The difficulties now became almost continuous, and we were unable to define exactly the beginning of the seventh pitch. Some twenty feet of steep climbing up the bed of the ghyll first followed and we reached a little platform whence a branch gully of steep grass led out on the buttress to our left. The main gully was thirty feet across, narrowing a little higher up. An almost vertical rib of rock some six feet thick divided the gully into two parts. That on the right was a wide recess roofed in by a great stone nearly a hundred feet overhead. From our little platform we could see the water streaming over the edge of the roof, and forming a thin veil at the entrance to the cave. The left-hand side of the rib was a narrow crack sloping back at an angle of about 45°, but after the first thirty feet continuing to the top perpendicularly. The route we chose lay first up the crack, then across the rib and into the cave. A second start being made from there, we proposed to climb up the vertical rib, taking to the crack on its left whenever the difficulties became extreme. At the level of the roof of the cavern we were to traverse across on to it and make directly up its smooth slope and round by the left of a higher jammed block that overhung the finishing portion of the pitch. I think the route differs a little from that of the first party, who were somewhat assisted by a jammed stone then in the crack. In fact one member considered the stone essential for a successful ascent, and that its untimely removal closed the upper half for ever. But there can be no doubt that in a dry season the obstacle can be overcome by a moderately strong party, and that in the normal ‘streamy’ state of the gully the climber needs but the knowledge of a route and the nerve to follow it without hesitation and without regard to dryness. [Illustration: I. PLATE VI. THE WASTWATER SCREES (p. 191). The height of CC is about 1,000 feet. A An Easy Gully. B The Great Gully (1891). C The Central Gully (1897). D A Minor Gully, not very difficult. _b_ The Curtain. _c_ The Easy Traverse. _d_ Descent from Traverse. II THE PAVEY ARK GULLIES (p. 208). The height of BB is about 400 feet. A Little Gully (1886). B The Great Gully (1882). C Easy Scree Gully. D Jack’s Rake. E Stickle Tarn.] We found the way easy up to the cave. There Bowen braced himself firmly amidst the bright green ferns and endeavoured to reconcile himself to the prospect of a long wait. He could not trace out my route upwards, for the curtain of water was between us, but now and again when troubles were thickest he would inquire feelingly after my condition.