Rock-climbing in the English Lake District / Third Edition

by Owen Glynne Jones

Quite recently I had the opportunity of joining a party up the Central Gully. We had come over to Gable Crag after an hour or two on the Eagle’s Nest arête and the neighbouring rocks. Our plan was to get up the chief pitches in the gully, and then, instead of bearing up to the right at the foot of the final wall, to take to the narrow vertical chimney that passes up its centre and leads to the highest point of the crags—to treat it as an old friend with a new face.

But before taking to the gully there was another little chimney to visit, that had been recently ‘invented’ by Dr. Simpson and Mr. Patchell, on their way to the Great Central. It is a singular thing that this remarkably interesting way up Gable Crag should have so long remained undiscovered. The reference in the Wastdale book is as follows: ‘A walk of a hundred feet along a grass ledge from the point where the wire fence from Beckhead touches the rocks of the Gable, followed by a hundred feet of scrambling up a wild and much broken gully, leads to a small cairn which marks the foot of a chimney on the left. This runs up in a direction parallel to the face of the cliff, and so is not clearly seen except at close quarters. It is very straight and narrow, especially in the middle pitch, and makes an interesting climb of about eighty feet.’

We worked round the scree and broken rock from the top of the Napes to Gable Crag. Then by keeping fairly low down we arrived at the end of the wire fence from Beckhead, and were in a position to profit by the description already supplied. The fence ends abruptly on the face of a crag that is somewhat separated from the main mass of Gable. Between the two a scree gully runs downwards in the direction of Brandreth, and the Doctor’s Chimney is found to spring from a point a hundred feet up from the foot of this gully. The crag interferes with the view of the chimney from the neighbourhood of Beckhead, though from the nearer slopes of Kirkfell the little climb is almost as well marked as the Oblique Chimney.

The hand-and-foot work begins on the right side of the recess, and the climber makes directly up to a little pinnacle about thirty feet above him. There is no need to back up the chimney at first. The pinnacle offers comfortable standing-room for one only, but the leader can manipulate the rope for the second until the latter is within a foot or two of the platform. Then by passing a few coils of rope round the top of the pinnacle he can make the second safe while he effects the rather awkward passage back into the crack. Both hands seize an excellent hold on the opposite wall, perfectly safe but a trifle remote for a man with a short reach, and then the foothold is quitted and the body dragged into a good jamming position. The crack is very narrow, and extensive slipping is almost an impossibility. It now becomes necessary to wriggle up inch by inch with slight hold for the extremities and too much for intermediate excrescences. A few feet higher and the chimney is at its narrowest. Here follows an uncomfortable rearrangement of the system. The handholds have hitherto been best on the left wall, and the climber has accordingly faced that way. But now the holds dwindle down to nothing on that side and others appear on the right. We may either climb out of the crack and on to the buttress, or preferably effect a half-turn of the body and so get to face the right wall. This is most safely accomplished by working outwards a bit before twisting. A small stone is half jammed in the crack and may be used for a foothold, though too insecure for any hauling purposes. The struggling now becomes a little less irregular. The ledges are excellent for the hands, and in a few feet we reach the level of the floor of a little cave roofed in by a couple of overhanging blocks. This place again is only large enough for one cave-dweller to inhabit, and the leader has his choice of procedure—either to run out another twelve feet before the second man comes up, or to wait till his follower reaches the narrowest part of the crack. To avoid the trouble of re-arranging the rope, the latter plan is better, though it involves a little risk of peppering the crack man with small stones that are only too willing to lower their present level at the roof of the cave.

The last move is moderately easy. By pulling up on to the horizontal ledge on the left buttress the loose stones are almost avoided, and then some easy steps land the leader in safety a few yards from the upper edge of the crags. When all are up, a traverse of about fifty yards to the right discloses a rough but quick route down to the scree gully and the wire fence, or the same traverse continued along the contour-line leads to the Westmorland crags and the beginning of the ordinary scree descent towards Gavel Neese.

The Doctor’s Chimney deserves to be popular. It is a perfectly safe climb, and offers excellent practice for the arms. On the whole it is probably a little easier than the Oblique Chimney, especially when descended, for it is so narrow that there is little need to seek footholds until the level of the pinnacle is reached. It has the advantage over its more famous rival of being easily hit off in misty weather; for a scree gully is then less mistakable than a rocky sheep walk, and a wire fence than a ‘bottle-shaped’ pinnacle.

Such, then, was our digression before making for the foot of the Central Gully. Another party of friends had comfortably ensconced themselves in various corners on the small crag opposite the chimney, and were interested observers of our performance. They smoked cigarettes and offered advice freely; their day’s work was done, and to watch others still hard at it was perfect luxury. When we emerged panting from the top they threw away their cigarette ends and strolled down to Wastdale for tea. It required much moral strength to refrain from joining them, but there was the Great Central still on hand, and that other little chimney to prospect. If it were as difficult as report said, then we were bound to stay and climb it. So we worked round to the end of the wire fence and looked for our gully. Its name perhaps suggests a great gap in the mountain side, visible for miles round, and as unavoidable by the wanderer on this side of Gable as the Edgware Road is said to be by the Frenchman in London. But if this be so the name is misleading. Many people fail to find the gully in bad weather. Its entrance from below is narrow and its exit above is ill defined. A short distance to the east of the Doctor’s Chimney the scree-walk up the crag, that leads past the relics of the smuggler’s inclosure, insures a safe passage to the top of the cliff. This scree gully faces Kirkfell, and but for the usually poor light on this north face of the mountain it might be easily recognized from that side. Scarcely a hundred yards away from the end of the fence the narrow opening of the Central Gully may be found; from Beckhead it appears in profile, and is not-always manifest. Walking eastwards along the scree beneath the crags, it is the first really obvious passage into the heart of the mountain after leaving the Doctor’s Chimney; the easy scree walk is not much impressed in the face, and in a mist it has often been entirely overlooked. Even in cloudy weather the first pitch of our gully can be discerned a few feet above us, and identified by the buttress that partially divides it, the chock-stone in its right branch, and the fine-looking ‘jammed-stone pinnacle’ that shows up a little higher on the left.

The first clear account of the gully appeared in the Wastdale book: ‘In the great gully are found two pitches near the bottom. The top part may be varied by crossing a grass slope and joining the easy scree route, or the climb may be continued by going straight forward. This looks very hard, but on close inspection the difficulty entirely disappears; for the climber is able to pass behind a square tower of rock, and in this way to enter on the final bit of grass and rock that brings him out at the top.’

We were a party of three, and managed comfortably with eighty feet of rope. The first pitch was easy, what with dry rocks and warm weather. Our guide started up the buttress that divides the gully, and at a convenient opportunity stepped back on to the loose stones in the bed. A few feet brought us to the second pitch, a trifle harder than the first. Again the leader worked up a buttress on the left of the gully, but this time well in the hollow. Near the top of the obstruction the left leg had to take the place of the right, a good handhold above serving to insure the safe transfer, and then a ledge could be reached by the right foot. The body was next swung over to that side, and so to the crest of the pitch.

Here the gully looked very attractive. On the left rose the jammed-stone pinnacle, an easy chimney leading up to the cleft that separates it from the mountain. Two big boulders bridge the cleft near the crest of the little passage, the higher one offering a safe way to the summit of the pinnacle. It is from here that the progress or ‘rake’ can be made out across to the foot of the Oblique Chimney and on towards Stony Gully at the east end of Gable Crag.