V. Ghyll-climbing
Nearly the most miserable class in society contains those who have just fallen below distinction, while their efforts have raised them high above mediocrity. These persons are unjustly described by the brilliant as ‘the rank and file.’
In crag-climbing there are a few who seem to successfully emulate a fly or a spider in negotiating slippery rock walls, who can scramble unmoved along the sheerest precipices, or climb untiringly at the steepest ascents. Then come ‘the rank and file,’ whose deficiency of nerve or strength does not permit such risky work. Where do we find this class during the holiday season? Squatting under some towering crag, maybe, which it is their ambition to ascend, in the vain hope that familiarity with its outline will breed contempt for its dangers. Or spread-eagled in some dangerous situation, as the man who many years ago attempted to climb Piers Ghyll, a narrow, deep chasm in the side pf Scawfell Pike (Cumberland). He scrambled to a ledge nearly level with the waterfall which closes the direct ascent of this most majestic ghyll, then lost confidence, and dared neither advance nor retreat. Twenty-four hours’ exposure made him desperate enough to leap into the fall pool thirty feet beneath, in which manner he escaped.
‘A good cragsman is a good mountaineer’ is a proved axiom; but when the fells are so thoroughly and accurately mapped out, and paths are so distinctly traceable as they now are, few adventures happen to the careful man, and the fierce struggles which form the chief delight of crag-climbing are woefully lacking.
There is another branch of British fellscraft, however, which may meet with the favour of such persons, and which should be better known to everyone. But to discuss this it must be assumed that every climbing-machine, every rock-scrambler, has found his natural sport, for the man to whom this pastime is open must be able to discern grace and symmetry in the water-hewn rocks, picturesqueness in the beetling crags, and lively interest in the many charms of the ghylls of the fells.
A ghyll, it may be explained, is the hacked-out course of a fell, beck, or stream, and may be divided into three scenic sections: First, the approach, generally by a wide moorland glen, narrowing into a defile at its head, and choked with boulders of all sizes and shapes. The succeeding portion is the gully proper. The deepest waterfalls are here, as is also the hardest climbing. The lofty cliffs surrounding the fosse are split into irregular chimneys, yards wide rise spray-washed slabs without the slightest irregularity on their polished surfaces. The head of the ghyll is a return to the natural scenery of the fell. In some places this is reached by an easy grass ascent, in others after a rough scramble over piled fragments of rock.
A steep cornice may, however, bar the way, or the ghyll debouch into the hollow of a scree basin. Then comes a struggle upwards; the grit slides away at every step. The wide scree gully in which the stream of débris originates is reached, and progress becomes not a little dangerous. The rotten ‘mountain delight’ which your feet have set in motion slips away from loose rocks on the higher slopes, and down they bound at fearful rates. Keep in the shelter if you can, and wait for the solid rain to cease. You cannot dodge the flying pieces, for, however quick your eye may be in marking, the treacherous foothold does not permit rapid movement. And the speed some of these dislodged stones attain is wonderful. The writer remembers, when climbing a scree under Fairfield, seeing a portion of cliff topple over some hundred feet in front. It simply bounced through the air, struck a spur from the parent rock some dozen yards from him, and burst into dust and splinters. The crash was louder than the explosion of a fair-sized cannon, and the very mountain seemed to quiver at the shock. Had not a crevice afforded shelter from the mass of shingle which for some ten minutes whistled down the slope, these lines would never have been written.
Some ghylls are mere fissures in the mountainsides, with lofty cliffs rising sheer from their beck beds. In these the imprisoned water races down without a break on its surface, a yard wide, perhaps four deep. You scramble along the wall of rock and look down upon the scene, or laboriously work a way along the ledges, at every turn leaping the stream, leaving insecure foot and hand hold on one side for points equally insecure on the other. Then you come to a cataract; the brook tumbles over an abrupt rock into the deep and narrow basin, hollowed by and for itself. The gorge is closed; advance is at an end, retreat impossible, for there is not room on the narrow ledge in which to face about.
There against the skyline, forty feet or more up, is a splinter of harder rock which has separated itself from the cliff. Follow its bold outline to the water, where it forms the promontory between two minute bays. A tiny crack shows in the angle at the head of the cove, up which is the only way out; but there are five yards of mossy, damp crag between you and that. Carefully the body is pressed against the slippery surface, and a sidle forward commences, a notch, a microscopic chink affording precarious hold. The tiny bay is reached, and a few feet further is the crevice desired. An outcrop of felspar now forms a tiny escarpment above your head, and, holding to this, you drag along the sheer smooth breast of rock, your whole weight on your arms. If the ledge presents the slightest irregularity, your fingers will fail to grasp it, and down with a mighty splash you go into the dimpling pool. But the worst predicament is not eternal, and in ten seconds you have got into the cranny. After a short breather, up the chimney you struggle, wrist, forearm, thigh, and calf, all working at their fullest power. A gathering light comes in from the left through the cleft between the narrow crag and the cliff. A lightning flash, more powerful than wind or weather, has cracked the former in many places, making it dangerous to ascend. The platform behind, however, affords foothold, and you have another welcome rest. The roar of the waterfall fills your ears, and you look through the gap at it. How curiously near it seems!—you can almost step into its creamy spout. Splash, splash, thud, crunch—splash, splash, thud, crunch, in wearying reiteration comes up from the well below. Across the gulf a sheer cliff rises, lined and broken in its upper part as its twin on which you are clinging, but dropping, a broad smooth slab, into the whirlpool of the force beneath.
In other ghylls the climbing is less severe—these are the pretty, secluded glens by which the effluent of many a mountain tarn finds its way to the parent river. The first two miles of the one in mind are between bracken-covered slopes. Willows, mountain-ashes, and hollies flourish; the clear water rushes down rock-slides from pool to pool. But further up the scenery becomes wilder. The bed of the beck is strewn with large fragments of rock fallen from aloft, which are happily adapted to the many-shaped waterfalls displayed in the first short gully. There is some hazard in frequenting these places, as many a man has had proof. The shepherd has possibly seen the fall of an immense mass of rock into the shallow where a day or two previously his charge made halt to drink. I know one ghyll which in a single night was choked by the fall of a neighbouring cliff, so that a lovely waterfall was formed, with a deep pool above and another below the obstruction. Many a natural bridge of ‘chocked’ rock is formed by such an event. In the higher portion of this stream is a large tarn, and just before it is sighted the waters of the outflow are pent into a gorge between two mountains, and cascade after cascade breaks upon the view. Climb along the river-bed here; it is difficult and toilsome work, but the vantage is unique. The water churns round in a mad whirlpool here; a few yards in front it races towards us on what appears to be one lofty rock-shoot, but which discovers itself into a dozen separate falls. The water does not seem to fall from one to another of these; it is more of a single roll or a bound. Alert, bright trout dart about in transparent water, devouring whatever food the beck brings down—a hard-cased bracken clock which has attempted a flight beyond its power and perished, a soft mollusc torn from its rock home, or a caterpillar dislodged by the passing breeze from some twig.
Carefully coasting round a mossy corner into a recess from which the cheerful thunder of water proceeds, we enter a crag basin of remarkable charm. We find footing on a slab which almost spans the stream. It has peeled from the cliff above, and has been caught in its descent on a narrow ledge. The brook plashes against its sides, and grumbles under it to the outlet. The spray-damped cliffs are green with moss; down the gaps by which the springs from above reach their bourne hang long streamers of water-weed; a wren has taken possession of a dry pocket among the rocks opposite, and is surveying us suspiciously. It twitters and scolds, defies and threatens, but its trouble is for nothing. The niche in which it homes is impossible to reach, even if we were so minded. Green and gray and yellow, white and crimson and brown, are imparted to the drier precipices by the lichens; silvery birch boughs sway above, green-yellow roots hang into the turmoil of the water. A dipper dashing up the gully sees a human presence, hesitates a flash, then passes at accelerated speed, its wild song echoing over the drone and boom without a tremor or a pause. This rock hollow is merely one among many equally pretty, and pen, pencil, or brush fail to convey half its delights.
As the slippery cliffs afford no handhold on this side, we cross the slab, and attack a cleft down which dangle, as so many ropes, the roots of a mountain-ash. Holding to these, we easily gain the higher level of the glen, and make forward. Passing the mountain tarn, we enter the upper col; and among my many climbs, this has been the most unsatisfactory. It is a wild delve in the mountainside; steep banks of scree slope into it, with here and there a tongue-like bank of tawny grass.
The little stream purls and rattles by your side as you force your way over the yielding débris, promising a rocky and picturesque source. Higher and higher you struggle, and the water correspondingly shrinks in volume. The fanlike streams of shale and dust have here invaded the narrow dell, and you may hear the beck grumbling and spouting beneath the feet. Further up the ground seems to rise more abruptly, and your hopes rise, to be quickly dashed, for the stream is now too weak to burrow a course for itself. The moisture from a wide grassy basin percolates through dank green moss, tinkles in thin lines down the inequalities, or in wide glassy sheets slides—it cannot be said to flow—among the steeper rock-faces, accommodating itself to all angles without a sound or a splash. And this is the source of the stream you have so laboriously traced.
Another fine gully is entered from an old quarry. After carefully negotiating a succession of dripping slabs, on hands, and knees, you reach the darkened bed of a chasm. On the right the light is excluded by perpendicular rocks, crowned with a plantation of dark firs; on the left a less abrupt slope, covered with dainty oak-fern and evil-smelling ‘ramps,’ rises to a thicket of hazel, overtopped by ash saplings. A couple of these have fallen and form a living bridge high above the stream. Climb carefully here, and shun the ferny slope, for the thin bed of leaf-mould slides down with the slightest pressure. A misty gleam in front shows that the chasm widens; the noise of falling water proclaims a cataract, and soon its trough is reached. The tiny stream is descending a succession of mossy steps, now close to one bank, now to the other, wandering as it wills over the wide face of rock. In winter, when the spongy fell is thoroughly saturated, a huge volume crashes through this defile. Then the gorge is impossible to scale, the trough is a churn of angry, yellow-brown waters, and the tiny tinkle deepens to a majestic roar. Above the fall the water still descends in picturesque cascades, at one moment rushing pell-mell down a tiny crevice between smooth black rocks, playfully diving into a deep black dub at another. In one corner it divides round a green boulder, on which a few wisps of grass and a foxglove find sustenance; further up it passed an abrupt ledge in a pretty spout. The merriment of the brook seems to infect you, and you feel that you have lost a companion when you reach its source in the
‘Mere of the moorland,
Boulder-environed.’
Entering another ravine which has a most unpromising opening near the top of a slate-quarry, we notice stupendous crags which augur hard work. Their lower strata are, however, much broken, and the first emerald-green basin of water is easily passed; but further up a giant mass overhangs the ghyll. After carefully surveying both sides, a tiny jut is tried and found wanting. The adventurer loses hold on the rock and is immediately immersed in about ten feet of water. The other bank is examined more carefully, and a long traverse discovered. Along this we warily sidle, making holds for hands where possible. At a most awkward point the traverse comes to an end, and the way back has to be crawled at some risk.
The most dangerous gully incident was met when climbing by a waterfall. The rock (ironstone) was steep, but rotten. We directed our climb towards a block apparently about five feet in diameter. Perhaps this was finely poised on a bed of yielding sand or clay, for as soon as we got weight upon it over it toppled, narrowly missing crushing us against the wall. The boulder fell into the deep water, and, of course, we fell too. A wetting was a lucky finish to this adventure.
I well remember descending a very pretty ghyll—or was it the splendid conditions which made it so? It was a lovely morning, and we had climbed Kentmere High Street during the hours of dusk in order to see the sun rise. A long bank of purple haze had lain along the horizon, but the sun rapidly rose above this and flooded hill and valley, mountain and lake, in a very blaze of glory. At 5.30 we made a move towards Mardale, where we hoped to get some breakfast. Down the steep mountain-shoulder, where the path dodged among the boulders, we made rapid progress to Blea Water, the waters of which were rippling in a slight breeze. At the foot of the tarn we sat for awhile on the gray lichened slabs, enjoying the bright, warm morning sunshine. Then down the bracken-covered slope again to a small waterfall most picturesquely situated. The sun shone directly into its deep rocky basin, and every surge of the tumbling water was telegraphed to the eye in flash and glitter. Some mountain-ash-trees clung round the steep rock, their long roots, white and green, hanging dripping into the clear pool below. Seen under these indescribable circumstances, the sight was a very memorable one. It was only the pangs of hunger that forced us to move on.
One of the best expeditions for one who has a real liking for the smaller beauties of water and rock scenery is to Sacgill. This is at the head of Longsleddale, a long narrow valley of the usual Lakeland type, with an unusually cramped defile at the foot. Right in front, as you cross the narrow switchback bridge from the cluster of antiquated houses known as Sacgill, and turn up the edge of the torrent, are Harter Fell and Gray Crag, the abrupt front of the former continuing in Goat Scar, a pile of rough, fox-haunted crags. As the walk is proceeded with, a curious depression in the dalehead is reached—a flat entirely covered with stone, which at some distant time has evidently been a small tarn. Portions of this level are still banked up to make pools for sheep-washing, and a strong wall has been built across at the foot to prevent the loose débris washing at flood-time on the cultivated valley below. At the head of the depression comes our ghyll. At first the usual succession of small cataracts, each with its clear pool where the water swirls awhile ere escaping down the water-worn green slabs which constitute the steep river-bed. The path, or, rather, the sheep-track which serves this purpose, becomes steeper, and the falls correspondingly higher. You rise from the valley in a succession of mighty steps; the shelf on which you are standing prevents your seeing the route by which you came, giving in return a distant view of the valley shimmering in the bright sunshine, with, still further, range after range of moorish hills, with, here and there a rough cliff, till the distant sea closes the view.
You are now in the very jaws of the pass; a spur of Goat Scar approaches the stream from the left, and a tall corner of Gray Crag forces itself into the narrowing glen opposite. Now the more immediate river-banks rise higher, the rolling waters in front come by a swiftly descending curve. At this point we climb round the foot of the rocky bank, here some fifty feet high, and find a standing-place on a small beach. This is the only place in the rock basin where such a foothold is possible. Behind us the crags rise, covered with tiny clumps of mountain-sage, and fringed at their tops with waving bracken fronds. Beyond, higher and higher, rise the stony ridges to the crags, which strike the eye in whichever direction it is turned. The beck tumbles into the small cleft, and as yet its unbroken descent is out of sight, but the soft, liquid, churning sound betrays its presence.
As other venues fail us, a tough scramble up the grass-hung bank commences. From the bank of the gorge are several grand vertical views through luxuriant mountain-ashes of the stream dimpling in the deep crevice, and then of the waterfall, with its brink twenty feet beneath, its chasm fully fifty. Further on come a number of pretty cascades; then you emerge from a water-hewn gallery on a level with the stream. As the pass widens, a belt of tough slaty rocks is approached, and down these the beck shoots. Not a bush grows near—we are at too high an elevation—and the view savours of desolation. Damp, green rocks pall; the succession of streams sliding almost noiselessly down long smooth surfaces becomes monotonous; ridge after ridge of stony fells give a dreary impression. But just where the pass opens into the swampy moor is its redeeming feature. Threading along the course of the beck, we see a stream issuing from a crag-guarded ghyll, and on approach find that the stream fills it from bank to bank. A few stepping-stones allow one to reach a place where some advance can be made along the foot of the cliffs. Then ford the stream at the shallow, and climb the jutting crag to the right. You are now in an amphitheatre of rocks. In front is the waterfall, its spray damping you through; almost beneath is the chinklike passage through which the water escapes. On either hand tall crags rise, all dripping with spray and hung with luxuriant mosses. Here and there a fern—hart’s-tongue or similar slime-loving variety—finds root-hold; a huge fragment, torn down, maybe, by lightning, reclines precariously in a corner, ready, it seems, to fall and block up the pool. An active person can spring easily across the narrow gulf to the cliff over which the stream is pouring, and there find sufficient hold to climb out. But it allows of no mistakes. A fall into the well of the cascade is to be dreaded, as the unfortunate could only trust to the stream carrying him into the outflow passage; there is no handhold within reach by which a good position could be secured again. After this ghyll, not more than fifty yards in length, has been explored, the tour is finished, and it cannot fail to have been a most pleasing one.