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
To the immediate north of the Great Gully we see a huge buttress that
springs further down the scree towards Goat’s Water than any other
part of the crag. The lower 300 feet of this buttress exhibit a nearly
vertical gully that may escape detection altogether unless viewed in a
favourable light. In the view on the opposite page it is well marked
by the deep black shadow of the rocks on its south side. Apparently it
joins a sloping gully that leads up to the sky-line; but in reality it
finishes abruptly on the face, at a small grass platform that stretches
a hundred feet across the buttress. It is now known as the Central
Chimney, and was first climbed in April, 1897, by Mr. Godfrey Ellis and
myself. In the first edition of this book, the chimney was erroneously
identified with one of Messrs. Hopkinson’s ascents of April, 1895. The
route cannot be recommended except to experts, by reason equally of the
genuine difficulties in the chimney and of the exposed nature of the
awkward situations in it.
[Illustration:
G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos. Keswick
DOE CRAG AND GOATSWATER
(_Face page 220_)]
The next gully to the right forms the northern boundary of the great
central buttress. It is but slightly marked at the lower end and
possesses serious difficulties in the first half. We shall call it the
Intermediate Gully. It was first climbed in April, 1895, by Messrs.
Campbell, and Edward, Albert, and J. H. Hopkinson, and described by the
most experienced of their party as the severest climb he had done in
the district. Mr. W. J. Williams and I went up it at Easter, 1898, when
making a fairly complete survey of all these splendid, but practically
unknown gullies.
The Easter Gully now needs localization. It comes next to the preceding
and is easy to identify. It has a huge cave pitch near the bottom,
then from a great hollow in the crags a vertical chimney springs up
over a hundred feet in a right-angled corner; above this the gully
divides into two branches, both of which give good climbing until we
are nearly at the summit-ridge. Careful inquiry enables me to say that
this was first climbed by Messrs. Haskett Smith and Robinson in 1886;
they avoided a considerable amount of the trouble, inevitable in a
passage of the lower half of the direct ascent, by working up the great
buttress on the right, and by traversing back into the gully when the
opportunity disclosed itself. The first passage of the gully by the
extremely difficult second pitch, and thence directly onwards, was made
on Easter Day, 1895, by Messrs. Otto Koecher and Charles Hopkinson,
who, however, circumvented the comparatively simple cave pitch at the
foot. They thought they were on entirely new ground; so did I when
on Easter Day, 1898, Mr. W. J. Williams accompanied me over the first
pitch, up a zig-zag course to left and right of the long chimney, and
then along the direct finish to the summit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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