Chapter XVIII: Notes on Remaining Climbs

In this chapter it is proposed to deal summarily with a few remaining rock-climbs that have not yet been described. Some are rather awkward to reach, others are perhaps too slight to be worth the time spent in reaching them unless they actually turn up in the day’s march. One or two I have not visited, and am reluctant to accept the responsibility of guiding people up them. But

What he thought he might require,
He went and took--the same as me!

is too general a motto among book-writers for me to hesitate long before incorporating other people’s notes, and the attempt will be made to acknowledge the source in each case.

PIERS GHYLL.--This is a fine-looking ravine on the north side of Lingmell, occasionally visited by climbers. It has four or five comparatively easy pitches before the big bend, but at the point where the main gully is bridged by a great mass of rock the whole width of the ravine is occupied by a waterfall fifty feet high, and any attempt to force a passage up this pitch is peculiarly unsatisfactory unless a rainless season has much diminished the volume of water passing down. Such a season was that of 1893, and in April of that year Dr. Collier led the first party up the whole length of the ghyll. Even under those favourable circumstances the climb was very difficult, and no other party has succeeded in repeating the ascent. Dr. Collier tells me that the hardest bit is up the narrow pitch before reaching the great fall. The latter offers a choice of two or three routes.

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.

_First Pitch._--Chock-stone about fifteen feet high, passed to the left on the face of the rock. Good hand and foot holds.

_Second Pitch._--Small chock-stone. Both hands are reached up to the top of the stone and a straight pull over effected with the arms. The obstacle is about nine feet high.

_Third Pitch._--Sundry boulders forming a block, about fifteen feet high. The right-hand side of the gully is ascended until the leader is well wedged under the block. Then he can pass out to the left and over at the top.

_Fourth Pitch._--This is the most severe of the whole set, and the direct climb up the left wall is probably as stiff a problem as can be found in the district. Two immense boulders, one over the other, separated by a gap of four feet, form the roof of a cave. The retaining walls of the gully form the sides of the cave, and the ascent is to be effected on the left. From a short distance this appears to be a smooth vertical slab; even on close inspection the holds it offers appear to be of the most minute dimensions.

The second man on the rope should mount as high up the interior of the cave as possible. After climbing under the first boulder the leader takes a long step out to the left wall, on a sloping ledge. Then using side holds on the boulder itself, with his feet or knees against the main wall, he has to work up gradually to a little jammed boulder two feet above the lower one. This is an extremely fatiguing operation. On to this block he must lift his knees, and then he can cautiously drag up so as to stand on it.

The upper boulder is then passed by throwing the left leg across to a slight foothold, whence a thrust forward of the body is effected through wet soil and tufted ferns. This is particularly unpleasant after rainy weather, and is probably at all times somewhat risky. The height of the pitch is thirty-two feet.

A variation has been found which makes the passage of this obstacle much more feasible. It leads first downwards to a grassy ledge on the right, and then up by succeeding shelves until the upper level of the pitch is reached, when the return traverse back to the bed of the gully can be easily managed. Hitherto all parties, except the first and third in the chimney, have preferred to avoid the fourth pitch, and their preference is most reasonable.

_Fifth Pitch._--This is an easy chimney twenty feet long, lined with grass and ferns, and marked at the summit by a fallen tree.

_Sixth Pitch._--Two wedged stones one above the other form a pitch about twenty feet high. The route is first into the cave between the stones, then up a short chimney and over the upper boulder. The second on the rope should ascend as high as possible in the cave and, with splendid anchorage, pay out the leader’s rope carefully. Sundry loose stones are lodged on the right, and should be left discreetly alone.

_Seventh Pitch._--This is a chimney thirty feet high containing many loose stones. It is crowned by a chock-stone. The ascent is directly up the first part, and then over loose and dangerous rock on the right for another twenty feet.

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.

APPENDIX.