The first party took two hours and ten minutes to accomplish their ascent. The ridge with the initial variation by the chimney has been climbed in half an hour by a party of three; hunger lent wings, for their lunch was waiting them on Gable.
The Arrowhead Ridge derives its name from a very prominent crag a short distance to the west of the Eagle’s Nest Ridge. It offers a very fine specimen of rock architecture, though the artist photographer has been known to express dissatisfaction at its outline, and to claim artistic license in modifying his pictures to suit his theories. Many of those who have been attracted to the Great Napes in search of the original have been much perplexed at the discrepancy between the old photographs and the modern reality. Some in their wrath have desired to get the photographer and his camera below them in a rickety gully, where, as Dent puts it, no stone is left unturned in their struggle to reach the top.
But if the artist cuts away a few thousand tons of rock from his negative with one fell stroke of his brush, if he commands the sun to stand still and the shadows to move on, if he subjects his angles to the influence of the personal equation of the climber instead of the mere observer, these weaknesses are not to be recorded against him. Mountaineering as a sport owes its advancement far more to the inaccurate descriptions of its literary devotees than to the simple statements of facts of the scientific, and its best pictorial advertisements have been those where art has assisted nature and laughed at science.
This to some extent is what we all need, and what we all understand. From the top of the Kern Knotts’ crack the evidence of a freely hanging rope as to the direction of the vertical actually contradicts one’s best judgment. The Kern Knotts wall is perhaps 15° from the vertical, but looking down it one would judge it perpendicular. Yet we never fancy a foothold horizontal when it is at a slope of 15° to our disadvantage, else the Eagle’s Nest Ridge would lose much of its terror. Rather are we then inclined to magnify the angle, and the actual slope plus our own inclination make together something like the 30° that would figure in a fancy sketch or a popular article.
Education is a marvellously fine thing, and in mountaineering it works wonders. It enables men to interpret the barren truth in accordance with their own experience. Notes of new ascents in the ‘Alpine Journal’ they can enjoy and assimilate; but, as in eating caviare, the taste needs cultivation, and many remain unequal to such food to the ends of their lives. Now because there are many false translations possible of the one true original, it must be easy with a knowledge of the truth to interpret it variously, and correspondingly difficult to get at the correct version from a bad translation. Even the mountaineering education fails to help us. All it does is to give us the taste for truth, and the sense of right to demand the genuine article. It might be printed in italics at the beginning of the chapter, like the usually inappropriate and obscure poetical references, and so isolated from the author’s personal exposition. This text and sermon notion has not, so far as my little library of Alpine books can tell me, been adopted by any popular writer on mountaineering, though the difficulty has been grappled with in other ways. Thus the Alpine historian or geographer may find the required facts neatly gathered together in a brief appendix, or still more briefly summarised in a letter published simultaneously with a review of the book in the ‘Alpine Journal.’
The sale of caviare is strictly limited, and the demand for ‘Alpine Notes and New Ascents’ confined to the few. Hence mountaineering books intended to sell well are written for the uneducated many, not for teaching purposes, but for the satisfaction of their desire for tales of adventure. So long as climbers tolerate this professionalism introduced into mountaineering—and there is every reason why they should in all cases where the professional is recognized as such—they must necessarily give the artist a free hand, whether he writes or paints or takes photographs. Personally I should ask for information as to the treatment of any negative that has been employed for reproduction of pictures. ‘From a photograph by,’ nowadays suggests a bad camera, a shaky tripod, an amateur operator, a cunning artist, and a long purse. But ‘truth is mighty and will prevail,’ so we may as well get on to the Arrowhead.
Viewing this Arrowhead from the easy ground near the Bear rock, it is seen to bear some resemblance to the Gable Needle (see Chapter XI.). In each case the rock forms the lower extremity of a Napes ridge, and its sides are remarkable for their steepness and smoothness. The outside edge of each is broken by a well-marked shoulder, and the head of the Arrow may be fairly well likened to the top overhanging boulder on the Needle. Here, perhaps, the resemblance ends. Certain parts of the climbing on the Arrowhead must be characterized as insecure, whereas the Needle is firm throughout. The former may easily be attacked from the notch behind it, the Needle cannot be similarly treated. The original climb up to the shoulder on the Arrowhead was by a recess on the east side, that up the Needle by a narrow crack on the west. (See photograph facing page 153.)
The first ascent dates from April, 1892, when a large party attacked the rock on the lines just indicated. The lower part of the buttress was mounted by a steep and open recess on the western side, a good climb leading directly to the shoulder half-way up, where the route was joined by the upper end of a corresponding chimney on the other side of the buttress. Thence the climbing was straight up the corner. It was not very difficult, but at a point a few feet below the final bit the rocks were insecure and the situation alarming. The stones are better now than formerly, but great caution must be used. In 1893 another party repeated the ascent, and showed that it was possible by passing round to the gap at the back to continue the climb along the ridge. The usual route nowadays is to reach the ridge by the scree gully between the Arrowhead and the Eagle’s Nest arête, climbing up the side wall to the notch, and so avoiding the Arrowhead itself. The wall is steep, but its ledges are conveniently disposed, and no trouble should be experienced in the ascent. Once on the ridge the climbing is delightful. The holds are good, and the narrowness of the crest along which we pass gives the spice of sensationalism that at all times offers an apology for easy climbing. The actual ascent of the ridge need take but twenty minutes, the descent about half an hour for a party of three, when conditions are favourable. There is one mauvais pas of moderate quality: a wall of ten feet must be mounted to reach the crest of a tower on the ridge. Then follows a long stride across the gap on the other side, and it is sometimes amusing to watch the timid climber who fears that he may not be able to swing the hind leg over when in the colossus attitude half-way across. Above this all difficulties soon disappear; the gullies on either side rapidly rise to our own level, and the ridge ends shortly before the crest of the Napes is reached.
The view facing page 153 shows the Arrowhead at the left-hand top corner, the Eagle’s Nest Ridge against the sky, the lower half of the Needle Ridge, and the Gable Needle itself.