Rock-climbing in the English Lake District / Third Edition

by Owen Glynne Jones

Wastdale and Great Gable

(Face page 114)

The south-west ridge is called the Gavel Neese (Gable Nose), showing from Wastdale Head as a rounded grassy shoulder leading directly towards the peak. Up this shoulder we may make the shortest ascent of Gable from Wastdale, avoiding the easy crags of White Napes that face us where the upper limit of the grass is passed, by skirting round the screes on the left. An ancient path with the strange name of Moses’ Sledgate leads up Gavel Neese till the level of Beckhead is nearly reached, and then bears away on a traverse over the screes round to the middle of the Ennerdale side of the mountain, there to lose itself in the wilderness of stones that are bestrewn all over that desolate region.

The remaining ridge to the south-east is scarcely definite enough to be worthy the name, though from Wastdale it seems to be at least as well marked as Gavel Neese. It leads towards the Styhead pass (1,579 feet) and offers a quick route to the top. Mr. Haskett Smith suggests ‘half an hour’s rough walking,’ but that pace is too severe for most walkers.

Of the four faces of the pyramid the north and south are precipitous, the west offers very little scope for the cragsman’s skill, and the east absolutely none. The north or Ennerdale face is practically a single, exposed section of some 400 feet of rock, seamed with traverses and split with numerous gullies and chimneys. The south face is of a complicated design. Springing up from the 2,000-feet level, the Great Napes appears in the centre of the south face as a great rock screen belonging to the main mass of Gable. In reality it is well separated off by deep hollows cutting behind it to right and left. The highest point of the Napes is connected with the upper crags of Gable by the crest separating these two hollows, either of which may be followed down in safety by benighted wanderers who are past all wish to avoid screes, and whose one desire is to reach a low level in some inhabited valley.

Let us more happily suppose for the present that we are upward bound and desirous of circumventing Great Napes. We can observe from Wastdale Head the line of lighter scree that comes down either side of the Napes. That to the left leads through a beautiful natural gateway between White Napes and Great Napes, and thence trends to the right up to the summit ridge connecting the latter to the final crags of Gable. The streak of reddish scree to the east leads up through larger portals into the very heart of the mountain, penetrating round to the back of the Napes, and thence up by the left to the same summit ridge. This hollow is floored with small red scree that glows with a marvellous richness of colour in the sunlight.

The passage between the foot of the Napes and a rock pinnacle at the entrance to the hollow is called Hell Gate. Philologists may be led to connect the name with the colour of the scree, for the primitive mind of the namer would have naturally associated redness with an infernal intensity of heat. The White Napes offers a little scrambling, but the Great Napes precipice gives us the best climbing to be had on the Gable; and if, after reaching the crest of this wall, we bear slightly downwards across the upper part of Hell Gate screes, we can finish our climbing by some excellent rocks that lead to the large Westmorland cairn close to the highest point of the mountain. These Westmorland crags, as we presently find it convenient to name them, are irregularly continued away towards the south-east and the Styhead pass, by Tom Blue, Raven Crag, and Kern Knotts. The last named are in two tiers, the lower being close to the Styhead path, and only some 1,200 feet above Wastdale Head. The upper Kern Knotts offer climbing of great interest and perhaps exceptional severity, and are rapidly becoming popular among the climbing fraternity.

The Ennerdale Face.—Looking first to the north side of Gable it is a matter of regret that no satisfactory inclusive view may be obtained of the whole width of this mountain wall. Seen from the slopes of Kirkfell the face recedes in such a way that very little of its climbing can be prospected. From the ridge between Scarth Gap and Brandreth we have a front view of the crags, but they are much dwarfed by distance, and their northern aspect is unsuitable for long range photography.

From Kirkfell we can readily mark the Oblique Chimney which cuts deeply into the upper half of the centre of the face, and terminates at a right-angled notch in the sky-line. Some distance to the right we may with a good light identify the Great Central Gully that cuts the face from top to bottom. To the immediate right of this is an easy scree leading the whole way to the top of the crags. Near the foot of this on the right there used to be a slab pinnacle some fifteen feet in height that has since been completely disintegrated by rain and frost. A year or two ago the freshly exposed rock that bore witness of the recent departure of the pinnacle could be clearly recognised by contrast with the older face. This climb is now reported to have been exceedingly difficult; such will probably be the future reputation of the fast disappearing Stirrup Crag on Yewbarrow. A little higher up this scree slope, on a small platform out to the left, the remains of an old stone-walled enclosure could once be distinguished. It may have been the haunt of whisky smugglers or the hiding place of some miserable outlaw. It is to be regretted that the remains are now in too bad a state of repair to be recognised as artificial. Between the Oblique Chimney and the Central Gully lies the easy route or natural passage by which a mountain sheep of ordinary powers ‘might ascend’; though it not infrequently occurs that the perplexed climber roundly declares that the mountain sheep of average mental capacity is not so foolish as to venture into such a bewildering region of small grass traverses, steep stony slopes, and ledgeless walls.

Immediately to the left of the Oblique Chimney is the climb that leads past the Bottle-shaped Pinnacle and up the huge retaining buttress of the chimney. Further towards Wind Gap the sky-line suddenly drops at the upper level of Stony Gully—an easy, though rough, passage up broken boulders and loose scree, by which the crags can be outflanked. The wire fence that leads over Wind Gap to Green Gable and Brandreth begins here, and is a useful landmark in misty weather. Mr. Haskett Smith found in 1882 a ‘high level route’ across the face at about two-thirds of the way up. It is an excellent ramble, and full of strange surprises, passing along exposed ledges, in between towers of rock and the great upper wall, offering a peep into the black recess of the Oblique Chimney, and an easy digression up to the Bottle-shaped Pinnacle. It finishes close to the foot of Stony Gully, and can be recommended for a preliminary survey of the more difficult routes up the Ennerdale face.