I started up the left central chimney. It was dry, but its holds were fragile. In forty feet it divided into two parallel branches; that on the left was overhanging, and held a bunch of long splinters of rock forming a dangerous _chevaux-de-frise_, ready to fall at the slightest notice. So we left it alone, and looked to the right branch. For twenty feet it went very well, and there, where one man might safely wedge himself, it became practically impossible to mount any higher. My companion, therefore, came up while I worked out on the open face to the right. Without much trouble a small platform one foot square was reached, from which we proposed to mount the buttress that separated us from the right central chimney. I hesitated a long while before venturing on it; the place was assuredly difficult, we were not certain whether the upper portion would be feasible, and the strong wind, swirling mist, and intermittent rain sapped our courage and strength the more we deliberated. The stiff work began with a scramble up into a grassy corner, fifteen feet above my platform. It was too small to enter, but from it sprang a narrow cleft to the right, very much like the well-known ‘stomach traverse’ on the Pillar Rock, but considerably harder to pass, and without an easy walk out at the further end. At its highest point the best course seemed to be up a vertical crack in the wall, and a stiff scramble here of ten feet brought me out on the head of the buttress. Here there was a chance of walking over to the right central chimney and finishing by the thirty feet or so that remained of its special difficulty. But that portion was naturally as wet as the lower part that we had purposely avoided, and we chose to cross the chimney and climb up its right wall. CHAPTER XVI _COMBE GHYLL_ Many a pedestrian walking down Borrowdale from the Styhead pass, looking backward at the fearful descent of some 1,100 feet of rough fellside, reaches a point in the valley where he experiences difficulty in recalling his track. For the valley between Gable and Seathwaite Fell is hidden, and his choice hovers between the combe below Sprinkling Tarn, walled in by Seathwaite Fell and Glaramara, and the upland valley that nestles between Thornythwaite and Rosthwaite Fells. His perplexity is increased when he notices that neither hollow satisfies the condition of background. The one is barred by the crags of Great End, the other by the steep wall of Raven Crag, a high dependence of Glaramara; whereas the Styhead pass as seen from Grange ought to show distant Scawfell as a background, and be easily recognised. One of these two hollows the climber will do well to identify.