Rock-climbing in the English Lake District / Third Edition

by Owen Glynne Jones

From the ledge at the foot of the Upper Kern Knotts there rises another buttress a little nearer the Styhead. Between the two buttresses a short gully is found which offers a satisfactory route of descent from the crest of these crags. The entrance to the gully is difficult if tried from the foot of the buttress, but easy and suitable for beginners if taken on the left. It was from this spot that our party had the first view of the ‘crack’ that was to offer such sport a year or two later. Nestor with his characteristic caution vetoed the whole affair, and vowed he would never speak to me again if I attempted to climb it. The engineer, on the other hand, thought that it could not be much worse than the chimney which we had just climbed in safety, and that it might be a good thing to keep in mind for settled weather.

In December, 1895, I went up the chimney with Mr. and Mrs. F. W. Hill. The rocks were slightly damp, the weather misty and unpleasant. On the natural bridge I halted, and looked down the smooth wall of rock facing the Styhead. The crack was straight beneath, and Hill nerved me to the sudden resolve to descend by the rope and prospect the middle portion of the climb. We had only sixty feet of rope, but I was let down carefully and at full distance found myself in a splayed-out portion above the first pitch. The bit beneath looked very awkward, so awkward indeed that it seemed impossible to effect a descent on to the boulders below. There was only one course available, that of climbing up again. This was not so hard as I had fancied it would be, for with the sense of the perfect security in the rope that Hill carefully manipulated, came freedom of movement and a bolder style. This is the reason why many Alpine climbers who know not the joys of leading are entirely ignorant of their own powers; they as often err in underestimating as in overrating their skill; they can gauge their strength only by practice without rope from above. Emerging from the crack I joined up on the rope again and finished the rest of the climb, wondering the while whether a chance would ever come of penetrating the crack from below.

Before leaving the ordinary chimney, let it be added that the climb may have an initial variation by pulling up the vertical rocks to the west of the foot of the nose; the distance to the first big platform is increased about fifteen feet, but the way is pleasanter thus.

Kern Knotts Crack.—One fine morning in April I started off for Keswick, grieved to leave Wastdale and feeling strong after a fortnight’s scrambling. Surely if the crack could be done at all now would be the time, with weather and physical fitness corresponding. Our party was small; two men were coming with me to look at Kern Knotts, and subsequently to exploit the Oblique Chimney, the where-abouts of which had puzzled them the previous day. It was a bargain between us that they should help me in the crack and I should lead up the Oblique Chimney afterwards. The advantage was thus all my own, and their brotherly kindness drew me to them. It was in the preceding winter that Hill had let me down from the top of the crack for a distance of fifty feet to a small loose platform of rock, and I had with extreme effort managed to return without tugging the rope. Since that time there had been opportunity to reflect and decide that if I could get up to the platform from below and then help another to the same level, we could jointly manage the ascent of the crack without further aid. If the platform could not hold two, it would be a case of ascending the worst part of the crack, the splayed-out portion some twelve feet high, without assistance.

On reaching the spot things looked cheerful enough. The rocks were dry, and I found that imagination had somewhat magnified my early impressions of the wall. But the reality is bad enough. The wall is one side of a buttress about one hundred feet in height, and marvellously smooth to look at. It is out down from top to bottom by a clean-edged slit passing right through the buttress and forming on the other side, as I have already explained, the now familiar Kern Knotts Chimney. At a height of thirty feet or so from the foot is the little platform, the niche at the back of which looks as though carved out for the reception of a piece of statuary. The portion of the crack that leads up this first part has a slightly different outlook; it is more open, and is provided with holds of a shaky description. Getting a companion to hold himself in this, I mounted his shoulder and felt about with the hands. There was nothing at all that seemed firm. So I called for the axe, and, remembering certain tactics in an awful rock climb in Northern Italy some years before, I rammed the axe longitudinally into the crack and endeavoured to use it as a hold. The plan is sometimes effective; it is not sufficiently often adopted in extremis; but on this occasion it would not act; the loose stones in the cleft were simply levered out of place, and I had to pass the axe down again. Then ensued a few moments’ fatiguing suspension from one arm with but poor foothold to ease the strain. It was no go this time; I had to let myself down and rest awhile. Next we sat on a boulder opposite the wall, and stared at it silently for a space. Surely that must be a foothold ten feet up on the edge of the crack. If, while I mounted his shoulder, the second man could hold the ice-pick in a minute fissure in the face, I might manage to step on to the axe-head and reach the edge of the platform. It would at any rate prove safer than the crack route. The plan commended itself to all, and we placed ourselves in position. It turned out that the axe was scarcely necessary, for with a little delicate balancing I reached the top hold with both hands and dragged up to the lower step in the ledge. Thence to the platform was an easy matter, and we all began to breathe freely.

G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos Keswick

KERN KNOTTS CRACK

It never occurred to me that I had made no mental note, in my previous ascent of the crack, of the method of getting up the next part. It was certainly a stiff struggle that Christmas, but I was then out of form, and might reasonably hope to succeed more easily now. Nevertheless, when it came to the test I found it impossible, three times in succession, to get my head above a certain projecting block at the top of the niche. Each time it caught me by the back of the neck, and would not release me till in desperate extremity I let myself down again—no easy matter with exhausted arms. After the first try my two friends went round to the other side of the buttress, and hastily climbed the chimney so as to be ready to help me. I could hear their every word through the fissure, and rather surprised them by making a quiet remark. On a small scale we were having the Funffingerspitze incident repeated. Neruda was climbing that famous Dolomite, the scene of his tragic death in 1898, by a new route and heard another party ascending by the older way on the other side of the mountain.

My pockets had been emptied out before the start. After these failures I flung away my coat and tied on to the rope that had been let down from above. With renewed confidence the fourth attempt was successful. When the first twelve feet were passed I found two wedged stones a short distance above my head. These forced my body out of the crack altogether, but they offered respectable holds during the process. Above these the next pitch involved a process of backing up, though the chimney was much too narrow to brace firmly across from side to side.