G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick
THE ENNERDALE FACE OF GREAT GABLE
In five minutes we had assembled there, and decided that we were still distressingly hungry. I felt in my pocket for more crumbs, but only brought out stones. We hurried up to the cairn at the highest point of the mountain. It looked a picture of Alpine solitude. Not a trace of the classic, no hope of our lunch. Fresh snow had fallen during the last hour or two, and had obliterated all signs of his visit. Nay, worse, we had not that implicit confidence in his knowledge of the district to feel certain that he had found his way safely down to Wastdale, for he had never been on the mountain before; nor was he quite so familiar with the mountain mists as we proud climbers of the Oblique Chimney. But he had the laugh of us that night! We expressed sorrow for the poor man, and then with a sigh turned to consider our own position. It was a trifle unpleasant to be on the summit of Great Gable after six p.m. on a snowy winter’s night, with something of a wind blowing through us and very little to obstruct its free passage. But for all that we were happy enough, and arranged elaborately to steer by compass direct for White Napes and Gavel Neese. South-west by west was our direction. K. was positive of that fact, and offered to lead. Some twenty yards behind him came young A., still going well; then I followed at an equal distance behind him, just able by the reflected light from the snow to distinguish the leader and keep him in the straight line he was marking out for us.
By the light of a match that we kept flaming for a sufficient time in an improvised tent of coats, he examined the pocket compass he carried, and was confident that ten minutes’ good going would carry us down to the grassy shoulder below the White Napes. On we went steadily downwards, and I wondered whether, if we took to running when the boulders were passed, we might get down in time to start dinner at the usual hour. Happy thoughts in this connection kept me from attending particularly to our route and its details, but when we got to a thicker mist I looked about for a landmark. Nothing could be recognised. The ground sloped rapidly down on the right; the left seemed to rise most oddly to a sort of ridge. But the strange thing was that there seemed to be another mountain fronting us. K. was at a complete loss, and took out his compass again. We erected the tent once more, and all crowded over the instrument to determine our fate. Alas, we had been travelling towards the north! K. had mistaken the two poles of the magnet. The mountain mass looming ahead was the Green Gable, and we were within a few feet of the Wind Gap. Our dinner was at least two hours further away than ever, and we were still hungry. There was nothing to be done but walk round the mountain by way of the Styhead tarn and pass. We had no lantern, and it would have been a legbreaking business to attempt to skirt the Ennerdale face and strike off the Moses’ Sledgate in the dark. The snow was soft all the way down Aaron Slack. I have often come down in daylight since and wondered what we could have found to tumble over that night; we were always slipping through snow pitfalls into water, or tripping over boulders and on to our heads in snowdrifts. Now and again we would find ourselves sitting side by side in the stream, the leader’s tumbling having been too sudden to permit of any warning to the others. Such occasions we generally seized on as suitable opportunities for halting, only to be ended by sleepy realization that the water was both damp and cold. And all the time the inexperienced classic was enjoying his dinner and his phrase-making in princely luxury and comfort at the inn.
At last we reached the shores of the frozen tarn and turned wearily up to the right. The path was in a shocking state, and on arriving at the cairn at the top of the pass we found a continuous glaze of ice along our route. So, at any rate, it seemed to be that night—my first experience of crossing the Styhead in the dark. It was nothing less than actual hand-and-foot work in many an awkward corner. Subsequent opportunities of climbing down the path in the dark have often been given me, but that first night was the worst. How we managed to avoid broken limbs has ever been a mystery. We would suddenly slip over on the ice, and slide furiously down the path and into some obstruction below. We had tried to smoke, but pipes were too dangerous to hold between the teeth during these unpremeditated rushes. But time ends all things. By ten o’clock we were anointed with Vaseline and massaged with Elliman, with the prospect of substantial fare to follow. The classic slippered into the dining-room to report himself. He had waited on Gable cairn till half-past three, and then had returned by the way he had come. Our lunch he had left under a stone, and as a guide to our finding it had stamped the snow down and drawn with his finger several arrows or asterisks or other marks of reference in the snow. It was very clever, but the fresh fall thwarted his ingenuity only too effectually.
The Oblique Chimney rapidly became popular, and has since been visited by many climbers. But it can never be regarded as an easy ascent.
Some time during the summer following I looked down it to see how a descent might be managed. The loose stones at the top were most uncomfortably unstable, and the clamber down towards the entrance of the upper cave required great care, without being exactly perilous. A friend was with me who counselled waiting till we should find ourselves up there again with a rope, and ultimately his advice prevailed. Some eighteen months later, in January, 1895, a large party of Wastdale Christmas revellers made for the Oblique Chimney top. The crags were approached from the scree below, a few feet to the north of the entrance to the Central Gully. We took to a little chimney at once, and then up a grassy slope to another chimney that brought us to steep grass and scree with frequent outcrops of rock.
Thence we made up towards the entrance to the Oblique Chimney then visible, and before reaching it clambered up an incipient gully on the left wall that bounds the scree just there. It led over the sharp crest of the buttress that supports the bottle-shaped pinnacle, and thence we had a steep but fairly easy descent of ten or twelve feet to a ledge that led round to the other side. The rocks were dry and very free from snow, so that each member of our party found himself able to pull up easily from ledge to ledge in the little gully till the notch between the pinnacle and the main wall was reached.
Thence the leader turned up to the left, and recommenced a similar series of ledge-climbing operations, of which only the first from the notch could be called in any sense difficult. We had a magnificent view down the face, which is particularly steep just here, and the frequent halts rendered necessary by the size of our party afforded plenty of time to admire the huge slabs that separated the ‘sheep walk’ from us. A small stone-man marked our point of arrival at the summit of the crags, and after adding a block or two as our contribution to the cairn we turned right, and in a few yards had reached the rectangular entrance to the Oblique Chimney.
The main difficulty in the descent was to prevent stones sliding on to the heads of men lower down, who were in the direct line of fire and rarely able to raise a protecting arm for themselves. The upper ones were continually cautioned by those in peril to keep an eye to the rope, and prevent its dragging over the bed of the gully. All passed down safely, but I remember making a mistake when descending the great overhanging pitch at the bottom, in assuming that it was an easy matter to climb down with a camera sack on my back. I had descended part of the ‘ladder,’ but then found the need of a back pressure, and hesitated about crushing in the contents of my sack. The rope is of no use to the last man in a place of that kind, and I therefore was permitted to untie the knot round my waist and fix on the sack instead, letting it down gently to the others by the left hand. The right was needed to hold on firmly to the ladder, so that the teeth were in requisition for the tying. The descent offers another instance of the ease with which a chimney that is exceptionally severe in the ascent may be traversed in the reverse direction. Where gravity helps the motion we have only to consider the best means of opposing it. During an ascent much strength is spent in the mere lift, to say nothing of the extra force needed to prevent slipping.