Rock-climbing in the English Lake District / Third Edition

by Owen Glynne Jones

Our guide led us rapidly by the shortest route over Scarth Gap, and across Ennerdale to the foot of the Pillar Rock. Then a fifty-feet length of rope made its first appearance; it had been hidden in a bag during our walk, lest we should alarm the folks about Gatesgarth. We tied ourselves up, and made for the eastern end of the terrace across the Nose.

Robinson then started along the terrace, and in a few yards scrambled up to a shelf on the left, five or six feet high, which gave us easy access to the lower portion of the Savage Gully. This latter has never been climbed along its whole length. If the gully were moderately easy, the north climb would be far less complex. But for a great portion of its length the side walls are at right angles to each other; the corner is nearly vertical, and the only resting places are diminutive, grass-grown ledges placed too far apart for any safe employment of the rope. The right wall of the gully forms part of a conspicuous buttress on the north face, whose western side is much more broken and less dangerous to ascend.

The route that was being shown us lay along the Savage Gully for about sixty feet, then across to the west side of the buttress and up a vertical branch gully with sundry small chimneys in it. Higher up, we were told, it would be necessary to round a cliff still further to the right, by means of the Stomach traverse, to render further ascent possible. We objected to the inelegant name, but were too far advanced to hesitate on the score of a faulty title. Above the traverse our climbing would be easier, until the course returned to the Savage Gully again. That was to be our mauvais pas, and after settling it the scramble to the Low Man, and thence to the highest cairn, would be scarcely more than a walk.

So spoke our guide, and having delivered himself at some length, with an occasional appropriate anecdote thrown in, he concentrated his attention on the small pitch that marked our point of arrival at the Savage Gully. It was a wall seven feet high with indifferent grassholds at the top, and in scrambling up care was needed to avoid dislodging loose stones near the edge. It was then easy to clamber into a small cave somewhat to the left, and out again by a twisted tunnel at the back. Thence Robinson worked upwards over broken ground for a few yards, until the point was reached where we were to leave the gully. The direct route looked feasible for some distance ahead, but there was no questioning the fact of its severity, and we had not come out that day for exploration.

A divergence was made along an easy traverse towards the right, to a short and narrow chimney that already bore traces of many previous struggles. Wherever the rocks were clean and free from scree, we could plainly see the scratches of nailed boots along the route. It was here that we were rounding the great buttress of Savage Gully, and after a little rough-ledge work we arrived at a square corner with a grassy floor. Straight up from this floor a cleft offered safe passage. It was plentifully supplied with holds, though some discrimination was necessary in selecting the firmest. The climbing was delightful, and zest was given to it by the magnificent situation. The corner was not so deeply impressed in the buttress as to prevent our recognition of the vastness of the cliff we were slowly ascending. The view downwards just included the little grass platform, and beyond that the wild and steep fellside at the foot of the precipice, already some hundreds of feet below us.

We kept up the direct route so long as we were able. Then the cleft in the corner suddenly dwindled down into the thinnest of cracks, and it was obvious that a change of tactics would be necessary. The left wall was faultlessly smooth. The right for the most part looked just as inaccessible. The grass ledge on which we were standing really seemed to suggest finality, the end of our upward progress, and I turned to Robinson inquiringly with the impression that some wonderful engineering process with the rope was now to be explained to us. We knew that such was necessary on the climb, and were prepared by the situation to see its application immediately.

But the solution of the difficulty was of the simplest character. A few feet from the corner the smooth right wall was split by a single crack that passed up at an angle of perhaps thirty degrees and terminated at a notch that broke the clean-cut outline of the rock facing us. From the notch it certainly seemed as though nothing could be done further, even if we got so far. Nevertheless, we were assured that when once we were there all doubts would vanish, and we should have the easiest hundred feet of scrambling in the whole day’s expedition. The crack was the famous Stomach traverse; it was reached as long ago as 1884 by Haskett Smith in his early exploration of the north face; and the name, which had only recently been given to it, was intended to show how the passage was supposed to be tackled. One of Willink’s illustrations in the Badminton, showing an intrepid cragsman crawling along a ledge from left to right, is sometimes criticised as an exaggeration of the difficulties that rock-climbers have to overcome. This traverse before us was not so easy as the one so cleverly depicted by the artist. It sloped upwards, and the ledge was not wide enough for the whole body. We were in no sense precariously placed, for the cleft enabled us to wedge with security; but the right half of the body was outside the leaf of rock on which we hung, and the right leg found no support on the vertical wall.

Some twenty feet of wriggling brought us each in turn to the critical corner, and there to our amazement we had merely to get up and walk away. The wall we had passed was the last obstacle separating us from a long stretch of steep grass chimneys and broken rocks. These extend from the Nose at the foot of the crags up to the final difficulty, now only a hundred feet above us, and offer the easier route up the north face. Our own course by the Savage Gully was by far the more entertaining one, and under most conditions decidedly safer than the other.

From the notch we could either walk straight up to the cave-pitch in the corner now facing us, or work easily round a rib of rock on the right and join the other route. We chose the former, and found the pitch decidedly stiff, the main trouble being to get satisfaction out of the diminutive hand-holds on the upper surface of the top boulder. However, it was time to be thankful for small mercies, and confidence carried us up safely.

A party coming up the easy way would start from the terrace on the Nose, close to its highest point. Their route would be quite straightforward, though occasionally the question as to the safest movement might introduce a slight digression. The great wall of the Low Man on their right limits in the most definite manner all westerly climbing, and their only trouble would be in negotiating two narrow chimneys and some of the grass ledges, where the tufts are unpleasantly loose and the slopes very slippery. The fact is that this way is not much to be recommended; until it joins the other there is little merit to justify the variation. If parties are certain they can finish the second half of the ascent, they can assuredly climb the lower portion via the Savage Gully and the Stomach traverse.