The first long way up the pinnacle was climbed on September 20th, 1884, by Messrs. Haskett Smith and John Robinson. They made the ascent of Steep Ghyll, and then, emerging on the right, climbed up a steep arête to the pinnacle, where they left their names in a glass bottle. Descending again to the upper portion of Steep Ghyll, they passed over to the Jordan and so on to the mountain. With but slight variations, these were the only ways known until 1888. In July of that year a party led by Mr. W. Cecil Slingsby succeeded in climbing out from the lower part of Steep Ghyll on to the north-east face of the pinnacle. By a long and difficult chimney in this wall they reached the Low Man, as the nearly horizontal crest of the first huge buttress is called. Thence a sharp ridge took them direct to the final rocks, which were sufficiently broken to make the finish easy. This route at once commended itself to the better climbers at Wastdale as being safe and sound. The rocks throughout are excellent, and indeed enthusiasts like to compare the finish with the famous ridge of the Rothhorn from Zinal. The chief objection to be urged against the climb is the exposure to wind and cold. I remember once starting up with Mr. Robinson one wet day in August. He led as far as the foot of the difficult Slingsby Chimney, and then resolutely refused to budge an inch further because of the wind, which he asseverated would blow us away to Hollow Stones. I am inclined to believe him now, but at the time we wrangled all the way down to the Lord’s Rake, where some damp but enterprising tourist, pointing up to the vertical crags down which we had been dodging our way, inquired in a feeble tenor voice: ‘Is there a road up there?’

It was not until December 31, 1893, that I made my first complete ascent by this route, accompanied by M. and C., the latter leading all the way up. We crossed the foot of Lord’s Rake, and made for the slight suggestion of a gully that serves to mark the beginning of the ordinary Steep Ghyll Climb. It was quite easy to follow, and rapidly deepened as we rose. In a hundred feet we were in view of the enormous cleft of the ghyll, with its black and glistening walls apparently almost meeting each other a hundred feet over our heads. None of us were attracted by that climb, which is never quite free from hazard, and we looked about for the spot where our route diverged to the right. Here the side of the ghyll was very steep for thirty or forty feet up, but was cut about by ledges and clefts quite good enough for us to mount the wall safely. Then we bore up a little towards the left, so as to approach the smooth outer face of the Low Man. Advance was only possible in one direction, our course taking us out on a nose or pinnacle of rock separated from the main mass by a deep fissure.

The position was very exposed. It could only be approached from one direction, that of Steep Ghyll. A glance down the fissure beneath us revealed the lower half of the tremendous wall to which we were clinging, and though we had plenty of room to sit down and rest ourselves, there was a sense of coming peril in the next move. The illustration facing page 73, taken off the wall from the Lord’s Rake ridge, shows the pinnacle and the fissure that partially separates it from the face. Standing on the highest available point, C. had next to draw himself up on to the little shelf by means of the smallest of holds and the use of his knees. We were able to guard against his slipping back, and were glad to see him clamber up easily to the beginning of the Slingsby Chimney. This begins very awkwardly; it would be proof of unusual agility and nerve for the leader here to manage the first six feet without assistance from below. But an unaided ascent is not impossible, and careful examination will generally cause the climber to discount much of the terror that he is pretty sure to have invested in the spot after reading the early literature of the subject. We hoisted C. up on our shoulders; without hesitation he crept well into the crack vertically above our heads, and wriggled his way out of sight. When we had paid out forty feet of rope, he shouted out to M. to advance, and I was left to speculate on a possible variation of the ascent by the left of the chimney. In due course M. was firmly fixed, and my turn came. The steepness of the first fifteen feet was rather appalling, but it was so simple a matter to wedge firmly into the chimney that there was no sense of insecurity. After the vertical bit, the chimney sloped back at an easier angle, and though some distance had to be climbed before a man might be of much help to those behind he would be perfectly capable of looking after himself. When we reached this level the aspect of the remaining rocks was very much less threatening. It was still a matter of hand-and-foot work, but we could all forge ahead together instead of moving one at a time. The slope eased off again when we reached the Low Man, and by preference we kept to the ridge on the right as much as we could. This was for the sensational view down into Deep Ghyll, though that day we saw little but the rolling mist above and below us. The rock was firm and rough to the touch, and we could well appreciate the comparison with the best parts of the Zinal Rothhorn. Leslie Stephen’s frontispiece in the ‘Playground of Europe’ might have been drawn on our ridge. There was a sense of perfect security out there as we sat astride the sharp ridge or clasped the huge blocks with a fraternal embrace. My only regret was that the arête was all too short—we arrived at the pinnacle much too soon. I proposed to descend to the Jordan and down by the Professor’s Chimney, but my companions pointed out that the latter would be damp and rickety, and such a change from our recent sport that we could get little fun out of it. I reluctantly yielded to the vote of the majority and went off to a halting-place in the hollow at the head of the Moss Ghyll variation exit.

Scawfell Pinnacle, Deep Ghyll route.—In October, 1887, a strong party led by the brothers Hopkinson found a way down the outside face of the Scawfell Pinnacle, to a point on the ridge within a hundred feet of the first pitch in Deep Ghyll. There they built what is now known as the Hopkinsons’ cairn. In April, 1893, Messrs. C. Hopkinson and Tribe worked up the left wall of the ghyll from the second pitch, and reached the main north arête about sixty feet above the cairn. They were apparently unable to force a way directly up the ridge, and managed instead to descend it for a few yards and then to climb up the face of the Low Man by the 1887 route on the east side of the arête.

They thus succeeded in reaching the summit of the pinnacle from Deep Ghyll, and an examination of the illustration facing page 83 of the great wall that they climbed will prove that the performance was an unusually brilliant one. (The photograph shows the north ridge twenty feet to the left of the leader, who is about forty feet above the second man.)

Very little was generally known of that day’s work, the note in the Wastdale climbing book being of the briefest description; and it cannot be counted unto me for originality that in a climb made in 1896 that was intended as a repetition of the above our party left the older route at a point eighty feet up the Deep Ghyll wall, and reached the Low Man by a new line of advance.

We were a party of three. Messrs. George and Ashley Abraham were very keen on trying the new route, and equally anxious to get some good photographs of the great wall. We climbed up the first pitch in Deep Ghyll by the crack on the left, and took the second in the ordinary way. Just where the traverse commences fifteen feet above the top of the central obstacle, a crack starts up the left wall, with a prominent jammed block guarding its entrance. Traversing over a leaf of rock on to the jammed stone, I was steadied for the first twenty feet of ascent by the rope, and could not have come to much harm in the event of a slip. But there was scanty room for a second, and I was compelled to rise with an ever lengthening rope below me. The crack was followed closely, though it soon became so thin and so erect that there was nothing to do but keep on the face of the mountain just to its left, every now and then gripping its sharp edge for handhold. It seemed to be a virgin climb, though this part had really been visited two or three times before. Stones had to be flung down, and grit scraped from the tiny ledges. But on the whole that first sixty feet was not very difficult, though markedly sensational, and I went on slowly to a little niche in the wall.

The eighty-feet length of rope just reached to the crack from which the start was made, and getting George to tie himself on at the lower extremity, I mounted to a higher and larger niche while he cautiously climbed up the crack. The situation was very novel. Some may remember the firma loca in Mr. Sanger Davies’ account of the Croda da Lago. This grass-floored hermitage of mine was truly a firma loca, and sitting down comfortably in it I took out a biscuit from my pocket and tried to realize all the view.

It was every bit as appalling as a Dolomite climb. Direct progress upwards seemed quite impossible; a feasible traverse over some badly-sloping moss-covered ledges to the right led to the sky-line at a spot where the arête made a vertical spring upwards for forty feet. A descent would have been seriously difficult, but it was the one thing we did not want. I could hear another climbing party finishing an ascent of the pinnacle by the ordinary route, their voices echoing down the ghyll and cheering me with a sense of neighbourliness. My companions were holding an animated discussion below on the subject of photography. The light was excellent, and our positions most artistic. The cameras were left in the cave at the foot of the ghyll. Ashley was afraid I meant to go up without him; but his professional instinct got the better of his desire to climb, and, shouting out to us to stay where we were for five minutes, he ran round to the high-level traverse on the other side of the ghyll, and down the Lord’s Rake to the cavern.

George had the tripod screw and could not hand it to his brother; so, asking me to hold him firmly with the rope, he practised throwing stones across the gully to the traverse. Then, tying the screw to a stone, he managed to project this over successfully. We composed our limbs to a photographic quiescence. Ashley had a splendid wide-angle lens, which, from his elevated position on the traverse opposite, could take in 400 feet of the cliff, showing the entire route to the summit. It was his turn to take the lead. ‘Mr. Jones! I can’t see you, your clothes are so dark.’ I apologized. ‘Will you step out a foot or two from that hole?’ I was in a cheerful mood and ready to oblige a friend, but the platform was scarcely two feet square, and to acquiesce was to step out a few hundred feet into Deep Ghyll. For this I had not made adequate preparation and told him so. ‘Well, will you take off your coat?’ That I could do with pleasure, and for a while his instructions were levelled at George.

He was in an awkward place and was much cramped in ensuring safety, but Ashley was dissatisfied and insisted on his lifting the left leg. This gave him no foothold to speak of, but in the cause of photography he had been trained to manage without such ordinary aids. He grumbled a little at the inconvenience but obeyed, resolving that if he were living when the next slide was to be exposed he himself would be the manipulator and his brother the centre of the picture. The ghyll had become rather gloomy and we had a lengthy exposure. I was glad to slip on my jacket again and draw in the rope for George’s ascent. When he reached the smaller platform just below me, we tried the traverse over the slabs to the north ridge, and found that it went well enough. We were delighted to find traces of the previous party on the rocks at the corner. They were made by the Hopkinsons three years before (April 2, 1893) in their attempt to mount by the ridge. Their cairn was fifty feet further down, and we now had the satisfaction of seeing for ourselves how to connect the Hopkinson cairn directly with Deep Ghyll.

Then came the question of getting our third man up. We tried to throw the rope-end to him, but it persisted in clinging to the face vertically below us and would not be caught. I had to return to the firma loca and throw the rope from there. Ashley now reached it safely, tied himself on, and hastened up to our level, having left his camera on the traverse below. In this way we found ourselves together again, on the corner of the arête. The others fixed themselves to a little belaying-pin while I attempted to swarm up the vertical corner. A couple of feet above their heads I found that the only available holds were sloping the wrong way. They could be easily reached, but were unsafe for hauling, and after clinging for some minutes without advancing an inch I was compelled to descend and reconsider the problem. I thought of Andrea del Sarto:

and wondered whether Browning meant this to apply to the crests of climbing-pitches as well as to other objects in life.

At the time we did not know the exact history of the early attempts on the arête. As far as we could judge our corner might be inaccessible except with the help of a rope fixed above us. Certainly the scoring of bootnails on the face was scanty. The earlier party three years before might have planned to avoid the bad bit. With doubts like these, I craved permission to look up a chimney on the Deep Ghyll side of the ridge. The other party of climbers had now reached the top of the ghyll, and were watching our manœuvres with interest. Seeing my hesitation they called out to inquire whether we should like a rope from the Low Man. We were grateful for the suggestion, but there was no peril our position, and we asked them to wait for awhile at the top of the gully, and see the issue of our next attempt upwards. Then, traversing over a buttress, I looked up and down the chimney.

It was what is generally called hopeless. To speak definitely, it was much worse than the arête, and seeing no alternative I returned to the corner and prepared for another attempt. This time Ashley gave me a shoulder at a slightly lower level on the ghyll side of the ridge. A trying drag upwards with very scanty fingerholds brought my knees on to a satisfying hollow in a little ledge, and steadied by the two side faces of the sloping slab I stepped up and on to it. The cheers of the observing party told us that our mauvais pas was practically overcome. The other two men came up with a little assistance from the rope, and we cleared away the loose stones from our platform. It shelved badly downwards and offered no guarantee of safety in case I fell from the next vertical bit. But George sturdily rammed his brother close against the wall and intimated that the two would accept the responsibility of fielding me if necessary. I mounted their shoulders, and reached up at arm’s length to a sharp and firm edge of rock. A preliminary grind of my boot into a shoulder-blade and then a clear swing out on the arms, a desperate pull-up with knees and toes vainly seeking support, and at last the upper shelf was mounted. But we were all breathless.

The lower edge of the broken crest of rock that marks the Low Man was now close at hand. Close by was the fine cairn built when the pinnacle was first climbed from Lord’s Rake. A few yards off to the east the edge of the cliff was cut by the top of Slingsby’s Chimney, and before us remained the magnificent ridge up to the summit.

Boot scratches were now numerous, both along the ridge and by the left. We took the finish hand over hand, and reached the pinnacle cairn in five minutes. Our time up from Lord’s Rake had been slow—something like four hours—but much had been spent with photography and in reconnoitring. Another day, two years later, I managed it in less than half the time.

A party of three should have 150 feet of rope, or else our awkward tactics in letting the rope down to the ghyll would have to be repeated. Perhaps the long run out for the leader will prevent this route ever becoming popular. It is a great pity that there is no resting-place half way up the wall. With icy conditions it would be criminal to attempt the open face. Yet the climb is one of the very best in the district, and I shall always look back with pleasure to my first introduction to this side of Scawfell Pinnacle.

We hurried down Deep Ghyll by the traverse above both pitches. One of us rushed down too jubilantly, and ill repaid the kindly attention of the other party, now below us, by a profuse shower of stones. With thoughts of all the possible consequences of this indiscretion, we picked up our cameras and strode more sedately down to the others and to Wastdale.

Scawfell Pinnacle from Lord’s Rake.—A very fine expedition was undertaken in December, 1887, by Messrs. C. Hopkinson, Holder, H. Woolley, and Bury. Their note on the day’s sport is quoted almost in full: ‘Three of the party, led by Hopkinson, made an attempt on the Deep Ghyll Pinnacle from the entrance to Lord’s Rake. They succeeded in climbing 150 to 200 feet, but were stopped by a steep slab of rock coated with ice. From this point, however, a good traverse was made to the first gully, or chimney, on the left. They forced their way up this gully to the top of the chimney. At the top there was a trough of ice about 30 feet long, surmounted by steep rocks glazed with ice, which brought the party to a stop. They descended the chimney again and returned to Wastdale, unanimously of opinion that the day’s excursion had afforded one of the finest climbs the party had ever accomplished.’

So we may well think, and it is a great pity that the icy conditions of the rock prevented their direct ascent into Slingsby’s chimney. The gully they entered and almost completely ascended, is marked plainly in the general view of the Scawfell Crags from the Pulpit, and at first sight appears to run up continuously to Slingsby’s chimney. Actually, however, it finishes on the side of the nose or pinnacle of rock a few feet lower down, and I believe this pinnacle could be ascended from it by either side. What this earlier party found impossible in the Winter of 1887, Mr. G. T. Walker and I in April, 1898, favoured by the best of conditions, were just able to overcome. We had spent a long and exciting day in the neighbourhood, and were descending Slingsby’s chimney late in the afternoon, when we were suddenly struck with the idea of descending the fissure behind the nose and prospecting the face of rock between it and Deep Ghyll. A rough inspection of the first fifty feet below us proving satisfactory, we hastened down Steep Ghyll and traversed across to the top of the first pitch in Deep Ghyll. In spite of the late hour I could not refrain from a trial trip on the edge of the great Low Man buttress. At the point where the earlier party found the direct ascent barred by smooth ice on the wall, and decided to traverse off to the gully on the left, we had a council of war. It resulted in my throwing down my boots to Walker, and then crawling up fifty feet of, perhaps, the steepest and smoothest slabs to which I have ever trusted myself. This brought me to a tiny corner where I essayed to haul in the rope attached to my companion. But he also had to remove his boots and traverse to a point vertically below me before he could follow up in safety. We were now some distance to the left of the edge of Deep Ghyll, and straight up above us we could distinguish the crack where our new route was to terminate. Getting Walker to lodge firmly in a notch somewhat larger than mine, six feet away on the Steep Ghyll side, I went off again up another forty feet of smooth rock, aided by a zig-zagging crack an inch or so in width, that supplied sufficient lodgment for the toes, and a moderate grip for the finger-tips. After both had arrived thus far, we were able, with extreme care, to reach the side wall of the nose itself, and at a point, perhaps, fifty feet from its crest we turned round its main outside buttress and found ourselves in a spacious chamber with a flat floor and a considerable roof, the first and only genuine resting-place worthy the name that we found along our route. We could look straight down Hopkinson’s gully, and would gladly have descended into it and ‘passed the time of day’ with a little speculative scrambling thereabouts. But darkness was coming on apace, and we had yet a most awkward corner to negotiate before finishing our appointed business. Standing on Walker’s shoulders I screwed myself out at the right-hand top corner of our waiting-room, and started along a traverse across the right face of the nose. The toes of the feet were in a horizontal crack, the heels had no support, and the hands no grip. It was only by pressing the body close to the wall, which was fortunately a few degrees away from the perpendicular, and by sliding the feet along almost inch by inch, that the operation could be effected. It was with no small sense of relief that the end was reached in a few yards, and a narrow vertical fissure entered that gave easy access to the top of the nose. Then we put on our boots again and hurried.

It is thus possible to reach the summit of the Scawfell Pinnacle by a route up the buttress quite independent of either of the great ghylls that flank it. A good variation that has yet to be performed in its entirety, though I believe that every section has been independently climbed, is that of the Hopkinson’s chimney, the nose, and Slingsby’s chimney. Further, that evening’s climb has convinced me that we could have safely reached Hopkinson’s cairn on the edge of Deep Ghyll, and that there is in consequence a most thrilling piece of work possible in the direct ascent of the buttress, the whole way up to the High Man from its base. Slight divergences are, probably, unavoidable in the lower half of the climb, but permitting these there now remain only about forty feet of rock hitherto unascended. It is worth while inspecting the view on page 73. The top of the nose is there plainly seen in profile 4⅜ inches from the bottom; our climb was roughly speaking up to the nose, by a vertical line drawn an inch from the left edge of the picture—somewhat less as it approached completion.

Upper Deep Ghyll Route.—Three days after the ascent recorded in the last section, I found that the sharp ridge between the Low Man and the summit of the pinnacle could be reached from the foot of the lowest pitch of the Professor’s Chimney. The suggestion is due to Dr. Collier, who told me some years ago that the only real difficulties are concentrated in the first thirty feet of the ascent. The climb is almost in a straight line, running obliquely up the Deep Ghyll face of the Pinnacle, and is best inspected from the west wall traverse. The first part overhangs considerably, and the holds are of the same character as those on the long slabs of the Low Man buttress, with a sort of absent look about them. But the rocks were dry and warm, in the best possible condition, and two minutes of deliberate movement led me out of danger. There is great variety just here, but the simplest course was to make for a slight chimney in the sharp ridge above my head. In twenty minutes the High Man had been crossed, and the starting-point reached by way of the Professor’s Chimney, but if a companion and a long rope had been vouchsafed on that occasion it would have been a pleasing undertaking to have tried the traverse along the wall to the firma loca of the second section in this chapter.

CHAPTER VI
GREAT END AND ITS GULLIES

As we walk up towards the Styhead Pass from Wastdale we may see well in front of us the long ridge of the Pikes monopolizing a goodly portion of the sky-line. The high dependence at the head of the valley we are skirting is Great End, a reasonable enough name for the north-east head of the range. It sends down a buttress towards the Styhead Pass that, at a closer view, is shown to be well separated from the main mass by a deep gully of some architectural merit. This is Skew Ghyll. It twists its way up to the ridge, and offers a pleasant variation route over to Sprinkling Tarn, whence a steep rise brings the tourist to the Esk Hause, the lowest point between Great End and Bowfell. The climber’s interest will be concentrated in the view of the long northern face of Great End, well seen from Sprinkling Tarn, and his experienced eye will notice at once that the face is marked by various gullies that invite approach. The whole ground has been thoroughly well examined from time to time, with the result that several gullies which from below or above appear to promise continuous climbing have proved to be deceptive in this respect. Yet there remain two that are always interesting, and a third that is at any rate popular as a winter course.

Seen from the tarn there are two gullies that cut the full height of the precipice from top to bottom. The lines of fresh scree that trail down from their lower ends show up plainly on the older débris that marks the decay of this mountain wall. They both slope downwards towards the left when seen from this point, and are both obviously provided with variation exits at their upper extremities. That to the left was formerly called Robinson’s Gully, but is now generally known as the South-east Gully. There has always been a lack of originality in the nomenclature of such places, and with several routes on the same mountain the christener’s wits seem driven to all points of the compass. The second gully is a hundred yards to the right of the first, and has long been known as the Great End Central Gully. It divides half way up into two well-marked portions, the right-hand route constituting the main bed of the gully, and terminating at a huge notch in the sky-line. The left-hand branch as seen from below appears to terminate blindly in the face, but actually it leads to a deep and narrow chimney cutting into the top wall within a hundred feet of the main gully.

Far away to the right, where the cliff has shrunk to but one-third of its full height at the Central Gully, a black cleft may be descried that leads from scree to sky-line. This is Cust’s Gully, indifferent as a summer climb, but always beautiful in the richness of its rock scenery, and especially interesting in winter, when drift snow offers a royal road to the top. Every one has a kind word for Cust’s Gully. It is only called the Cussed gully by ignorant novices who inquire whether Skew of Skew Ghyll fame was a member of the Alpine Club. When it is marked out by snow we can from the path just distinguish the great rock bridge or natural arch across the upper part of the cleft.

Great End Central Gully.—This wonderful ravine offers some special feature every winter. Its individuality changes so completely under the mask of snow, or ice, or rain, that an attempt to describe the gully by an account of any one expedition must of necessity be only partially successful.

One fine winter morning a year or so ago we had a large party at Wastdale, and for once in a way were all of the same mind as to our day’s plans. The walk up towards the Styhead Pass—the Schweinhauskopfjoch of the Swiss travellers among us—would just suit our conversationally-minded fraternity, to whom Brown Tongue or the Pillar Fell or the Gable-end offered gradients too steep for words. We sallied forth from the inn with many axes and great lengths of rope, and lazily worked our way along the valley. The lower path, entirely obliterated by the snow, took us across the stream to the right on to the low slopes of Lingmell. Piers Ghyll stream was crossed without notice, for here the gorge is not at all in evidence and requires closer examination to reveal its magnificence. Then, rising a few feet, we crossed the hollow of Grainy Ghyll and made towards Spout Head and Skew Ghyll. The snow gave us some glorious effects on the hills around. The Mosedale amphitheatre of noble mountains towered above Wastdale, and mutely questioned us as to the accuracy of the surveyors who could give them not even three thousand feet of elevation above us. Nowadays theodolites are taken to the mountains and misused with great effect; why should not the Pillar and Red Pike benefit similarly to the extent of a thousand feet or so? There above us on our left was Great Gable, a White pyramid cutting into a dark sky, at least ten thousand feet of mountain beauty between us and its snowy crest. Who could believe that the summit was only 2,900 feet above sea level? But the engineer among us calmly reminded me of an interesting aneroid observation I had once taken of the top of Moss Ghyll on Scawfell, making it a hundred feet higher than Scawfell itself. Was I to rank myself as a truthful scientist and be contented with the ordnance survey records, or as an artist who should represent heights, shapes, and colours as his imperfect senses make them? We closed the discussion in favour of the artist and then sloped (without slang) up to Skew Ghyll.

This was in splendid condition; the snow was deep and hard, and out of sheer pleasure in step-cutting, three or four enthusiasts carved their own staircases up through the ‘narrows’ and away towards the little pass above us. It was to be noticed that the steps gradually converged to one line as the leaders felt their muscles wearying, and they were willing to fall in with the caravan now trailing up in single file like the elements of a kite’s tail. At the top of our little pass we could see straight down Borrowdale. Skiddaw and Blencathara formed the distant background. Derwent-water reflected a dark sky, and by contrast with its snowy shores looked of an inky blackness. Styhead Tarn was not very beautiful; ice had formed on it a week before, but had since been broken up by the wind, and the great flakes of crystal unevenly crusted with drift snow gave a sense of roughness and of incompleteness out of keeping with the finished beauty of the surroundings.

We stayed up here for a few minutes, and then contoured along the side of Great End in the direction of Esk Hause. The ground was rough; here and there the snow required cutting. But no difficulties were met with until the narrow entrance to the Central Gully suddenly disclosed itself in the precipitous wall on our right. The gully points down towards the eastern corner of Sprinkling Tarn. It begins where the cliff stands nearest to the Esk Hause path, and is not to be mistaken for the South-east Gully that points directly towards the sharp bend in the little stream rattling down to Borrowdale.

At the entrance to our climb we stopped to consider the question of roping up. ‘Union is strength’ only within certain narrow limits, when the bond of union is an Alpine rope. It often involves loss of time.

and his speed is inversely proportional to the number of his followers. We decided to split up into three equal parties of four, my men to lead up the main gully, the engineer to convey the second set up the middle course, and the more substantial residue to bear to the left, up a slighter branch that contains a very creditable cave pitch half-way towards the summit ridge.

Our work was easy at the outset. The gully was narrow and steep, but the snow was good, and small ledges on either side were utilized whenever the little icicle-clad pitches were too slippery for direct attack. Where the gully widened a little we could see the first serious obstacle in front of us—a vertical wall with a ragged ice-curtain flung over it in a most artistic way. It would perhaps have been possible to cut directly upwards, but the crowd of eager climbers behind could not be expected to fight against frostbite for an hour or so while the leader amused himself, and the obvious method of circumventing the difficulty had its own merits. The right wall slightly overhung; close below was a glazed rib of rock leading up at an easy angle to the top of the pitch.

Steadying myself against the wall, I started cutting slight steps up the thin ice on the rock, keeping as near to the corner as possible. Now and again the foothold felt insecure, but for the most part the ascent was safe, with slight probability of a slip into the snow below. The second man followed close up, and steadied my feet occasionally with an ice-axe. Then came a more gentle snow-slope, up which we could kick steps without effort; and while the second party were busy with the difficulties that we had just overcome, we reached the second pitch and hastened to leave it behind us. This was rather a harder task than we had yet undertaken. The gully was more open and its ice covering less extensive, but the pitch was higher and involved our climbing up to the centre from the right-hand wall, so as to reach the base of the big boulder that crowns the pitch. All this would have been easy with the rocks clear and dry, but we had to make our footholds on the flimsiest rags of ice, and the traverse to the middle demanded some long stepping with scarcely a hand to steady. On reaching the boulder I was compelled to crawl on all-fours round its front to the slope on the left-hand side of the gully, and then by cutting a dozen steps or so in the hard snow found myself in the wide part of the gully at the foot of the great divide. The others of my party followed on rapidly, and we shouted adieu to our companions beneath.

Here we had the finest view of the climb. Below, the beauties of the two pitches were greatly increased by our own elevation. They looked very difficult, and the picture offered its living element in the cautiously advancing parties now just in the interesting part of the climb. Above us rose the huge buttress that divides the gully, and on either side the most fantastic drapery of ice well-nigh frightened us with its appearance of impregnability. We advanced carefully up to the right, congratulating ourselves on having taken the lead, for our friends were not pleased with the battery of hard chips of snow that our step-cutting gave them. The buttress was rounded, and we gained a full view of the troubles in store for us. Immediately on our left a smooth rock-shoot led straight up to the top of the buttress. Between the vertical pillar on the right of this shoot and the opposite side of the gully rose a sheer wall of ice, like a frozen waterfall twenty-five feet in height. So far as we could see at first, there was no chance of forcing a quick way up this obstacle, and it was obvious that slowness would introduce the risk of frostbite. During the previous summer my fingers had been rather badly frostbitten in the Alps, and there was some chance of their still manifesting a susceptibility to cold. We almost turned back to follow our friends up another way; we could trust each other to exaggerate the terrors of this bit, which honestly enough was a trifle too stiff for a cold winter day. But while mentally framing an excuse for the return, I had advanced up to the left-hand edge of the ‘ice fall,’ and started the ascent of its spiky edging of rock. From below the spikes had appeared fragile and untrustworthy. Actually they were too well frozen into place to become detached with one’s cautious drag. This discovery altered the prospect for us all, and the chilly watchers below warmed up with the returning enthusiasm. In fact they needed reminding that I might yet come down suddenly to their level and sweep them off their feet unless they were prepared to receive me. When ten feet up, the axe was called into requisition to cut a few steps in the fall itself. These were useful just so long as the left hand could utilise the rocks, but they tended to carry me away from my comparatively safe corner, and I soon decided to keep away from the fall as far as possible. The corner where the gully sloped back was very exciting, for implicit trust was reposed in the benumbed left hand that had been thrust, well gloved, into a thin and icy crack in the wall, and held there by frost and friction. It offered no sensation either of security or of danger, but it could not very well slip out, and we hoped for the best. A few moments’ struggling landed me safely on the steep slope above the pitch, and a vigorous handling of the ice-axe on the bed of the gully fully restored circulation to my hands. Then followed my cold companions, who had been shivering spectators for a long twenty minutes. They were thus handicapped from the outset, and found the pitch very severe, notwithstanding the gentle suggestion of safety that the rope offered.

We had some careful work still before us. The bed of the gully led steeply up to another large and slightly overhanging boulder that blocked the direct route, and our only possible method of getting above it was to cut steps away on the right, trusting to sundry very insecure grass holds. But these were much better than usual by reason of the frost. In fact the whole climb is perfectly sound in winter, though rendered very difficult. In summer it is often easy but dangerous.

From the steep right-hand side of the gully we could traverse with care to the main bed again, just above the boulder; whence to the top of the gully, looking from here like an Alpine pass, was a broad stretch of unspotted snow. There we joined the second party, who had come by the steep grass ledges of the central route. Their labours had been great—or else, indeed, they would easily have managed to get ahead of us—but not so much from the intrinsic difficulty of their route as from the need of continual caution in the more open portions of the climb. They had reached a ledge that overlooked the right branch, and were proposing to descend to our snow slope and cut steps up with us. We were nothing loth to give them a chance of showing their skill with the axe, and for a while halted to enjoy the grand prospect behind us, looking straight away towards Sprinkling Tarn and Borrowdale. But we found ourselves frequently buffeted by strong gusts of wind that swept furiously down the gully. The whirling snow at the little col, now so near, warned us of an approaching tourmente on the ridge. Our section soon decided to start again, and just below a small cornice that crowned the gully we forged ahead, and plunged through the powdery fringe of overhanging snow. We sank in up to our waists, and had to wrestle mightily against the hurricane to find a firm footing on the wind-swept rocks beyond. It was no joke standing about there with the sharp, cold, drift snow from the Pikes blowing into our smarting faces. We could not hear ourselves speak, it was almost impossible to see the correct course; but there were two or three among us well acquainted with this ridge in its bitterest moods, and to these the others trusted. We floundered down to the right towards Esk Hause across the wilderness of blocks strewn over the great plateau, and in a hundred yards came to a boulder large enough to possess a lee side of its own. Here we halted for a chilly half-hour, waiting for the third section to arrive. I possessed their luncheon in my knapsack, a most regrettable circumstance from our point of view, inasmuch as it tied us to Great End so long as it pleased them to amuse themselves down there on the leeside of the mountain. We quickly demolished our own share of the provisions, and with an unselfishness rarely present in the great latterday mountaineering expeditions, decided to leave them a few sandwiches and to cloy the hungry edge of our remaining appetites with tobacco. We were not all smokers, but everybody present assisted in lighting the first pipe, such a labour was it to keep a match burning. We waited there in a close bundle until our feet were half frozen and our faces stiff with icicles. Then we became rather nervous about our missing friends, and debated whether they meant to reach the top that day, or whether they had turned their backs to the lunch and made for Sprinkling Tarn. The latter course seemed at once the most expedient for them and the most convenient for us, and gladly we acted on this assumption. It was just as well we did so, for the frost had sharply nipped some of us, and it was long before my heels gave me any sensation but that of a pair of snowballs in my boots. We slung round the Esk Hause, and had some fine glissading to the hollow of the hill below the crags.

When well opposite our climb at the point whence we had started some five hours earlier, our united shouting brought back an answering call from the gully. Soon we could see the burly form of their greatest member slowly descending the crags at about the same spot where we had long before left him. Having distinguished him as a preliminary landmark easy of recognition, the three others were one by one made out. We were relieved to observe that they were all coming down in a normal condition; no broken limb or sprained ankle had occurred to spoil their pleasure and stop their climbing. After a few minutes’ waiting we learnt their story. The left-hand route had begun in a vertical ice-sheet twenty feet high that took them two hours to surmount. Then, when with sighs of relief, or hyperbolic language, or eloquent silence, that marked each individual’s satisfaction at the happy completion of a difficult pitch, they had cut their way over the edge of this wall and rounded the traverse that dominated it, they were aghast to meet a wall of ice in every respect similar to the first, but magnified! This was heart-breaking, but they made a bold bid for success, and started afresh on the new task. But the daylight was already within an hour of vanishing, and a night on those rocks would have been too much for even the sturdiest of them.

So with a wisdom not often met with in such cases where an element of competition enters into the day’s work, they resolved to retire and join us below. There we met again, and they received their lunch. I was censured to a slight extent, but blame is pretty sure to be the portion of him who carries the provisions. He that shoulders the bag is a responsible individual, and the condition of good training that it induces is moral as well as physical.

Then let me insist on the value of such physical training. The photographer who takes his camera to the High Alps is often too fond of his apparatus to give it up to a guide or porter; he frequently decides hurriedly to take a shot, and soon learns that it is best to carry all for himself. Economy may often preach the same precept. Now to lift his own weight is a labour he at first fancies will tax all his strength, but a little practice in carrying a well constructed and well packed rücksack on small expeditions will teach him something different. The weight of the whole equipment for half-plate photography—camera, three lenses, tripod, and other accessories—is so small a fraction of his own weight that its mere lift is a negligible consideration. His pace will be diminished and his back often uncomfortably heated. But supposing the burden well arranged, many a climber could habituate himself to it. One of our greatest Alpine climbers is said to train in Cumberland by carrying a rücksack filled with stones. Without attempting to persuade any one but a geologist so to burden himself on principle, I strongly advise the man who hopes ultimately to climb without guides to get early into the habit of carrying loads on smaller ascents. It will always be a joy to travel free when occasional opportunity offers, and then he will assuredly improve his pace. On a really stiff pitch the sack may have to be raised independently by the rope, a cause of serious delay when the rope is rigid with frost and the party inexperienced in tying knots or reliable loops. It should be remembered that the sack has more than once protected the climber from serious injury by falling stones, and that a pound or two of extra luggage carried up to an Alpine hut may mean all the difference between a night of misery and a comfortable rest before an arduous expedition.

I have mentioned that the middle route up the Central Gully leads by easy stages to the upper portion of the right-hand branch. Some three years ago a strong party effected an ascent of the chimney that points directly up to the top of the cliff from the high ledge between the two routes. We found the main difficulty was in traversing over an open slab on the right of the foot of the chimney. The slab was split by a narrow fissure, but the handholds were slight and rather insecure. To have trusted to one alone would have been dangerous, and I recall with amusement the spread-eagle attitude of the leader as he endeavoured to distribute his weight equally on four rickety points of support. The position was good enough in itself, but to move involved a dangerous increase in the stress on one of the supports. Fortunately the second on the rope was able to offer an axe-head as additional security, and the passage to the left was effected in safety. The chimney was narrow and its sides smooth, but with the exception of a loose stone near the finish, which rattled down and tended to disturb our wedging, nothing seriously interfered with our advance.

But there was one amongst us who, in expectation of falling stones, had thrust his head and shoulders into the little cave at the foot of the chimney. When the leader shouted to him he did not hear, and the accompanying pull on the rope resulted in the hitching of his shoulders firmly in the cleft and the elevation of his legs only. The previous evening we had been having a heated discussion as to the futility of naming the sides of a gully or cave after the manner of the banks of a river—i.e. of calling the ‘true’ right side of a gully its left and vice-versâ. Professor M., who was with us now, had been a listener to the discussion. Looking down from the top of the chimney and observing the unusual method of our friend’s ascent, he called out, ‘It’s all right, Jones, he is coming up well enough—the “true up.”’

South-east Gully.—This in summer time can often be accomplished in half an hour if the climbers are few and in a hurry. Before December, 1896, I had not made a winter ascent; moreover, I had forgotten much of the detail. Thinking of climbing notes, I persuaded a small Christmas party to join me in exploring the gully under these new conditions.

We were only a band of three ultimately, though at Kern Knotts, which we visited en route, our number was considerably larger. The other two were both experienced Alpine climbers, one a very tall man, the other very short. I was anxious to determine the advantages and disadvantages of size and weight, and to that end took the lead myself and placed the tall man second on the rope. We had but little wind, and the temperature was slightly above freezing-point.

The climbing began almost at once, for in five minutes from the foot the gully walls were close together and were encrusted with thawing ice. The narrow bed was broken up into easy pitches, but to avoid the stream of water that came down beneath the soft covering of snow it was necessary to use small ledges on either side, and span the gully like diminutive colossi—here I am referring only to myself and the little one. Now and again we would plunge up the gully for a short distance in loose snow. Occasionally the crystals became more compact, and two of us could manage to creep over its surface without slipping through. Rarely was this the case with our middle man—a sixteen-stone Teuton with a scientific training. If snow could be crushed he crushed it. He became so indifferent in the matter after awhile, that he made no attempt to distribute his weight evenly over the surface according to the rules laid down by Badminton. The little one, coming last, naturally suffered by this indifference, and was plaintive over what he called the ‘fallacy of the undistributed middle.’

The first pitch of any size occurred within 200 feet of the foot of the gully, a perfectly vertical rise of twenty feet in the bed level with a slender waterfall interfering with our direct progress. The retaining walls were the least bit too far apart for the utilization of both simultaneously, and the right side commended itself to us as the easier to attack. Our only trouble again was the glaze on the rocks, a black, shiny veneer too thin for axe operations, too thick to be trifled with. Such ice always interferes more with the hands than with the feet, for sharp boot nails can roughen the surface of an ice ledge enough for a foothold, whereas the hands can make no impression. If the ice is very cold, gloves must be worn as a protection against the frost. They have the merit of adhering slightly to the ice when pressed, and often in that way give the climber a safe-enough grip. With wet ice such regelation will not occur, and if the work is hazardous I prefer to climb with free hands, trusting to friction to restore circulation wherever an ‘easy’ may be called.

Making slowly up this wall to a snowy ledge at the top level of the pitch, I called on the others to follow, and then worked back into the gully. Here we found ourselves facing the ‘divide,’ a high and narrow rib of rock that cut down into the gully and gave us a choice of routes. Our way lay up to the right, which a distant view from Sprinkling Tarn had shown us to be really the main line. The other branch ends somewhat abruptly out on the face, and involves a traverse into the main again. A few yards further up, and a very imposing pitch rose before us. It was in three portions, the gap between the second and the third blocked by a huge stone that bridged the gully. As on the lower fall, so here the water kept us off the centre-line of the ravine, and drove us to seek diversion on the right. On the first part we had the difficulty of snow and wet ice. Without comment I noticed the little one carefully wipe out a handhold with his handkerchief when it was his turn to mount. By the same manœuvre he had some three years before shown me how to scramble up a small boulder in the Engelberg valley that I was forced to admit I could not climb. It was interesting to observe how little space he needed for his fingers. On a wall with diminutive ledges that might easily pass unnoticed, he could show us all what ‘walking up’ a face of rock really meant, though his short reach naturally handicapped him now and again very seriously. I believe a short man generally does best on rocks. His hands are as a rule stronger in proportion to his weight. The long climber can reach further but is often unable to utilize the distant grip to which he has stretched, if it is small or badly rounded. Moreover, he often finds himself in the attitude of a looping caterpillar, a pose that demands a firmer handgrip and that rapidly exhausts the muscles.

We all reached the first ledge safely. Then came the passage of the bridge. If we passed under it we should get terribly wet and cold, though there would be no particular difficulty in getting through to the final chimney. Every inch of the boulder was glazed, and it offered very few excrescences to hang upon. But it had the making of an edge at its crest, and I gradually worked up the outside till I could reach this and pull up. There is one advantage of a glaze—possibly its only one—it offers no friction to one’s body in an arm-pull.

Thence it was an easy step over to the final chimney. A small spout of water as thick as one’s wrist was jetting from the top against the right wall, and we were inevitably in for a wetting in spite of the circumvention of the bridge. I essayed to finish the pitch before the others started from their ledge twenty feet below. A fairly good lodgment for the right foot was utilized and passed. The body had to be jammed across the chimney, the fingers seeking for a crevice high up on the right wall. When a slab is streaming with water and handholds can be found within easy reach, it is a good plan to keep ‘thumbs down’ as much as possible; for then the water will drain off by the thumbs, and run clear of the coat-sleeves. The strain is too great to operate in this way with arms at full length above the head. That was manifest in my trouble on the wall. The ice-cold water trickled down my arms and body, making me wet through in a few moments. But the horror of it came with the realization that I was unable to move backwards or forwards. The situation was almost critical, but not an unusual one for winter climbing in Cumberland. I could at any rate give it my cool consideration, and decide whether to call up the big one to help me or to try an independent descent. The men below saw me in trouble and made a move upwards towards the pitch. Then it occurred to me that the big one would not be able to force a way under the bridge, and that he might be a long time working over it, longer than I could manage to hold out. That decided me, and I started wriggling downwards. Luckily the hands were not yet benumbed, and by entire disregard of the main water-supply down the central line of flow, which now included the back of my neck, I managed to reach the platform again. Until my second came up it was useless to make another attempt, and indeed it was now eminently desirable that everybody should get wet. I am not an advocate for monopoly in such cases. With some slight inducement suggested by the rope, the big one pulled himself over the bridge and came up to the platform. Here he was invited to hold himself firmly against the wall, and give me his shoulders and head for elevating purposes. He was immediately drenched before I had effected a start up his mighty back, but there was a sense of perfect security now; it would be impossible to fall past him. As for the effect of cold and wet on him, we could neglect so small a consideration. In any case he would not feel it till the trouble was over. I thought of the old dynamics problem beginning: ‘Let a fly of mass m be crawling up the trunk of an elephant, whose mass may be neglected,’ and realized for the first time that there was some sense in the quaint hypothesis. Once on his shoulders I reached up to a dry ledge, dragged myself on to it, and thence strode across to the top of the pitch.

The third man had managed to reach the platform during these operations, and now nobly offered his little all as a foothold for the giant. My heart sank when I heard it graciously accepted, but it rested with me to share the responsibility and let the rope take up some of the stress. The big one came up grandly with these small aids, and we hurried the little one to send along my camera sack and then himself. This pitch was the hardest part of the day’s work, and showed itself to vary much with existing circumstances. I can just remember enough of a former expedition to add that it needs care in summer time, though it cannot, rightly speaking, be called difficult.

We then went upwards again over snow at a gentle angle till the third pitch was reached. This was of a simple design, just a cave formed by a fallen boulder, and no doubt it could be taken in many ways. We climbed up a six-feet wall on the right from the entrance to the cave, and scrambled easily into the snow-bed beyond. Thence to the top was a matter of only ten minutes, the single hindrance being a pile of boulders that were climbed by an easy tunnel that led to the crest of the left-hand wall of the gully. We walked out at the top just as twilight set in, after some two hours’ gentle excitement. We were naturally still damp, and felt no inclination to stay about on the ridge, so hurrying round towards Esk Hause we glissaded rapidly to the path and walked home.

The left-hand variation in the gully is often taken, but is scarcely as interesting. Just after passing the divide we find another buttress of rock cutting the gully into two sections. Here the buttress is not much thicker than an ordinary brick wall; it is sometimes called the ‘curtain.’ There are pitches on each side of it, that on the right being more definite and more interesting. It leads up a steep chimney to the crest of the curtain, which is crossed to the left. The climber is then in the left-hand branch, and has no difficulty in ascending the gully till it dwindles down to nothing, and he finds himself looking into the main south-east gully just above the third pitch. It will be best, then, to climb down and finish by the usual route.

Cust’s Gully.—The climbing in this is of the slightest character in summer time, there being but one short pitch beneath the natural arch, and very little in that. But with hard snow about there is scarcely a pleasanter way of playing at Alpine climbing above the snow-line than by taking Great End viâ Skew Ghyll and Cust’s Gully. The snow slope will alter in inclination from about 30° at the bottom to 70° at the top. If the pitch is but thinly covered, there is the fun of tackling a pitfall, and of bringing to bear on the safe crossing all the science that glacier crevasses may have taught us in Switzerland. Nor let any think that it is all make-believe and that of difficulty there is none. I have had grand times in Cust’s Gully, where we were actually tired out with the labour of cutting steps. The snow when fresh is soft and yielding. Give it a week or two to settle down, and it will bind together so as to offer firm support on scraped footholds. But let cold rain fall on hard snow and the temperature then fall below freezing-point, the surface will become icy and every step will require careful making. Then should the picturesque attitudes of step-cutting depicted in Badminton be imitated in all seriousness, and the axe wielded with the scientific swing. It has happened more than once that a bad axe has proved its worthlessness when tested on the Cumbrian fells in a winter expedition—a much less dangerous discovery than if it were taken new to the Alps and there found wanting. The difficulty in the latter case is that our axes are so rarely used for hard work, if we are led up the great peaks by competent guides. They delight in removing every obstacle in our way, and it may be that long usage of the axe has really been but a test of the bâton, not at all of the pick. Then comes a time when the leading weapon is broken, or carelessly dropped, or still more carelessly pitched up to a ledge of only suppositious safety. Do not imagine that these things never happen, for each has been within my own experience during the last three years; and woe to the party if the untested axe is a weakling when emergency calls on it!

The upper part of Cust’s Gully when the snow is at its hardest may almost be regarded as a test of nerve for the novice. I once was starting to cut down the gully in such a state, with a young man of limited Alpine knowledge, who diffidently suggested that step-cutting was rather slow and that he would prefer a glissade if I did not mind. I shuddered at the vision his naïve suggestion conjured up, of a species of chain-shot shooting viciously down the tremendously steep slope, ricochetting from wall to wall of the gully, and scraped very bare by the sharp-toothed icy surface. That novice had no nerves, and my remarks are not intended for him. The contention is that an amateur party cutting up the steepening slope, and forging a way through an incipient cornice of overhanging frost crystals at the top, will learn much of the genuine safety of an ice-slope, and will see how to divest it of its imaginary dangers. There are many Alpine climbers positively afraid of harmless slopes, that are not nearly so bad as they appear, and still less formidable than they show up in photographs. Such men have never led up steep snow.

Near the foot of Cust’s Gully a branch passes up to the right, of less altitude and gentler inclination; its rock scenery is not so fine, and the place is rarely visited.

CHAPTER VII
GREAT GABLE. THE ENNERDALE FACE AND THE OBLIQUE CHIMNEY.

Great Gable takes high rank among the hills of Britain for grace of form and for the beauty of the views it offers to the climber. It is a square pyramid in shape, and shows nearly its full height (2,949 feet) from the Wastdale level. It stands at the head of the valley, and when seen from the shores of the lake appears completely to shut off the valley from all approach by the north end. Its four main ridges offer fairly easy walking to the summit. The north-east ridge runs down towards Green Gable, Brandreth, Grey Knotts, and the Honister pass, a little col marking the lowest point (2,400 feet) between the peak and Green Gable. A moderate path leads the pedestrian from Borrowdale up by way of Aaron Slack towards this little pass, which is known as Wind Gap, and then bears up towards Great Gable. The pass may be crossed into Ennerdale and a rough descent taken to the Liza stream.

The north-west ridge leads down towards Kirkfell. The broad depression between the two mountains is known as Beckhead (2,000 feet). It is often marshy in the neighbourhood of the diminutive Beckhead Tarn. A wire fence that adorns the summit-ridge from Kirkfell can be followed for some distance up Gable. Thence to the summit is somewhat craggy, but not difficult for pedestrians.