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
scarce, and the recess somewhat too constricted to allow any bracing
across from one side to the other.
[Illustration:
G. P. Abraham & Sons, Photos. Keswick
SCAWFELL PINNACLE AND THE PROFESSOR’S CHIMNEY]
Think of a foothold; double it. Put your whole weight on to it as
you straighten out. Take away the hold you thought of, and you will
find yourself wondering how you got there. In some such vague way are
very bad bits climbed, and while gasping for breath at the top the
climber usually feels that it was the worst place he has ever been in.
Seriously, however, this route is severe at all times. In summer the
drift is absent, but with rocks slightly wet, as they usually are in
that corner, the effort of working upwards is extreme. It is probably
best to keep one’s back to the boulder all the way up.
My section of the party came up first. We were very cold, and some
fear that Mrs. H. would have frost-bite prompted us to change our minds
concerning Deep Ghyll, and to traverse away to the left towards the
foot of Steep Ghyll. The others came up the pitch by our route, led in
good style by Mr. H. V. Reade. They expressed regret at our untimely
departure, and worked laboriously up the ghyll. It was ungenerous of us
that evening to gloat over the fact that they had had a terribly cold
time of it higher up.
Our route out of the ghyll was known to Mr. Haskett Smith in 1882.
It is not often used, and, indeed, in winter it offers certain risks
of its own. Starting from the top of the pitch we bore directly down
towards the entrance to Lord’s Rake, and when within a reasonable
distance of the snow, jumped down to it, sinking in up to our necks.
Hurrying down to Hollow Stones as fast as our limbs would carry us, we
endured the pangs of returning circulation in our hands and feet, and
finished the descent in exhilaration, and with a sense of having well
earned our share of the Christmas festivities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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