Rock-climbing in the English Lake District: Third EditionJones, Owen Glynne
General
Rock-climbing in the English Lake District: Third Edition
Jones, Owen Glynne
Lake District (England) -- Description and travel; Mountaineering; Rock climbing -- England -- Lake District
We passed up on the left-hand side of the first pitch at 11-18, over
fifteen feet of steep grass and rock. The holds were fairly good beside
the waterfall. A few feet further on the gully narrowed at a second
pitch--a steep gutter down which the stream endeavoured to smooth a
way. We could use ledges on either side, and at the top a tree-stem
that has lain there for some years gave us assistance. The pitch is
about twenty-five feet high.
Then there followed two easy ten-feet bits before we found ourselves
compelled at the fifth pitch to quit the bed of the gully. This
obstacle sent us off to the left up a steep grass bank before we could
traverse back into the narrow chimney at an assailable spot. We were
obliged to use our knees for wedging safely in the V-shaped corner, and
thus had our introduction to the water-way. The ledges were few and
slippery. Ten feet up the corner a jammed stone and a slippery slab
guarded the head of the pitch. We reached the former actually behind
the water, and hastened out to the left with but slight steadying holds
for the hands.
Then we halted a little and looked about us. We had gone through the
preliminaries, and realized that our gully was now getting stiff. The
view upwards showed the great seventh pitch, but nothing higher. Far
below we could see the end of the lake. The prospect was not nearly so
fine as that from the Great Gully; the rocks were not so boldly carved
out, nor the outlook so fair.
The next obstacle was formed by a jammed boulder thirty feet high,
impossible to climb direct. It would perhaps have been best to take
it on the right, but we advanced tentatively up the other side, and
then, seeing that it would just go, kept on to the top. Our route lay
up the narrow crack between the boulder and the side wall. A shoulder
was useful for the leader at the start, but he had a bad six feet just
above. The only hold for the right hand was obtained by clenching the
fist inside the crack so as to form a wedge. A far-away notch in the
wall gave an oblique push-off for the left foot, the struggle being
mainly to keep close to the crack.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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