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
Forty feet higher we could see the third and last pitch. The gully is
now very much more open. We made a digression on the right again, and
peered inquisitively down the hole at the top of the B chimney--the
hole that was said to discriminate nicely between a thin man and a
thick. The buttress was considerably broken about here, and offered
admirable scrambling of a heterogeneous description; but we had yet one
more stage in our own direct course, and returned to finish it. Several
boulders had combined to form another cave, whose interior appeared
to be rather complicated--judging by the number of times I knocked my
head in exploring its upper regions. We tried hard to force a route
up the right wall, but after twenty minutes had been wasted in futile
attempts we decided to take the regulation route to the left, and leave
the variation for another day that might find us there with an ice-axe.
The left wall is sufficiently provided with holds to make the climb
easy; but at the top there were several stones to be passed that report
said were in a shaky condition. We were not troubled by them, and after
passing over, a glance at the screes that remained above gave assurance
that the presence or absence of a few loose stones at the head of the
pitch would be quite fortuitous.
After a short halt called for photographic purposes we made for the
head of the C gully, the next to the west that actually reaches
the sky-line when viewed from below. It was nearly all scree at a
steep angle, and we had good reason to be thankful that no exploring
parties were further down. There were two or three places passed in
our descent where the craggy bed of the gully jutted out through the
layer of loose stones, and at such spots, though no actual climbing was
necessary, the danger of one man bombarding the other with projectiles
made us both proceed with an excess of caution. The one difficulty in
the gully, which we were now preparing to descend, is by far the finest
looking pitch on Pike’s Crag. A large boulder with square edges roofs
in a cavern thirty feet high; a stream of water pouring down the gully
spreads over the boulder, and forms a thin curtain of spray stretching
from side to side of the cave entrance. The two walls of the gully are
black and glistening, the floor of the cave is slippery, and slopes
steeply down to the foot of the ghyll. The only safe way up or down the
pitch is by a series of ledges in a square recess on the left, well
marked in the opposite illustration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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