The left-hand variation in the gully is often taken, but is scarcely as interesting. Just after passing the divide we find another buttress of rock cutting the gully into two sections. Here the buttress is not much thicker than an ordinary brick wall; it is sometimes called the ‘curtain.’ There are pitches on each side of it, that on the right being more definite and more interesting. It leads up a steep chimney to the crest of the curtain, which is crossed to the left. The climber is then in the left-hand branch, and has no difficulty in ascending the gully till it dwindles down to nothing, and he finds himself looking into the main south-east gully just above the third pitch. It will be best, then, to climb down and finish by the usual route.
Cust’s Gully.—The climbing in this is of the slightest character in summer time, there being but one short pitch beneath the natural arch, and very little in that. But with hard snow about there is scarcely a pleasanter way of playing at Alpine climbing above the snow-line than by taking Great End viâ Skew Ghyll and Cust’s Gully. The snow slope will alter in inclination from about 30° at the bottom to 70° at the top. If the pitch is but thinly covered, there is the fun of tackling a pitfall, and of bringing to bear on the safe crossing all the science that glacier crevasses may have taught us in Switzerland. Nor let any think that it is all make-believe and that of difficulty there is none. I have had grand times in Cust’s Gully, where we were actually tired out with the labour of cutting steps. The snow when fresh is soft and yielding. Give it a week or two to settle down, and it will bind together so as to offer firm support on scraped footholds. But let cold rain fall on hard snow and the temperature then fall below freezing-point, the surface will become icy and every step will require careful making. Then should the picturesque attitudes of step-cutting depicted in Badminton be imitated in all seriousness, and the axe wielded with the scientific swing. It has happened more than once that a bad axe has proved its worthlessness when tested on the Cumbrian fells in a winter expedition—a much less dangerous discovery than if it were taken new to the Alps and there found wanting. The difficulty in the latter case is that our axes are so rarely used for hard work, if we are led up the great peaks by competent guides. They delight in removing every obstacle in our way, and it may be that long usage of the axe has really been but a test of the bâton, not at all of the pick. Then comes a time when the leading weapon is broken, or carelessly dropped, or still more carelessly pitched up to a ledge of only suppositious safety. Do not imagine that these things never happen, for each has been within my own experience during the last three years; and woe to the party if the untested axe is a weakling when emergency calls on it!
The upper part of Cust’s Gully when the snow is at its hardest may almost be regarded as a test of nerve for the novice. I once was starting to cut down the gully in such a state, with a young man of limited Alpine knowledge, who diffidently suggested that step-cutting was rather slow and that he would prefer a glissade if I did not mind. I shuddered at the vision his naïve suggestion conjured up, of a species of chain-shot shooting viciously down the tremendously steep slope, ricochetting from wall to wall of the gully, and scraped very bare by the sharp-toothed icy surface. That novice had no nerves, and my remarks are not intended for him. The contention is that an amateur party cutting up the steepening slope, and forging a way through an incipient cornice of overhanging frost crystals at the top, will learn much of the genuine safety of an ice-slope, and will see how to divest it of its imaginary dangers. There are many Alpine climbers positively afraid of harmless slopes, that are not nearly so bad as they appear, and still less formidable than they show up in photographs. Such men have never led up steep snow.
Near the foot of Cust’s Gully a branch passes up to the right, of less altitude and gentler inclination; its rock scenery is not so fine, and the place is rarely visited.
CHAPTER VII
GREAT GABLE. THE ENNERDALE FACE AND THE OBLIQUE CHIMNEY.
Great Gable takes high rank among the hills of Britain for grace of form and for the beauty of the views it offers to the climber. It is a square pyramid in shape, and shows nearly its full height (2,949 feet) from the Wastdale level. It stands at the head of the valley, and when seen from the shores of the lake appears completely to shut off the valley from all approach by the north end. Its four main ridges offer fairly easy walking to the summit. The north-east ridge runs down towards Green Gable, Brandreth, Grey Knotts, and the Honister pass, a little col marking the lowest point (2,400 feet) between the peak and Green Gable. A moderate path leads the pedestrian from Borrowdale up by way of Aaron Slack towards this little pass, which is known as Wind Gap, and then bears up towards Great Gable. The pass may be crossed into Ennerdale and a rough descent taken to the Liza stream.
The north-west ridge leads down towards Kirkfell. The broad depression between the two mountains is known as Beckhead (2,000 feet). It is often marshy in the neighbourhood of the diminutive Beckhead Tarn. A wire fence that adorns the summit-ridge from Kirkfell can be followed for some distance up Gable. Thence to the summit is somewhat craggy, but not difficult for pedestrians.
G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick