Rock-climbing in the English Lake District / Third Edition

by Owen Glynne Jones

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.