Rock-climbing in the English Lake District / Third Edition

by Owen Glynne Jones

Here we had the finest view of the climb. Below, the beauties of the two pitches were greatly increased by our own elevation. They looked very difficult, and the picture offered its living element in the cautiously advancing parties now just in the interesting part of the climb. Above us rose the huge buttress that divides the gully, and on either side the most fantastic drapery of ice well-nigh frightened us with its appearance of impregnability. We advanced carefully up to the right, congratulating ourselves on having taken the lead, for our friends were not pleased with the battery of hard chips of snow that our step-cutting gave them. The buttress was rounded, and we gained a full view of the troubles in store for us. Immediately on our left a smooth rock-shoot led straight up to the top of the buttress. Between the vertical pillar on the right of this shoot and the opposite side of the gully rose a sheer wall of ice, like a frozen waterfall twenty-five feet in height. So far as we could see at first, there was no chance of forcing a quick way up this obstacle, and it was obvious that slowness would introduce the risk of frostbite. During the previous summer my fingers had been rather badly frostbitten in the Alps, and there was some chance of their still manifesting a susceptibility to cold. We almost turned back to follow our friends up another way; we could trust each other to exaggerate the terrors of this bit, which honestly enough was a trifle too stiff for a cold winter day. But while mentally framing an excuse for the return, I had advanced up to the left-hand edge of the ‘ice fall,’ and started the ascent of its spiky edging of rock. From below the spikes had appeared fragile and untrustworthy. Actually they were too well frozen into place to become detached with one’s cautious drag. This discovery altered the prospect for us all, and the chilly watchers below warmed up with the returning enthusiasm. In fact they needed reminding that I might yet come down suddenly to their level and sweep them off their feet unless they were prepared to receive me. When ten feet up, the axe was called into requisition to cut a few steps in the fall itself. These were useful just so long as the left hand could utilise the rocks, but they tended to carry me away from my comparatively safe corner, and I soon decided to keep away from the fall as far as possible. The corner where the gully sloped back was very exciting, for implicit trust was reposed in the benumbed left hand that had been thrust, well gloved, into a thin and icy crack in the wall, and held there by frost and friction. It offered no sensation either of security or of danger, but it could not very well slip out, and we hoped for the best. A few moments’ struggling landed me safely on the steep slope above the pitch, and a vigorous handling of the ice-axe on the bed of the gully fully restored circulation to my hands. Then followed my cold companions, who had been shivering spectators for a long twenty minutes. They were thus handicapped from the outset, and found the pitch very severe, notwithstanding the gentle suggestion of safety that the rope offered.

We had some careful work still before us. The bed of the gully led steeply up to another large and slightly overhanging boulder that blocked the direct route, and our only possible method of getting above it was to cut steps away on the right, trusting to sundry very insecure grass holds. But these were much better than usual by reason of the frost. In fact the whole climb is perfectly sound in winter, though rendered very difficult. In summer it is often easy but dangerous.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

TOP OF THE CENTRAL GULLY, IN WINTER. GREAT END

From the steep right-hand side of the gully we could traverse with care to the main bed again, just above the boulder; whence to the top of the gully, looking from here like an Alpine pass, was a broad stretch of unspotted snow. There we joined the second party, who had come by the steep grass ledges of the central route. Their labours had been great—or else, indeed, they would easily have managed to get ahead of us—but not so much from the intrinsic difficulty of their route as from the need of continual caution in the more open portions of the climb. They had reached a ledge that overlooked the right branch, and were proposing to descend to our snow slope and cut steps up with us. We were nothing loth to give them a chance of showing their skill with the axe, and for a while halted to enjoy the grand prospect behind us, looking straight away towards Sprinkling Tarn and Borrowdale. But we found ourselves frequently buffeted by strong gusts of wind that swept furiously down the gully. The whirling snow at the little col, now so near, warned us of an approaching tourmente on the ridge. Our section soon decided to start again, and just below a small cornice that crowned the gully we forged ahead, and plunged through the powdery fringe of overhanging snow. We sank in up to our waists, and had to wrestle mightily against the hurricane to find a firm footing on the wind-swept rocks beyond. It was no joke standing about there with the sharp, cold, drift snow from the Pikes blowing into our smarting faces. We could not hear ourselves speak, it was almost impossible to see the correct course; but there were two or three among us well acquainted with this ridge in its bitterest moods, and to these the others trusted. We floundered down to the right towards Esk Hause across the wilderness of blocks strewn over the great plateau, and in a hundred yards came to a boulder large enough to possess a lee side of its own. Here we halted for a chilly half-hour, waiting for the third section to arrive. I possessed their luncheon in my knapsack, a most regrettable circumstance from our point of view, inasmuch as it tied us to Great End so long as it pleased them to amuse themselves down there on the leeside of the mountain. We quickly demolished our own share of the provisions, and with an unselfishness rarely present in the great latterday mountaineering expeditions, decided to leave them a few sandwiches and to cloy the hungry edge of our remaining appetites with tobacco. We were not all smokers, but everybody present assisted in lighting the first pipe, such a labour was it to keep a match burning. We waited there in a close bundle until our feet were half frozen and our faces stiff with icicles. Then we became rather nervous about our missing friends, and debated whether they meant to reach the top that day, or whether they had turned their backs to the lunch and made for Sprinkling Tarn. The latter course seemed at once the most expedient for them and the most convenient for us, and gladly we acted on this assumption. It was just as well we did so, for the frost had sharply nipped some of us, and it was long before my heels gave me any sensation but that of a pair of snowballs in my boots. We slung round the Esk Hause, and had some fine glissading to the hollow of the hill below the crags.

When well opposite our climb at the point whence we had started some five hours earlier, our united shouting brought back an answering call from the gully. Soon we could see the burly form of their greatest member slowly descending the crags at about the same spot where we had long before left him. Having distinguished him as a preliminary landmark easy of recognition, the three others were one by one made out. We were relieved to observe that they were all coming down in a normal condition; no broken limb or sprained ankle had occurred to spoil their pleasure and stop their climbing. After a few minutes’ waiting we learnt their story. The left-hand route had begun in a vertical ice-sheet twenty feet high that took them two hours to surmount. Then, when with sighs of relief, or hyperbolic language, or eloquent silence, that marked each individual’s satisfaction at the happy completion of a difficult pitch, they had cut their way over the edge of this wall and rounded the traverse that dominated it, they were aghast to meet a wall of ice in every respect similar to the first, but magnified! This was heart-breaking, but they made a bold bid for success, and started afresh on the new task. But the daylight was already within an hour of vanishing, and a night on those rocks would have been too much for even the sturdiest of them.

So with a wisdom not often met with in such cases where an element of competition enters into the day’s work, they resolved to retire and join us below. There we met again, and they received their lunch. I was censured to a slight extent, but blame is pretty sure to be the portion of him who carries the provisions. He that shoulders the bag is a responsible individual, and the condition of good training that it induces is moral as well as physical.

Then let me insist on the value of such physical training. The photographer who takes his camera to the High Alps is often too fond of his apparatus to give it up to a guide or porter; he frequently decides hurriedly to take a shot, and soon learns that it is best to carry all for himself. Economy may often preach the same precept. Now to lift his own weight is a labour he at first fancies will tax all his strength, but a little practice in carrying a well constructed and well packed rücksack on small expeditions will teach him something different. The weight of the whole equipment for half-plate photography—camera, three lenses, tripod, and other accessories—is so small a fraction of his own weight that its mere lift is a negligible consideration. His pace will be diminished and his back often uncomfortably heated. But supposing the burden well arranged, many a climber could habituate himself to it. One of our greatest Alpine climbers is said to train in Cumberland by carrying a rücksack filled with stones. Without attempting to persuade any one but a geologist so to burden himself on principle, I strongly advise the man who hopes ultimately to climb without guides to get early into the habit of carrying loads on smaller ascents. It will always be a joy to travel free when occasional opportunity offers, and then he will assuredly improve his pace. On a really stiff pitch the sack may have to be raised independently by the rope, a cause of serious delay when the rope is rigid with frost and the party inexperienced in tying knots or reliable loops. It should be remembered that the sack has more than once protected the climber from serious injury by falling stones, and that a pound or two of extra luggage carried up to an Alpine hut may mean all the difference between a night of misery and a comfortable rest before an arduous expedition.

I have mentioned that the middle route up the Central Gully leads by easy stages to the upper portion of the right-hand branch. Some three years ago a strong party effected an ascent of the chimney that points directly up to the top of the cliff from the high ledge between the two routes. We found the main difficulty was in traversing over an open slab on the right of the foot of the chimney. The slab was split by a narrow fissure, but the handholds were slight and rather insecure. To have trusted to one alone would have been dangerous, and I recall with amusement the spread-eagle attitude of the leader as he endeavoured to distribute his weight equally on four rickety points of support. The position was good enough in itself, but to move involved a dangerous increase in the stress on one of the supports. Fortunately the second on the rope was able to offer an axe-head as additional security, and the passage to the left was effected in safety. The chimney was narrow and its sides smooth, but with the exception of a loose stone near the finish, which rattled down and tended to disturb our wedging, nothing seriously interfered with our advance.