shoulder, the second man could hold the ice-pick in a minute fissure in the face, I might manage to step on to the axe-head and reach the edge of the platform. It would at any rate prove safer than the crack route. The plan commended itself to all, and we placed ourselves in position. It turned out that the axe was scarcely necessary, for with a little delicate balancing I reached the top hold with both hands and dragged up to the lower step in the ledge. Thence to the platform was an easy matter, and we all began to breathe freely. [Illustration: G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos. Keswick KERN KNOTTS CRACK] It never occurred to me that I had made no mental note, in my previous ascent of the crack, of the method of getting up the next part. It was certainly a stiff struggle that Christmas, but I was then out of form, and might reasonably hope to succeed more easily now. Nevertheless, when it came to the test I found it impossible, three times in succession, to get my head above a certain projecting block at the top of the niche. Each time it caught me by the back of the neck, and would not release me till in desperate extremity I let myself down again--no easy matter with exhausted arms. After the first try my two friends went round to the other side of the buttress, and hastily climbed the chimney so as to be ready to help me. I could hear their every word through the fissure, and rather surprised them by making a quiet remark. On a small scale we were having the Funffingerspitze incident repeated. Neruda was climbing that famous Dolomite, the scene of his tragic death in 1898, by a new route and heard another party ascending by the older way on the other side of the mountain. My pockets had been emptied out before the start. After these failures I flung away my coat and tied on to the rope that had been let down from above. With renewed confidence the fourth attempt was successful. When the first twelve feet were passed I found two wedged stones a short distance above my head. These forced my body out of the crack altogether, but they offered respectable holds during the process. Above these the next pitch involved a process of backing up, though the chimney was much too narrow to brace firmly across from side to side. I joined the other men at the top after a few more struggles, breathless and exhausted. Resting a few moments we descended the Kern Knotts Chimney and went down to lunch near the spring. Later on, when I effected the ascent without a rope, a rapid passage of the worst bit left me with enough reserve strength to climb up the rest of the way comfortably. The eighty feet and the descent by the chimney on the other side were then disposed of in seven minutes. The remaining passage upwards from the cave is by the _mauvais pas_ of the ordinary route.