Piers Ghyll is conspicuous from a distance, and many a tourist knows the place. Hence it has a reputation of its own even as a climb, which it can scarcely be said to deserve. If, as Haskett Smith expresses it, it is in nineteen seasons out of twenty wholly impossible to get over the great obstacle, it cannot rightly be called a climb. The scrambling up to the bend is mostly unpleasant by reason of the water and the loose character of the rock. An exit can there be made up the wall on the right, but the friability of this wall makes its ascent positively dangerous except at one spot where a scree gully runs nearly to the top of the cliff.
A most interesting account of the ghyll, giving certain of the adventures that explorers have encountered, may be read in ‘All the Year Round’ of November, 1884. It was contributed by Mr. C. N. Williamson; other parts of this article dealing with Cumberland climbing have already been referred to.
High Stile.—The north side of this mountain is precipitous, and two or three short but interesting gullies can be followed up to the ridge. Two of them can easily be recognised from Buttermere village. The central gully faces towards the north-west and is to the right of the highest point on the mountain. It has two well-defined pitches, the second being very severe. The writer climbed it in 1893 with Mr. John Robinson, before taking the chimney described in the next paragraph, but seemingly it has rarely been visited since.
To the left of the central gully a wide black chimney can be seen, leading up close to the summit of High Stile. It offers a short but very difficult scramble; in pulling up over the edge of the great pitch care must be taken to avoid the loose stones. In the first ascent the leader had a bad encounter with three boulders that slipped over on to his head.
A long, easy gully in the north-east shoulder of the mountain offers a pleasant route down from the summit to the shores of Buttermere.
Buckbarrow.—The side of this hill facing Wastwater has sundry attractions. Climbers who are not pressed for time, on their way from Wastdale to the nearest stations on the Furness Railway, can be recommended to visit the crag.
The first main gully at the northern end was climbed at Easter, 1892; two short parallel chimneys terminate the ascent, that on the left being supposed to be the harder. Besides this route, there are a few ways of tackling the face further to the west; but details are not at hand by reason of the rarity of the visits to Buckbarrow.
Sergeant Crag Chimney.—This was first ascended by Mr. John Robinson and the writer in September, 1893. The crag itself is reached by walking up Langstrath from the village of Rosthwaite for about a mile and then bearing to the left. Close to the stream, at the point where we leave the track, is the Gash Rock, an isolated boulder that offers considerable resistance to any one attempting to climb it. It was climbed first by the writer in 1893. A good hold has recently been cleared at the critical point on the boulder. The scramble is said to be quite easy now.
The gully in the crag is in sight half-a-mile below the Gash Rock, and is well worth the visit of a strong party. It was noticed in 1886 by Mr. Haskett Smith, but seven years elapsed before the first ascent was made. Curiously enough, the second ascent was effected a day or two later by Messrs. Phillimore and Anderson, in entire ignorance that the gully had so recently been overcome.
Information embodied in the following notes of the successive pitches has been supplied by the brothers Abraham of Keswick, whose interesting photograph of the great pitch in the middle of the ascent is reproduced facing page 286.