Steep grass leads out to the top, 500 feet from the base of the cliff.
Blea Crags and Mouse Ghyll.—The Blea Crag climbs in Borrowdale can be reached from Grange in thirty-five minutes; a fine general view is to be seen from the picturesque bridge spanning the Derwent. There are three gullies of interest; one to the south is now known as Mouse Ghyll, climbed and christened in the autumn of 1897, by Mr. W. Cecil Slingsby’s party; a second less-defined gully leads up the centre of the crags; and to the north of this a third takes us by loose and rather unsatisfactory pitches to the summit ridge.
Mouse Ghyll starts very narrow, with smooth walls running up to a great height on either side. An easy pitch of ten feet brings us to a little platform, whence a steep, double staircase, with good steps for each foot, gives safe access to a great cavern sixty feet higher. Here the real difficulties begin. The pitch is formed by two huge, overhanging boulders, one above the other, with a grassy ledge between them. The leader can be well anchored by his party, and makes a start up to the left from the top of the rib of rock that supplies the ‘staircase.’ It is sensational work up to the grassy ledge, where again the leader requires anchoring, and perhaps also a helping shoulder for the next little chimney of some fourteen feet, between the upper boulder and the left wall. When the first party were here, a startled mouse sprang from the grassy ledge over the leader’s head, and dropped safely at the bottom of the staircase ninety feet below. May it live long enough to learn that the ghyll has been named in its honour!
On emerging from the chimney three routes show themselves. The first is up two easy pitches that remain in the gully. To the right a chimney leads by an open buttress to the top of the crags, and can be ascended without trouble. But on the left a prominent chimney, succeeded by a narrow crack, gives seventy feet of extremely tough climbing. It was ascended by Messrs. George and Ashley Abraham, who made the second ascent of Mouse Ghyll.
The central gully starts with a chimney, best taken on the right, and continues with short and easy pitches until some large boulders wedged in a vertical crack offer better fun. There are no further obstacles.
I am indebted to Messrs. George and Ashley Abraham and to Mr. Slingsby for the information in this section. They assure me that the climbing in Mouse Ghyll is of a first-rate order, and the scenery of lake and fellside almost unsurpassable in the country.