to the snow above. The axe had been used, I suspect, more like a croquet mallet than anything else, and introduced its own particular dangers. But it was of no consequence, the pitch was climbed, and the shivering pair below tried to fling up the rope to me. This was a matter of much difficulty, placed as we were, but by approaching each other as far as we dared, a happy fling brought the end of the rope to my hand, and I responded by throwing down, to their extreme peril, the ice-axe that they needed to effect their ascent. We managed the rest badly. My position was insecure in the upper snow of the gully, or at any rate it seemed to be so. The others were benumbed with cold and wet, unable to feel the holds or to rely on getting any help from me. We certainly were not a strong party, and there was no possibility of mutual aid. The only consolation was in the fact that all danger was absent; a fall could only result in a plunge into ten feet of soft snow, but we never afterwards spoke with pride of that afternoon’s work. The other two decided to give it up, and go down to Mickledore again. My own feelings were not consulted, but what matter? The Broad Stand was somewhere about. I might descend that way and shout when in trouble. We joined again at Mickledore, and rather gloomily glissaded to Hollow Stones.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

THE PENRITH CLIMB FROM MICKLEDORE

That evening at Wastdale we hunted out Williamson’s reference to the Scawfell Chimney. ‘It is impossible to get straight up the chimney, as the way is blocked by an overhanging slab, and escape must be effected either by the right-hand wall near the top, where handhold is miserably inadequate, or by the “corner,” forty feet up the chimney. The passage of the corner is a matter of stride and balance, as there is no positive hold for the hands. There is a bad drop into the chimney behind, and a slip in rounding the corner would end in broken limbs, if not a battered skull. A man essaying the corner must apply himself like a plaister to an unpleasantly projecting rock, and then by shifting the weight from one foot to the other (for the legs are stretched widely apart) he can creep round.’

The chimney has not often been climbed by that variation of mine since then. In dry weather it is perfectly safe to ascend or descend direct by the pitch. In the ascent both sides of the gully may be used at first; then comes an awkward crawl over the first jammed boulder, into the secondary cave. Then, taking care of a few loose stones, another jammed boulder forming the roof is overcome—it is only a few feet high—and a passage out on the right is made possible. A long stretch of scree next fills the bed of the gully, the right wall of which is here broken away almost entirely, so that the climber generally makes an exit, and passes straight up to the Deep Ghyll cairn. But a pitch still remains to terminate the scree, and must be climbed by him who would assure himself of having explored the gully in its entirety.

The Parson’s Gully.—An easy way of descending to upper Eskdale other than by the Mickledore route was pointed out a few years ago by the Rev. T. C. V. Bastow. It is by a short gully with two pitches, due south of the summit cairn. When drift snow lies about it, it is generally possible to walk or glissade down the whole length of the gully on to the screes below.

CHAPTER IV
MOSS GHYLL, COLLIER’S CLIMB, AND KESWICK BROTHERS’ CLIMB

Moss Ghyll.—There are accounts of explorations of this famous gully as far back as 1889. It was styled Sweep Ghyll by Mr. R. C. Gilson, partly for euphonious grouping with Deep Ghyll and Steep Ghyll, and partly as a suggestion of ‘the probable profession of its future first climber.’ In June, 1889, a strong set of four managed to penetrate upwards into its recesses a yard or two beyond Tennis Court ledge, 300 feet above the Rake’s Progress, and almost exactly half way from start to finish. Here the explorers saw the great jammed boulders apparently barring all further progress, and decided to return the way they came. Then, a few days later, another party went round to the top of the gully and descended to the lower edge of the small scree that so quietly terminates the high and difficult last chimney. Here they firmly anchored themselves, and let down an adventurous member on 160 feet of rope. He descended in this way as far as the upper portion of the great obstacle in the middle of the gully, but saw no way whatever for an ascending party to circumvent or attack successfully the immense barrier. He apparently realized that the upper chimney could be fairly climbed, though of course it would tax the resources of the best of cragsmen; but the jammed boulders he judged to be insuperable, and returned to tell his companions the melancholy news. They left Moss Ghyll with the conviction that it would never be climbed, and until December, 1892, everyone else who came and saw turned back with much the same impression.

On the 27th of that month Messrs. Collie, Hastings, and Robinson made a determined attack on the ghyll. The winter was exceptionally fine and the rocks were clean and dry. They easily reached the Tennis Court ledge, and thence traversed into the gully. Penetrating the cave below the big pitch, Dr. Collie, who was leading, climbed up to the roof and out by a small window between the jammed boulders. Thence, by the ingenious expedient of hacking at a thin undercut plate of rock, he exposed a small foothold on the wall that enabled him to traverse out from the pitch and into a place of safety beyond. Thence to the top of the pitch was an easy matter, and the remaining members of the party quickly followed him. It has since been discovered that the hardest part of the gully was yet before them. They, however, had practically solved the main problem, and were contented to work out of the gully by steep ‘mantelshelf’ climbing up to the left. The honour of the first strict ascent of Moss Ghyll fell to Dr. Collier a few days later, who climbed the ghyll from beginning to end under the impression that the previous party had done the same. Dr. Collier was accompanied by four others, and was emphatic in his opinion that the final chimney represented the hardest part of the climb. Two days later he took up Professors Marshall and Dixon, and from the former I obtained sufficient information to start off one morning on my own account to learn for the first time what Moss Ghyll was like.

It was distinctly a day of adventure, and I learnt a great deal concerning the ghyll. The passage across the Collie step appeared to me the most difficult, but the loose slabs over which one has to walk adroitly were then covered with fresh snow. The famous step was invisible, and I had to stoop and scrape in order to determine its exact shape and position. At the first attempt on the traverse I slipped, and fell into the snow-bed of the gully below. The result was scarcely surprising, though eminently uncomfortable. But the falling was, under the circumstances, almost part of the programme, and a rope had been fixed in the interior of the cavern, passed out through the ‘window,’ and then attached to my waist, to eliminate the danger of plunging some 400 feet down to the foot of the gully. The second attempt was successful, though I confess to a feeling of lively apprehension as the critical point was being passed.

Thence to the parting of the ways was easy travelling, and an exit was made by the left-hand route. I returned two days after to fetch axe and rope, that had been left at the big pitch, but it was not until the Whitsuntide of 1896 that a suitable opportunity occurred of visiting Moss Ghyll at its best, for the purposes of comparison and of exploration of the direct finish. During that interval the climb had been repeated many times, and Moss Ghyll was by way of becoming ‘an easy day for a lady.’ Hot-headed youths would arrive fresh at Wastdale, inquire for the hardest thing about, and at the mention of Moss Ghyll would straightway fling themselves into the breach and by hook or crook wriggle themselves up and out in triumph. Others were unsuccessful, and it was always amusing to learn where the stupendous difficulty had arisen, where no mortal man could have gone further. The personal equation was always in evidence, both in the actual climbing and in the history thereof.

PLATE II.

SCAWFELL FROM THE PULPIT ROCK (p. 26).

The height of Pisgah above the Lord’s Rake is about 520 feet.

a Scawfell Chimney.
b Broad Stand (p. 30).
c Penrith or North Climb (p. 40).
d Collier’s Climb.
e Keswick Brothers’ Climb.
f Moss Ghyll.
g Dr. Collie’s Variation-exit.
h Steep Ghyll.
j Pinnacle Climb from Lord’s Rake.
k Low Man.
l Scawfell Pinnacle (pp. 69 and 76).
m Pisgah.
n North Ridge of Pinnacle (p. 83).
p Lord’s Rake.
q Easy Terrace into Deep Ghyll.
r Great Chimney.
s Entrance to Deep Ghyll (p. 12).
t Rake’s Progress.
v Mickledore Screes.
w Mickledore.
x West Wall Climb (App.).

My companions at Whitsuntide were Messrs. W. Brigg and Greenwood. Neither of them had been in the ghyll before, but both were very keen to make its acquaintance, though so far as reading could take them the smallest details of the climb were perfectly well known. We separated off from a larger party on the Rake’s Progress, and at the entrance to the gully, which I have already defined in position, we roped up and began the rock climbing at once. There are a few small and stiff pitches that may be taken as they come in the first fifty feet of ascent from the Progress; but we were quite willing to make the usual divergence to the right from the entrance to the first cave. This led us up easy grass and rock close to the gully, which soon dwindled into utter insignificance by reason of its right wall being almost entirely cut away. Keeping out in the open until the slope suddenly steepened, we made a traverse into the gully, and walked up the screes until stopped by a long and awkward-looking grass-crowned chimney. Then we were hemmed in on both sides, and my friends were invited to define the nature of the next move. They knew something of the locality; we had to climb up the right-hand wall on to a level platform some eighteen feet higher, and then work back into the ghyll by a slightly upward traverse. The platform was the well-known Tennis Court ledge, and its vertical wall was one of the chief difficulties of former days. When in 1893 I had first occasion to climb the wall, there was much ice about and it was easiest to work some way up the chimney before stepping out on to the wall. The second attempt, two days later, was in worse circumstances, and I preferred working directly upwards to a still higher level before diverging. On that occasion it seemed as though the simplest plan would have been to avoid the Tennis Court ledge altogether and keep to the chimney. But Mr. Kempson has since pointed out that the grass holds at the top are unreliable except when frost holds the earth together. With Brigg and Greenwood I should have been loth to leave the Tennis Court unvisited. So we clambered directly up to it. The holds in the lower part of the wall were slight but very firm. The surface was rough and reliable. Two-thirds of the way up we found a little spike of rock that offered an admirable hold, sufficient to belay the rope safely while rounding the top edge of the wall and drawing up on to the platform. The others then came up with ease, and we halted a moment to look at the view.

The ledge is scarcely large enough for tennis, it might be eight feet long and two or three feet wide; the name is just the overflow of the pretty wit of some early explorer. Above us rose threateningly the vertical rampart that separates Moss Ghyll and Steep Ghyll. We could see the jammed boulders a little higher up in our ghyll. They appear small from Hollow Stones, but from our ledge each looked almost as large as a church. Wastdale Church we had in mind. The opposite wall of the ghyll looked hopelessly inaccessible, and we were little surprised that so many before us had been content to look and return. The traverse into the ghyll again was not so easy. If the leader slipped it would require clever management of the rope on the part of the others to avoid an unwilling follow on, though I believe a party was once tested here in that manner—and survived the test.

It was necessary to pass round a small buttress on to the scree bed of the gully. The first two steps were upwards, with just a steadying hold above for the hands. It was not desirable to keep too high, an unnecessary lengthening of the mauvais pas that some climbers recommend. The footholds are not perfect; they are large, but slope the wrong way. When dry, the friction is ample to prevent slipping. Where the rocks are glazed, as I have good occasion to remember, the passage is distinctly dangerous, especially the return from the gully to the Tennis Court ledge.

Thence, when all had rounded the corner safely, we walked up scree into the large cavern formed by the two jammed boulders. The one would of itself have formed a bridge across the gully, with a recess between it and the steep bed of the gully; the other, which is much larger, has fallen on to the first and roofed over the recess. When well within the cave we could see the ‘window’ high up between the two boulders, the one weak point by which the pitch could be attacked. I clambered up the interior of the cave and on to the window-sill. One of the others followed me, the third staying below to anchor the rope more firmly. From the window we could see the smooth steep wall on our right by which we were to traverse outwards. A couple of feet below our level we could observe that the rock formed a sharp horizontal edge six feet long, below which it overhung considerably. Just along this edge we were preparing to walk, using two steps that were sufficiently large for our needs. The first was the step cut by Dr. Collie. The second was at the further end of the short promenade, and was just capable of holding the toes of both boots. Starting with the right foot on the first step, the further end of the second step was taken in a long stride with the left. The right was then brought up to it, and the left reached round the corner at the end on to a respectable and satisfying foothold. The trick of balancing was not very difficult, providing of course that the body was kept as nearly as possible vertical. A tumble when no snow was about would be painful even with a rope to limit its freedom, so we moved with deliberation and with a due sense of the difficulties of the place. After passing the dreaded pas-de-deux, I reached in about ten feet of ascent a satisfactory recess, where a ‘belaying pin’ was to be found. It is an excellent projection of rock, sometimes overlooked by climbers, behind which the rope can be slipped, and held with firmness in the event of a fall. It is a little awkward for the leader to pass directly up into the ghyll again before the second man moves away from the window. Such a course would require a long rope. Using the belaying pin we found that a sixty-feet length of rope was ample for the party of three, and no time was lost in unroping or re-adjusting. When our second man reached the pin I quitted the recess to make room for him, and mounted into the gully while he played up the last man. A few feet of easy scree brought us into the large open portion of the ravine which marks the only spot where it is possible to break away to the left from the gully. The final crags in front rose abruptly up for another 200 feet, and were deeply cut by the vertical Collier’s Chimney, which starts almost at once from our level. The skyline trended downwards by the left, so that the open route to the top was not so long in point of distance as the other.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

Collier’s Chimney, Moss Ghyll

(Face page 51)

It certainly was easier to work up the wall to the left. It rose at a steep angle, and was columnar in structure, with long, porphyritic slabs crowned by small levels of tufted grass. The leader would often be unable to help his followers with the rope, but the successive ledges could be so chosen that no great distance would exist between the resting-places. Such open work is often more trying for the nerves than harder chimney climbing, but it is always admirable practice when the ledges are reliable.

I had quitted the gully by this variation three years before, and wanted both on my own account and that of my friends to work out the alternative route. I started up the right wall, at first steadied by the left, but soon found myself too far out of the chimney to feel at all comfortable. Thirty feet up was a jammed stone blocking the narrow way, apparently very effectually. But we had heard of a possible wriggle behind the jammed stone, and with a reprehensible lack of daring I made a traverse to the chimney again, and began working up it with back and knee in the orthodox manner. The situation was safe enough, but the effort of lifting oneself inch by inch was supremely fatiguing, and when I discovered the hole behind the boulder to be about half my minimum sectional area I began to regret the scheme. But it was too late to return, and with a dread fear of closing up the ‘through’ route for ever, I straightened out one arm above my head and thrust it through the hole. Fortunately I had no camera sack to hold me back, a frequent source of annoyance in a tight place. Here we were all travelling light, and I had nothing to thrust through the aperture but a limp body that was at every moment lessening its rigidity. As soon as both shoulders were well in, the rest followed more easily by vigorous prisings with the elbows, which are so useful in upward thrusting. Dragging myself into a standing position on the jammed boulder, I called on the others to follow. They chose the outside course, making two little détours out and back on the vertical wall, probably the exact plan adopted by Dr. Collier in the first ascent. My position in this little ‘sentry-box’ was secure, and the rope could be manipulated with all necessary care till the three of us were gathered close together in the tiny recess. Then we had a somewhat easier scramble up the next vertical portion of the chimney, to pass some small jammed stones twenty feet higher. We used the same wall and found the footholds in it more obviously arranged for our convenience. The first climber had surely a bad time of it on this wall, seeing that it was all moss-covered, and required an immense amount of preliminary clearing before the holds could be discerned. But moss has had no chance of growing there for the last four years, and we had none to trouble us. A couple of minutes carried us from the sentry-box to the top of the next pitch. The slope of the ghyll suddenly became easier, scree led to a short and easy rock pitch, somewhat spoilt by loose stones, and then a walk to the top brought us in contact with friends and the commissariat.

The Pisgah Buttress.—In the second chapter mention was made of the small pinnacle of Pisgah that flanked the Professor’s Chimney. Viewing the crags from Mickledore, it will be seen that this pinnacle is the culminating point of the ridge between Moss Ghyll and Steep Ghyll. It is convenient to introduce here a brief account of the first ascent of this ridge directly from the ‘Tennis Court.’ Messrs. G. and A. Abraham had repeatedly assured me that their inspection from neighbouring points of view had been favourable, but it was not until April 22, 1898, when ascending Scawfell Pinnacle by the Low Man, that I examined the Pisgah ridge with the object of attacking it. The same afternoon these two friends awaited my arrival on the ‘Tennis Court.’ I came along the Mickledore towards the Pulpit Rock to enjoy a rest and the society of a party of friends, but was disappointed of both by a call from the Ledge. In ten minutes from the Mickledore I joined them, and while recovering breath, was interested to hear of their attempts to reach the Ledge by other ways than Moss Ghyll. Then, disposing the rope properly, we went to the extreme right corner and started the real business. I had a vertical crack about twelve feet high to surmount. It led to a small platform similar to the one from which we began our climb, and presented the usual difficulties—no hand or foothold. A shoulder was given me, then probably a head, then a steadying hand for my struggling feet, the left arm being thrust well into the crack and the right doing as best it could on the wall, until it could reach the grassy edge of the platform above. Once on this the prospect was pleasing, and we dubbed the spot a ‘Fives Court.’ Thence a steep chimney rose directly towards the ridge. I mounted some twenty feet and debated whether the others might safely come up and help. There seemed to be a fair chance of entering an overhanging chimney away up to my left, or of following the direct route to the ridge. The first course attracted me a yard or two along a narrow ledge, until the way was barred by an immense poised block. It trembled as I touched the horrible thing; so did my friends down below, and they besought me to play the straight game, and aim for the arête instead of aiming at them. They were perfectly just in their choice, and it is as well that their advice was followed, for we should have had a terrible time working the overhanging chimney. Ten or fifteen feet of rather careful scrambling brought me to the edge of the buttress, at a point where I could descend a little on the Steep Ghyll side and belay the others with absolute security while they mounted.

The point we had reached was on a level with the top of the Slingsby’s Chimney on the Pinnacle. Another party of climbers were operating over there, and gave us some useful information as to the work we had above us. Our rock was not altogether firm and reliable, so that the next bit of vertical ridge in front was discarded in favour of a slight détour on the left face. Belayed as he was by the others, the leader ran very little risk, and employing a succession of moderately firm, tufted ledges, he dragged himself steadily up for another twenty feet before his companions quitted their belay and joined him. Then we unroped and walked up the remaining hundred feet with no trouble whatever, astonished to find that our difficulties had been so few and so rapidly overcome. In an hour from the ‘Tennis Court’ we were swinging down the Broad Stand ledges.

Collier’s Climb.—For many years it was currently supposed that any attempt to scale the precipice between the North Climb at Mickledore and Steep Ghyll round by the Pinnacle, ranked the daring enthusiast as one quem Deus vult perdere, and, moreover, that the gods would not give him the chance to finish his undertaking. But with the advent of a greater number of experienced climbers, coming to Wastdale with recollections of the stupendous rocks in the Swiss Alps or the Austrian Dolomites, a reaction gradually set in. To many nothing seemed impossible with a party of three and an Alpine rope. But a line must be drawn somewhere to separate the possible from the impossible, and some try to draw it by their own experience. These constitute what is called the ultra-gymnastic school of climbing. Its members are generally young and irresponsible. With years will come a desire to depart this life in one piece, after the common joys are realized that life is able to offer. The quick-burning fever for wild adventure dies away with the approach of workable theories of life. Whatever the mental phenomenon may be, I am convinced that the physical is vestigial—a trace of our former savagery, a suggestion of the lively past, when the struggle for existence involved more muscle than mind.

Wherefore let live the ultra-gymnasts, if indeed they can pass through their March-madness without coming to grief; nor should we attempt to inoculate them with some harmless sport, for the result is to render the sport dangerous.

To return to the separating line that suggested this digression. Those who have sought to define it theoretically have been of the foolish ones, for it has no absolute position for mankind. Each individual possesses a line of his own, and at first in looking for it he causes it to re-arrange itself. What was once impossible for him becomes easy. But his search is more rapid than its advance, and a time comes when he realizes that he is perilously near; and in wisdom he vows evermore to keep at so many feet or centimetres (according to his choice of units) from its nearest point. The nearer he habituates himself to approach, the oftener does he discover some obvious retreat of his line. Those who live far from it find that it can narrow its limits. Which things are an allegory, for this line is a closed curve and limits us in all directions, only one of which leads to rock-climbing.

Our walk along the foot of the Scawfell wall by the Rake’s Progress showed three breaks in the cliff after we left Steep Ghyll. The first marked Moss Ghyll, the second Keswick Brothers’ Climb, the third Collier’s Climb. The history of Moss Ghyll and its gradual yielding to the persistent attacks of active parties has been recorded in the first section. The news of its ascent came as a surprise to all who knew the place, so great a surprise that no room was left for wonderment when Dr. Collier a few months later proved the practicability of his route. But whereas Moss Ghyll became popular in a week by reason of the writing-up it immediately received, Collier’s Climb was almost untouched for three years. The unknown is always the most terrible, and the brief note in the Wastdale climbing book recording its first ascent left much to an anxious imagination. Queer tales were told round at the inn of men who were flung back over the Rake’s Progress after rising only ten feet. Even Dr. Collier was reported to have said he never wished to see the place again. Report was inaccurate, but that made no difference. I candidly admit that there seemed little chance of ever getting up such an awful wall. It was not till I found myself twenty feet up the crack that the attack seemed in the least degree hopeful.

It was just after Easter in 1896 (April 22), and my party had been climbing well on the Screes and in Deep Ghyll. The rocks were in marvellously good condition, perfectly dry and warm to the touch. G. and A. were with me, their last day before returning home. I thought it imprudent to take their votes, and announced that we were going to look at the first part of Collier’s Climb, and to ascertain where its difficulty lay. Fortunately they were both sanguine, and placed their heads and shoulders at my disposal as footholds. We made straight for the right spot in an hour and a half of easy going from Wastdale. There could be no possible doubt of the place. A thin crack rose direct from the Progress, overhanging for the first ten feet, then leaning back a trifle towards the left. A yard or two to the left of this a square corner led directly up so as to join the crack just below a thin chimney, that started some twenty feet above our heads. To get to this chimney was the difficulty. Either the cleft or the corner should be taken. Which was the easier?

I first tried the cleft, but it overhung so seriously that I dared not venture further. Equally futile was the attempt up the corner. Was it possible that we had mistaken the right take-off? To gain time and recover our spirits we walked over to the other side of Mickledore and prospected the climb. There could be no doubt that I had actually started on the correct way. Thirty feet up we could plainly distinguish a grassy platform that promised us temporary safety. If we could get as high as that we had Dr. Collier’s authority that the remainder of our chimney offered no such difficulties as those we had overcome. Even if it had, we could as a last resource fix an axe in the chimney and descend on a doubled rope in the usual Alpine fashion. In this manner, assuring ourselves that we had the worst immediately before us, we returned with some little courage to the attack. This time we decided to take the corner. A. was to stand on a small ledge about a foot above the Progress, and brace himself firmly enough to hold my weight. G. acted as a sort of flying buttress for his brother, and paid out my rope with extreme care. From A.’s shoulders I could just reach a high handhold with the left. But one grip at that height was useless, as the body had to be lifted up on to the rib of rock separating the two clefts. A. then padded his head with a handkerchief beneath his cap, and begged me to stand on it. However steady a young man may be, there are times when his friends think him weak in the head. Such a time was this, and I anxiously asked him if he could hold it perfectly still while I used it. ‘You may do anything except waltz on it,’ was the encouraging rejoinder, and I promptly placed my left foot on his parietal. ‘That’s all right,’ the tough young head called out, ‘you may stay there all day if you like.’ This was reassuring, but I had come out to climb and meant to move on. Yet for the life of me I could not see what to do next. The left foot required a lift before the high handhold could be employed, and there was nothing for it to rest against except the square corner of the recess. Two or three times I tried hard to grip the corner with the toe of my boot, but ineffectually. Then A., seeing my trouble, reached up a hand and held my boot on an infinitesimal ledge. It felt firm, and I trusted to it. With the first movement upwards my right hand felt a charmingly secure depression in the rib above, and swinging clear from A.’s head I dragged up on to the buttress and felt that the game was half won already. The rib was easy to ascend for a foot or two, till indeed it terminated at the small chimney above. But caution was the instinct uppermost in my mind, and the climb to the grassy platform above might, in spite of appearances, prove nasty. Casting around for some means of anchoring on my own rope, I saw that in the crack to my right a bunch of small stones were firmly jammed, and that daylight could be seen behind them down a hole that pointed through to the Progress, fifteen feet below. Here was a chance that, if we had known of it at first, might have been used to conserve our strength and nerve from the start. The others were as yet unroped. Calling to them to let go the rope, I drew up the free end by my teeth and my ‘unemployed’ hand, and let it fall straight down the hole to them. If a fall occurred now in trying the next few feet I could only tumble three or four yards, and should not pass over my friends’ heads and the Rake’s Progress. But the chimney into which a few moves brought me was of no high order of difficulty; the situation was certainly a trying one, for a downward gaze could only take in the rib of rock immediately below and the distant screes 200 feet beyond. I flung some loose stones far out into space, and could only just hear a faint clatter as they touched the scree. Now was the time to appreciate the joy of climbing, in perfect health, with perfect weather, and in a difficult place without danger, and I secretly laughed as I called to the others that the outlook was terribly bad and that our enterprise must be given up. But they also laughed, and told me to go higher and change my mind, for they knew by the tone that my temper was unruffled. A few feet more and I drew up to the platform. It was about a yard wide and three yards in length, reminding us strongly of the Tennis Court ledge, a similar formation half way up Moss Ghyll. Between the ledge and the wall rising above it a fissure cut down into the mountain. It still held some old winter snow, and its depths were cold as a refrigerator. Shouting to the others to rope up at a distance of thirty feet apart, I sat down on the grass with my legs dangling in the frigid fissure, bracing myself to stand any jerks that might be given to the rope by a sudden slip of the second man at the rounding of the rib. G. came up second, using his brother’s shoulders and head much as I had used them. When he reached the ledge he helped me to haul his brother. A. was unable to stand on his own head as we had done, though we reminded him of Dent’s famous climber’s dream, and he hung on to the rope with both hands while we pulled. It must have been rather an unpleasant sensation that of swinging away from the rocks, but he bore it like a philosopher, and caught cleverly on to the rib and so up to us. I am afraid our satisfaction was now somewhat premature, but we were certain of a safe descent whatever the remainder of our climb might involve. But there was no sign of failure in store. The chimneys above us looked steep, but they were deeply carved and therefore safe. Also, they cut obliquely up the vertical wall, and were not likely to involve any inch-by-inch wrestling against gravity. These surmises all proved correct, though we were astonished at the ease with which the remaining difficulties were overcome. It was now two o’clock in the afternoon, and we had been half an hour getting up the first thirty feet. The remainder only took us an equal time, though five times the height, and consisting of genuine rock-climbing all the way, as the following notes testify.

After a short lunch and a few minutes spent in erecting a diminutive cairn, we moved on. Dr. Collier had climbed into the upper part of the next chimney by a traverse of some difficulty from the right. I started the same course, but A. had descended a little to look up the direct route, and called out that it was safer, though perhaps awkward. Therefore we all descended and entered the chimney, which is practically a continuation of the crack up which our climb had started. It sloped slightly to the left, and offered just a sufficiency of holds, without demoralizing us with a superfluity. In fifteen feet its difficulties were over, and a few yards higher we reached another grassy ledge, more protected than the former but giving an equally grand view of the neighbouring precipices. There then followed a vertical pitch of twelve feet, simple enough with the help of a shoulder—or without it, for that matter—and an easy step from the top towards the right led to the beginning of the upward grassy traverse that so strikingly marks the break in the continuity of direction of Collier’s Climb. Many people have expressed doubts as to the safety of this traverse; on the other hand, these many have not all been there to see. The route is perfectly safe; there are corners on the Rake’s Progress that are intrinsically as hard, though perhaps the sublime situation may have its effect on some susceptible organisations. Possibly in wintry weather the traverse may have its difficulties, but if ever it were dangerous the first pitch would be impossible.

We found the first part of the final chimney slightly moist. Probably it is very rarely dry. As the diagram facing page 46 indicates, it slopes up towards the left and is very deeply cut. The first piece was practically a walk up a steep incline, using tiny ledges that were disposed along the slope in the most suitable places. It ended with a magnificent pull up with the arms over a projecting edge on the left.

Then came the pleasantest part of the whole, the negotiation of twenty-five feet of smooth, slabby rock by faith in friction and occasional reference to the overhanging side of the gully. Collier had rightly made special mention of this part, but to his account I should like to add that with dry rock and rough garments all will go well. Even a slip on the part of the leader will not be serious if he is carefully watched and fielded at the bottom of his slide.

At the finish of this exciting portion we saw the sky-line a few feet in front of us, and with a spurt we ran up and reached the summit breathless.

Since that time I have descended by the same route with a different party. We had just come up Moss Ghyll, and my two friends were well contented with their day’s work; for Moss Ghyll had been the limit of their ambition, and they were willing to rest contentedly on their laurels. To tackle Collier’s Climb had never entered their heads before—like the death-dealing pebble for poor Goliath—and they shyly suggested that we had climbed enough for one day. But with the sense of possession of a trump card up my sleeve—that handy rope-hold at the bottom pitch—I succeeded in rousing their enthusiasm sufficiently, and we started downwards. They were perfectly safe men to accompany; this had been proved in Moss Ghyll, and it was perhaps not so very wrong to indulge in a harmless exaggeration of the excitement that the finish had in store for them. But they climbed extremely well in spite of forebodings, and gratified me immensely by agreeing that for beauty of surroundings Collier’s Climb has no equal in all the gullies of the Lake District. The descent was rather easier than the ascent—a state of things so often experienced in difficult climbing work—and we reached the lowest grassy platform in half an hour. There we found the little cairn I had erected a few months before, and were cheered to see a couple of friends approaching from Mickledore to give us any aid necessary near the finish. I let down the first man by the rope; he went well till within ten feet of the Progress, and then, slipping away from the hold, was left for an uncomfortable moment dangling in mid-air. Lowered a yard or so his legs were seized by the men below and he was pulled to their level in safety. There he unroped, and thus also descended the second man. But he came on the middle of the rope, and before reaching the spot where he was destined to quit the rocks he was instructed to slip the lower end of the rope through the safety-hole. On reaching the Progress he also unroped, and with the united strength of the party holding me through the jammed stone I also was willing, when my turn came to let myself hang and be lowered gently down like a bale of goods into a ship’s hold.

To descend alone, without adventitious aid of this kind, it would be better to take to the crack.

Keswick Brothers’ Climb.—This occupies a position between the two chief routes already described in this chapter, but chronologically it comes last, and on that account we find it best to treat of it after the others. The brothers Abraham and I had independently arrived at the conclusion that the Scawfell face offered a feasible route between Collier’s Climb and Moss Ghyll, of which only the lower half required any elaborate planning. In the summer of 1897, before I had a suitable opportunity of trying my fortune there, came the news that my two friends had succeeded with their design, considerable assistance having been given them by the preliminary scrambling of Mr. J. W. Puttrell at the lower end of the course.

On Christmas Day, 1897, I was one of a large party exploring the new route and its environs. An attempt to work directly up the long crack marked by the top e in Plate II. was thwarted at a height of forty feet or so above the Rake’s Progress by the smoothness of the rocks, and by the presence of ice in the crack. It will probably go some day when conditions are more favourable. I managed to traverse to the edge of the buttress on my left, but the prospect round the corner was not a bit more attractive. A descent was therefore effected and the ordinary route tackled forthwith. It was interesting and remarkably safe. We started close to the foot of Collier’s Climb, and, working along a nearly horizontal cleft, arrived without trouble at the corner of the rectangular recess of which mention was made on page 30.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

The Keswick Brothers’ Climb

(Face page 66)

Thence we had a steep bit of edgework for thirty feet before the leader could ask his second to advance from the Progress. This part admits of a little variation, but the main fact to be grasped is that the long chimney in which Collier’s Climb finishes is retained close on our right for fully ten yards, until it suddenly narrows, and a grass platform extends away to the left with ample accommodation for a score of people. This platform, in fact, is part of the same grassy ledge that forms the first resting place after the troublesome introduction to Collier’s Climb; and since that date I have frequently taken friends up and down the latter course by this variation. The expedition is one that can be strongly recommended for moderately good parties, both for its beauty and its sustained interest throughout. That day, however, our course was ordered differently. We had first to follow the original line of ascent for fifteen feet up an awkward chimney with its best hold insecure. Then on reaching an upper grass corner there came an open movement across the face of rock to our right, working gradually upwards and aiming for a narrow cleft that partially separated a small pinnacle from the face. The view of this pinnacle from the middle of Collier’s Climb is simply exquisite, well worth showing to an enterprising camera.

From the pinnacle a slight descent gave an inspiring view downwards of the long smooth corner that I had unsuccessfully attacked a short time previously. At our level the crack had expanded into a respectable chimney, that could be easily entered twenty feet higher after a brief clamber on the buttress. It was disappointing to find then that something very like a scree gully, with only moderately interesting scrambling, was to finish our work in the great cleft. Rather than close the operations so quietly the majority voted for an attempt on the slightly-indicated branch exit thirty feet to the right; and their enterprise was rewarded by the conquest of a particularly neat pitch at the top.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick