From here the route for ten feet is directly up the right edge. The holds are not numerous, but good enough when the rocks are dry, and we find ourselves on a platform or shoulder, very conspicuous in most aspects of the pinnacle, that serves as an excellent take-off for the last struggle. The terrors of the crack often scare off people from the final piece. They almost did our little party. I found my watch-chain broken—some links still remain in the heart of the Needle—and my watch badly dented. The ‘Pall Mall’ had promised us that the last bit was the worst, and we thought for a moment that a little preliminary training for a few days would be the correct thing. However, I took off my boots, for they had no nails, and, standing on a shoulder of Dr. S;, stepped on to the right end of the ledge on which the top block rests. This corner is difficult to climb alone and exceedingly daring work, for the climber drags his body on to it over a sheer drop of a hundred feet, and feels no certainty of safety till he is up. It is like climbing on a narrow mantelshelf five feet high, that is only just wide enough to allow standing room. An ice-axe offers a useful take-off in the absence of a sufficiently responsible shoulder. The disposition of one’s centre of gravity must be carefully considered, and there is a sense of alternate peril and safety in inspiration and expiration. Once on the ledge the game was evidently in our hands, and traversing along it to the left I found a rounded boss of rock eighteen inches higher that offered good hold for both feet. Then the left was brought well up to a little ledge nearly an inch wide, the right hand gripped the right edge of the boulder, and on straightening out the top edge could be grasped. An arm pull was helped by sundry roughnesses for the toes, and I sprawled half across the top triumphantly. In a couple of minutes Dr. S. was by my side. We had no intention of climbing higher that day, and willingly spent half an hour in examining the routes of the Napes’ ridges, two of which are seen to advantage from this spot.
We descended without serious difficulty, Dr. S. going first. I half decided to fix our rope round the top block and use it for my own descent, but it would have been an awkward matter to detach it afterwards. Moreover, others had not found a fixed rope necessary, and we did not wish to have anything to reproach ourselves about subsequently. Dr. S. placed himself firmly on the shoulder, drawing in the rope as it came down. If I fell it would have been on to the rocks a few feet below him; he would experience no great shock, and could easily hold me in. The descent was by the exact route of the ascent. On reaching the crack again we re-adjusted our boots and slid down easily, the remembrance of the leg-clasping constriction preventing our jamming in the descent.
Two or three days later we took other men up the Needle. It was like introducing an old friend. Though I had lost no respect for him, he was easier to manage and offered new features for inspection.
The side of the Needle facing Lingmell exhibits an obvious alternative route to the shoulder. The climbing is twelve or fifteen feet longer, and rather more interesting. Facing the Needle at its foot with our backs to Lingmell, we bear to the right into a square corner. We pass up this on the left to a little level platform, reached best by an armpull and a foothold well away on the buttress. I have seen good men in much trouble on this corner. From here the route is straight up the wall, with a halting-place ten feet higher in a huge slit on the right. Then we climb the same cleft whose other side constitutes the first part of the old route. This side, however, is wider, and contains sundry jammed stones for convenience of passengers. The old route is joined without difficulty, and the shoulder reached as before.
To effect the ascent of the top boulder without help it has always appeared to me easier to start by standing on the small shelf just under the left-hand end of the overhanging part—the shelf, in fact, that is occupied by the sitting figure in the view facing page 168. Practice on ordinary strong mantelshelves enables one to mount up this corner with a certainty of success, the right hand being thrust into a thin horizontal cleft rough enough to offer some friction for the back of the hand as well as the palm.
If people are at the Needle and wish to explore it, they may like to know that Mr. W. H. Fowler has shown that the ‘outside edge’ can be followed from bottom to top. Also, that it is not so difficult to work from the foot of the ordinary route round to the other side of the cleft that splits the Needle. To photograph the Needle we usually get up the other side of the Needle Gully at the foot of the Eagle’s Nest arête. Indeed, this grass ledge is so popular for the observation of a performance that it is known as the ‘dress circle.’ One photograph exists of the Needle in which nearly all the climbing details are masked by a crowd of daring maidens swarming up it. Two have reached the top, and are supporting a terror-stricken man, who, poor fellow, had rashly undertaken to lead up. The picture suggests the old problem of the mediæval theologians—how many angels can balance on the point of a needle?
CHAPTER XII
KERN KNOTTS
Kern Knotts Chimney.—This is one of the prettiest things in the neighbourhood, and it photographs well. The small bunch of hard rock that crops out of the wilderness of scree on this side of the Gable was at one time rarely visited, though so near the actual Styhead path. Its name was almost unknown. I confused it with the Tom Blue crags higher up on the fell. Nowadays the good quality of the chimney attracts many visitors, and several come to see it who do not actually climb. The Knotts are in three parts—Raven Crag, and Upper and Lower Kern Knotts. The middle part is the steepest and longest. A prominent nose or buttress springs down its centre, and is visible in profile at a great distance. The buttress is split off from the main mass by a vertical crack extending from side to side, varying in thickness from three or four inches to a foot.
The chimney had been inspected by earlier climbers before I had ever heard of it. The uninitiated of Wastdale often lament the secretiveness of those who know where new things exist but who keep the knowledge to themselves. Nestor is very reticent, and it is to be counted unto him for righteousness that one Christmas week, after bad weather had deprived us of all the ordinary climbing, he announced to the engineer and me that there was a fascinating little thing, the fancy of an ‘off’ afternoon, lying conveniently close to the hotel, that he would show us how to climb. I was lying on the billiard table just then thinking of the different kinds of nothing. ‘Where is it?’ I asked. ‘In Tom Blue’ was the reply, and as this was yet but a name to me I wondered whether Tom’s blueness measured his difficulty. The engineer was enthusiastic, and declined to allow me to remain longer on the billiard table after hearing this news. So in the gentle rain we marched out of the inn that afternoon, and worked our way up the Styhead path till we had passed the little spring that crosses it near the zig-zag. There we saw the great rocks looming up on the left and were told that Tom Blue awaited us there. The steep slope leading up to our climb was strewn with huge boulders in chaotic confusion. We could either keep to these or else make for an interesting crack in the Lower Kern Knotts that stood directly in our way. To give us a foretaste we took to the crack, finding as usual that its aspect from a distance gave no clue to the wealth of useful detail in the shape of handholds. Then a few yards more of mercurial skipping from boulder to boulder and we reached a little terrace at the foot of the fine wall of the Upper Kern Knotts. Since that day a huge cairn has grown up on this terrace at an astonishing rate of development, to mark the beginning of the climb. Perhaps by the date of publication of this volume the cairn will have grown to rival the crags in height, the climb may be viâ the cairn, and Kern Knotts Chimney blocked up for ever. But for the sake of the afternoon strollers from Wastdale we pray that this may not be. The ascent is apparently in two portions, the lower one being the easier. Actually there is a third pitch, the one of perhaps greatest intrinsic difficulty, starting at the top of the split buttress and quite unnoticeable from below. For this reason the climb must be regarded as deceptive; it is one thing to struggle up the middle pitch with the impression that the worst piece is being tackled, and quite another to find a part of exceptional severity higher up. With that portion impossible the only alternative is to descend again, and that does not commend itself to many men who climb more for amusement than for instruction.