Macgillicuddy's Reeks
The Macgillicuddy's Reeks.
All this being true, it seems incomprehensible that Ireland should not be looked upon more favourably as a possible mountaineering country. I am afraid nowadays, however, that unless a considerable amount of rock gymnastics can be made part of a climb, the modern mountaineer is not satisfied. Merely beautiful scenery is insufficient to lure him to the mountains. Still, as Mr. Hart says, Kerry and Donegal are good training-grounds for the novice. This I can vouch for; the cliffs of Slieve League, 1972 feet, form one of the finest sea cliffs in the British Isles, and much of the best scenery amongst the Macgillicuddy's Reeks can only be obtained by those who are willing to do some rock scrambling.
Now the modern mountaineer, owing to this specialisation in rock climbing, is apt to lose much that the earlier mountain climbers enjoyed; whilst, in days gone by, the wanderer amongst the mountains also missed much bybeing unable to deal with difficult rocks. On the other hand, the expert of to-day gains in both directions, but he must beware of spending all his time in mere gymnastics or the pure athletics of mountaineering. One of Ireland's most famous literary men, the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, more than a quarter of a century ago inSocial Life in Greece, points out the dangers of immoderate specialisation in bodily exercise, and how alien it was to Greek education. 'The theoretical educators,' he says, 'knew quite well what most of us do not, that field sports are vastly superior to pure athletics in their effects upon the mind.' Again: 'The Greeks knew what we ignore, that such sports as require excessive bodily training and care are low and debasing in comparison to those which demand only the ordinary strength and quickness, daring and decision in danger, resource and ingenuity in difficulties.' In these days the old Greek virtue of moderation is hard to follow. But perhaps in the sport of mountaineering it is more easily observed than in many others, for he who wanders amongst the hills is not driven forward by strenuous competition, no crowd applauds the success of some daring feat, and as a rule these immoderate efforts can be avoided.
The extent of wild mountainous country in Ireland where the mountaineer can enjoy his sport is much greater than is generally supposed; the Kerry mountains occupy a larger area than the Snowdon group in North Wales; then there are the Wicklow mountains, the Mourne mountains, the Donegal Highlands, the Galtee More group, and the mountainous country of Connemara and Mayo, which last is about forty miles long by thirty miles wide.
Over all these scattered groups the mountaineer can wander at his will; he will be stopped by no one. Moreover, this west coast of Ireland has more to offer than mountains. Should the visitor not be extraordinarily enthusiastic and wish to walk over the hills every day in the week, from Kerry to Donegal there are always plenty of rivers and lakes where salmon and trout can be caught; the scenery, too, is often of the finest description, wonderfully wild sea lochs to explore, with a magnificent rock-bound coast, on whose shores the restless Atlantic breaks, also numberless lonely islands far out in the sea. To those who care for beautiful soft atmospheric lights, for great stretches of heather lands, of sky, or of clouds, for a clean sea with often miles of yellow sands or splendid cliffs, all these can be found on Ireland's Atlantic coast, and they surely are a sufficient enticement to bring far morevisitors to this beautiful country than are to be found there at the present time.
It is now many years since I was stopping at Carrick in Donegal bay. Not many miles west of Carrick is Slieve League. Although it is not quite 2000 feet high, yet it needs a good climber to ascend this hill from the seashore at its feet. I do not know what the average angle may be, but on one summer afternoon it took me a very long time to accomplish the ascent.
Of course there is a great deal of heather and grass set at the steepest angle on which they will grow; but a climber ought to be able to be as safe on such a mountain-side as he is on hard rock or on snow or ice, and unless experience is obtained, he will remain a novice in this particular kind of climbing.
There was more than one place on the way up Slieve League from the seashore that needed considerable care, and I well remember those 'nasty ravines, iron-floored and steep-edged,' that Mr. Hart mentions in his description of the place.
Another unique experience, not however a mountaineering one, that I had whilst stopping at Carrick, was in the sea caves in the cliffs just west of Slieve League. It is only in the finest weather that a boat can venture near them, for even after several days of east wind off the land the Atlanticswell is still big enough, unless great care is taken, to break a rowing boat to pieces on the rocks.
The cliffs where the cave is situated come down sheer into the dark water below; the entrance is a great doorway with a somewhat slanting roof, into which the full force of the waves from the open ocean can play; and as the boat rises and falls on the water, the danger of hidden rocks underneath the surface adds a certain amount of anxiety to the other feelings that possess one, as the daylight begins to fade away in the mysterious recesses of the cavern.
For about three hundred yards this tunnel is straight; by looking back the opening can be seen growing smaller and smaller and more distant. At length a great dome-shaped chamber is reached, from which branch out other caves in various directions. Here the dim light of candles, the washing of the water on the rocks, the thunderous booming of the surge in unknown passages far away in the bowels of the mountain, where, every sound being greatly magnified and echoed backwards and forwards, all these produce most weird and awe-inspiring sensations. The mystery and the sense of remoteness from the world, the uncanny feeling that a thousand feet of solid rock lies between one and the sunshine, alsoadd to the effect. But when besides these things, we had been listening to dreadful tales from our boatmen, of mermaids, of sea pigs light green in colour with pink spots and human heads, that at night would come 'wondering' round the boat, and finally of a 'great big beast, a serpent,' as large as the steeple of a church, which was supposed not only to feed on human beings when opportunity offered, but what was worse, was said to inhabit the inner recesses of the very cave in which we were, it is unnecessary to say how easy it was to be frightened at anything.
The only unblocked waterway where a boat could pass on out of this domed hall was to the right, and up this we were preparing to go in search of seal, when some exceptionally large waves, tortured in some narrow passages, sent a terrific boom with multitudinous echoes reverberating through the caverns; at the same time a most curious phenomenon, half sound, half vibration of the air occurred. It seemed as though the whole body of the air in the cave pulsated, producing a swishing sound with periods of about one second, which gradually became fainter and fainter till it died away. Probably the cave had been converted into a gigantic organ pipe, and the note was one so low down in the scale that the vibrations were about one per second.Unfortunately I suggested that it was the 'great big beast, the serpent,' and that finished the expedition. Our boatmen were at once terrified, shouting to each other, pushing and half rowing the boat in a frenzy of fear. Amidst the bellowing noises of the various caverns leading out of the central hall, and the angry hisses of 'the beast, the serpent,' we departed most hurriedly for the outer air.
Slieve League, however, if the Ordnance Survey maps are to be trusted, is not the finest cliff in Ireland. On the western coast of Achill Island are the cliffs of Croaghaun, 2192 feet high. But my friend, Colin Phillip, who was there in the summer of 1901, made a somewhat startling discovery. A piece of land to the west of Croaghaun, more thana square quarter of a mile, has been left out altogether from the map. Where this land should be a bay is marked; perhaps, however, his own words will describe better how the discovery was made. 'The seaward face of Croaghaun is usually spoken of as an almost perpendicular cliff of over 2000 feet. This is not true. It is a fine, rocky, more or less buttressed mountain face, dropping to the sea at an angle of perhaps 50 degrees in places. But its general inclination would not be so much. There appears to be a curious error in the Ordnance Survey map with regard to the sea frontof this hill. Expecting to find a grand view of this giant amongst the cliffs of Ireland, I made for a point marked on the map as a headland, projecting well out to sea on the west side of Croaghaun, from which a complete survey of the face should have been obtained. I was astonished to find, instead of a broad bay, with the great cliff of the mountain descending into it, a narrow inlet, like a 'geo' in Shetland, on the other side of which, almost completely blocking the view, was the south-west buttress of Croaghaun, and certainly not steeper than 40 degrees.' The whole bay, therefore, as marked on the Ordnance map, is now occupied by the lower part of the mountain; consequently, instead of a sheer cliff, this western side of the mountain is no more than an easy slope which may be traversed in many places.
Another piece of information of Phillip's which may be novel, is that perhaps Sir Walter Scott was right when he called the hills in Skye the Cuchullin hills. During a discussion on the Skye hills with Mr. Seaton F. Milligan (past vice-president of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland), whom Phillip met on the west coast of Ireland, Mr. Milligan said that the hills had been named after the Irish hero Cuchulain; and the reason he gave was the following:—
In those early days the sons of the kings of Ireland were often sent to Skye to learn the art of war. At the end of their first year, a test of their progress was whether they were able to walk across what was called 'the bridge of the cliffs'; this bridge is supposed to have been part of the ridge of the Coolin. The bridge is thus described in the legend:—
'Wonderful was the sight the bridge afforded, when any one would leap upon it, for it narrowed until it became as narrow as the hair of one's head, the second time it shortened till it became short as an inch, and the third time it grew slippery until it was as slippery as an eel of the river, and the fourth time it rose up on high against you as the mast of a ship.'
That this description agrees with the ridges of Sgurr nan Gillean (the peak of the young men) no one can deny, and the story goes on to say how Cuchulain at once performs the feat at the first trial, so astonishing the onlookers that the bridge was named after him.
In opposition, however, to this, we have the weighty statement of the late Alexander Nicolson, who says,[N]'They are known to the natives of Skye and always have been as "A Chuilionn." There was an Ossianic hero of the name Cuchulain, saidto have been brought up at Dun-Sgàthaich, an ancient fort near Ord in Skye, but the natives never called the great mountain range by his name. In this view I am supported by our greatest Celtic archæologist, Dr. Skene.'
But to return to Ireland: besides the cliffs on Achill, all along the north coast of Mayo are excessively wild and grand precipices often of hard quartzite rock, and this part of the west coast is perhaps the finest and most picturesque in all Ireland.
East and south of Achill lie a series of detached mountains and ranges of mountains, all of which are more or less interesting as they command wide views of sea, valley, and moorland. South of the Killary lies perhaps the most beautiful of all the mountainous districts in Ireland, the district of Connemara. In fact, it is not exaggeration to say that there are few finer groups of hills in Britain than the twelve Bens of Connemara, and this is the more remarkable when one considers that they are only 2395 feet high. To again quote Phillip: 'The views from some of the summits are enchanting, in particular from the easily got at summit W.S.W. of Leenane. From this point the Killary can be traced from the ocean to its head. The valley of the Erriff river carries the eye over theplains of Mayo northwards to the far away hills in Sligo. To the eastward the Formnamore mountains, with glimpses through their gaps of Loughs Maske and Corrib, beyond which the plains extend through Mayo, Galway, to Clare. Then Maam Turk blocks the view, which opens again, however, to the south, with wild moorland and the whole of the twelve Bens. Through the gaps of these mountains the Atlantic is seen in more than one direction, fringed by rocky headlands and white sandy bays, carrying the eye back again to the westward and the solemn Killary, beyond which, lying almost hidden amongst the hills, is the beautiful valley of Delphi and glimpses of the Dhu Lough.'
I have left the Kerry hills till the last, because they are the most important and the highest in Ireland. The Connemara hills are perhaps, on the whole, more beautiful, but the hills of Kerry possess a grandeur and such characteristic form, that one at once thinks of them as mountains and not hills. This is not surprising, for they easily surpass the English hills in height, Carran Tuohill, 3414 feet, Been Keragh, 3314 feet, Caher, 3200 feet, and Brandon, 3127 feet, being the highest.
Moreover their bases are in some cases (Brandon, for instance) on the seashore. The chief points of this group, which in some respects differentiate them from the other ranges of mountains in the British Isles, are the numberless wild mountain tarns that lie hidden in their corries, the masses of vegetation that clothe even the rock precipices, and the curious capping of peat that is to be found on some of the hill-tops.
In some instances, after climbing up hundreds of feet of rock from the corrie below, one finds that the last twenty feet of the mountain is up a steep slope of peat, occasionally almost corniced by the overhanging fringe of heather. Then, too, the luxuriant growth of the trees in some of the valleys, especially those near Killarney and at the head of Caragh lake, is wonderful, and it is almost needless to say that the upper part of the Lake of Killarney itself, beneath the Macgillicuddy's Reeks, is unrivalled in the British Isles for rich beauty. There are larger lakes surrounded by far wilder scenery in Scotland, for instance in Glen Affric, or lakes like Loch Katrine that lie between wonderful forested shores and beneath shapely mountains, or Rydal Water or parts of Derwentwater in the Lake District; but the upper lake at Killarney, as an example of winding stretches of clear waters, with rocky shores clothed in oaks, firs, hollies,and other trees, the foliage stretching upwards to the heather-covered mountains behind, this particular part of the Kerry mountain land certainly in its own way stands alone; it has no competitor.
The warm moist Atlantic climate has had almost the effect of a hothouse on the flora of these sheltered valleys, whilst above, on the summits of the mountains the first snow and storms of the winter and early spring produce a rugged wildness that is only to be found in the British Islands on mountains over 3000 feet high.
Carran Tuohill, the highest of the Macgillicuddy's Reeks, also the highest mountain in Ireland, lies some distance away from Killarney. Its eastern and northern faces are especially grand. At its foot can be found more than one mountain tarn; Lough Gouragh, at the head of the Hag's Glen, being very fine, for the greatest mountain precipice in Ireland rises from its shores almost to the summit of Carran Tuohill, about 2300 feet above. On the other side of the mountain, another tarn, Coomloughra, is of a more ordinary type, even although it is encircled by the three highest peaks in Ireland. Notwithstanding that the face of Caher, which overlooks Coomloughra, is precipitous for more than 1000 feet, yet there is no very good climbing to beobtained on it, for the rocks are treacherous; also, they run diagonally up and across the face of the mountain.
The views from all these mountains that surround Coomloughra are very fine. That from Been Keragh perhaps is the best for the surrounding peaks; for, looking across the Hag's Glen at the black precipices of Carran Tuohill and at the savage ridge which connects it with Been Keragh, one wonders that such wild and desolate scenery can exist so near to the rich and luxuriant vegetation of the valleys only a few miles away.
From Carran Tuohill it is towards the west and south-west that the finest outlook is obtained. Across the valley in which Coomloughra lies are the cliffs of Caher; Dursey Island is seen in the distance at the mouth of the Kenmare river; the small but shapely Skellig rocks jut out of the open sea far away in the west; and Brandon, one of the most beautiful of mountains, stands alone and solitary on the shores of the wild Atlantic beyond the blue waters and the yellow sands of Dingle bay. Heather moorland, desolate loughs, and peat mosses extend for miles, and the great dome of the sky, perhaps flecked with soft clouds, bends down to the far off horizon of the outer ocean.
To the west of the Macgillicuddy's Reeks, in a part of the country but little visited, is Lough Coomacullen, one of the most wonderfully beautiful mountain tarns I have ever seen. Hidden away amongst the hills, and difficult of access, it has attracted but little attention, yet with its glacier-worn sides of bare rock that descend in many places sheer into the black waters below, and the circle of cliffs which surround the upper part of the lough, one might almost imagine one was in Norway, except that the deep velvet brown of the heather, the few well-grown hollies clinging to the broken rock walls, and the rich colours of the mosses, lichens, and ferns that find nourishment on the ledges and faces of the precipices, at once show that one is on the Atlantic coast and in a softer and warmer clime.
Five hundred feet below this small tarn lies the larger lake, Coomasaharn; it too has a shore line much wilder and more rugged than the majority of British lakes. Great boulders and masses of glacier-worn rocks surround it, whilst at its head the precipices extend almost to the summit of Coomacarrea (2542 feet). In some places these precipices give good rock scrambling, but it is rather surprising, after a couple of hours' climbing on good hard rock, to find that the top of the mountain is a flat peat moorwhich in some places almost overhangs the wild corrie below.
This capping of peat on several of even the wilder mountains seems to be characteristic of many of the summits on the west coast of Ireland. The highest summits of the Reeks, however, are quite free from peat.
There are, of course, many other mountainous districts besides those I have already mentioned. The Mourne mountains, where the mountaineer may, if he chooses, collect topaz and beryls of a most exquisite blue, the Wicklow, Tipperary, or Waterford groups, all possess wild mountain scenery, and many rare plants can be found there. But after all, undoubtedly it is the picturesque side of the mountain land that makes to the wanderer in Ireland the most forcible appeal of all. It is the atmospheric softness, and the rich vegetation, which, on the west of Ireland, covers the valleys, glens, and the mountain-sides, it is the colour of the deep and lovely tarns, of the expanses of heather, and of the distances, and lastly, it is the rugged, rock-bound coast, a coast of many bays, of desolate islands, of solitary sea stacks, of cliffs, of sandy beaches, and wonderful sea caves, a coast that has for ages withstood the attacks of the mighty waves of the storm-driven Atlantic; theseare the beauties of which this Irish mountain land can boast, which after all are of more worth than the attractions of many inaccessible pinnacles and many ranges of ugly but excessively steep and high mountains.
'Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase,And marvel men should quit their easy chair,The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace,Oh, there is sweetness in the mountain airAnd life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.'Childe Harold.
'Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase,And marvel men should quit their easy chair,The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace,Oh, there is sweetness in the mountain airAnd life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.'Childe Harold.
To the mountaineer who makes his way from Seascale or from Drigg to Wastdale Head, the Cumberland hills with their long, rolling outlines, their flanks concealed by superincumbent soil and vegetation, do not seem to promise well as far as rock climbing is concerned. Only here and there do the ridges break into rocky precipices; nowhere is seen the rugged grandeur of the Highlands of Scotland; such valleys as Glencoe with its rock-built walls, or the splintered summits of the Coolin, or of An Teallach, do not exist. Yet the rock-climber who stops at the inn at the head of Wastdale may spend weeks before he has exhausted the district. He will be lucky indeed, and a first-rate climber to boot, if he has done the best of the climbs without further aid than that afforded bywhat the mountaineer calls the 'moral' support of the rope. Once upon a time a celebrated climber of Alpine repute came to Wastdale for the first, alas! also for the last time. 'Climbing in the Caucasus,' Mummery said, 'was easy and safe; in the Alps too it was usually easy and safe, though sometimes difficult; but climbing as practised at Wastdale Head was both difficult and dangerous.'
The great delight of the climber in the Cumberland hills is in gullies or 'ghylls,' and no wonder, for there are endless gullies both great and small, the climbs in which vary with the state of the weather, and may be easy or difficult, wet or dry, or dirty, according to circumstances. Then again, the climber must have a perfect contempt for streams, and especially waterfalls, for the ascent of a perpendicular 'pitch' through a delightfully cold and invigorating shower bath will be one of his earliest experiences. But there are plenty of other climbs besides those in ghylls. Hidden away in the recesses of the hills are sharp and jagged pinnacles of hard porphyritic rock, precipices smooth, flawless, and sometimes overhanging, whose firm grey bastions have withstood the storms of ages; whilst only at their feet, where lie the remnants which have yielded, flake by flake, from the massive buttresses above, does the ruin proclaim that thehand of time carves the rocks on the mountain-side as well as the valleys below.
This was written several years ago, before all the rock problems, and also before all their variations, had been worked out. When first I visited Wastdale Head it was at Christmas time. I knew there was a pinnacle of rock on Great Gable, also that another rock climb could be obtained on the Pillar mountain—that was all. Mr. Jones had never visited Wastdale, and his work was unwritten. The entries in the climbers' book at the inn were only just begun.
W. P. Haskett Smith, J. W. Robinson, C. Slingsby, and G. Hastings were the pioneers of those days; they first really drew the attention of mountaineers to the fact that rock climbing of every degree of difficulty could be indulged in amongst the hills that surrounded the head of Wastdale.
It is true that for many years previously members of the Alpine Club had been in the habit of spending some time every year in the district, but they had gone there more for the ice and the snow and for the enjoyment of the mountain scenery than for indulgence in extraordinary performances in the ghylls and on the rock faces. May we not call theirs the Golden Age? whilst that sterner time which followed, full offierce fighting, of victory and of defeat, was the Age of Iron.
It was my good fortune to be associated with those who were responsible for this second period, and many a long day have I spent on the mountains in their company. In those days at Easter time there was usually a great gathering of the mountaineering clans in the inn at Wastdale Head. They came from all points of the compass, and swooped down on Wastdale, bringing with them every sort of mountain appliance. Into the inn they would rush, soon to emerge again clothed in wonderful suits of clothes, carrying cameras, ropes, ice-axes, and luncheons; and they used to remind me of an instructive toy machine presented to a friend of mine in the days of his early youth—'morality made easy' he afterwards called it, when he had arrived at man's estate and was able to grasp the true inwardness of the ingenious apparatus. Its object was to inculcate at an early age the virtue of moderation, and it represented a public house. You slowly turned a handle, making a procession of respectably dressed citizens, with eager, smiling faces, enter the front door, over which was written in large letters:—
'They quietly enter the doorway withinFor an hour's indulgence in riot and sin.'
'They quietly enter the doorway withinFor an hour's indulgence in riot and sin.'
Another turn of the handle, which should now be done rapidly and with shaking hand, and at once the scene changed. From out the back door dishevelled and staggering figures emerged, with no resemblance whatever to the former ones. Above was another couplet:—
'Then rushing out wildly, their senses departed,On Ruin's dark pathway the victims are started!'
'Then rushing out wildly, their senses departed,On Ruin's dark pathway the victims are started!'
Alas! those delightful toys of one's youth, where have they all gone? The toys of the present day are feeble, and lack that educational value which those of thirty years ago never failed to possess. How can we compare them? It isThe Bad Boys Book of Beaststo Dr. Watts'sPoems. The first of the two couplets mentioned above, in the case of the mountaineer, however, needs emendation; perhaps 'quiet lunchin' at the end of the second line would be more appropriate. But I have wandered from my subject.
The inn at the head of Wastdale lies in the very centre of the hills, and from it two or three hours at the most will take the climber to his work.
On the south are the gullies of the Screes; the great gully opposite Wastdale Hall will occupy an ordinary party at least three hours. The first three or four hundred feet are by no means easy,and are thoroughly typical of ghyll climbing. On the south-east of Wastdale is Scawfell, with its splendid precipices where there are three first-rate ghyll climbs, Moss ghyll, Steep ghyll, and Deep ghyll. At the top of the last is Scawfell pinnacle, a delightful short climb if taken from the top of Scawfell; but if ascended from the foot of the precipice,viaSteep ghyll, and then by the arête which lies between Steep ghyll and Deep ghyll, it will give several hours of really good rock work. Next to Scawfell are the Pikes and Great End. On both of these interesting scrambles can be found. To the eastward, almost above the inn, the slopes of Great Gable stretch up towards the Napes rocks, where can be found the Napes Needle and several rock ridges. Further away, on the north, lies the Pillar mountain, with its great buttress of rock jutting out into Ennerdale. Up the Pillar Rock there are at least half a dozen different routes, and none of them can be called perfectly easy. But these are by no means all the climbs that can be found near Wastdale Head. There are gullies on the Langdale Pikes and on Pavey Arc, and another on Dow Crag near Coniston.
My first climb was on the Napes Needle. Since then I have been up it many times, but it always remains as interesting as ever. I must confess thatthe first time I tried it, it was too difficult for me, and I was very glad of a helping hand from the first man up, for we were climbing without a rope and had no nails in our boots, our proper mountaineering equipment having been delayed at Drigg station; and as we afterwards learned, we had shocked Dan Tyson of the inn by going to the hills in what he considered were our Sunday clothes. But the Pillar Rock is the most famous crag near Wastdale. It lies on the far side of the Pillar mountain, and is not a great distance below the summit. It consists of a mass of rock standing far out from the side of the mountain, its precipices overhanging the head of Ennerdale. The end nearest the Pillar mountain is cut off from the hill-side by a great gash, whilst the other end plunges down almost perpendicularly for about eight hundred feet.
The great Ennerdale climb is up this Ennerdale face. At the bottom a broad grassy band, 'The Great Doupe,' runs across the foot of the precipice. It is from here that the climb must be begun, but every way up this face finally converges towards one spot, called the 'Split-Block.' Above is a vertical rock face, whilst below, four hundred feet straight down, is the grassy band. For nine years all attacks on the Ennerdale face of the Pillar Rockended here. Only in 1891 was it conquered. Two of the party were lowered down into a savage-looking gully, from which they ascended to a spot some thirty feet higher than the Split-Block, and by lowering a rope were able to pull up the last man direct, who could not descend alone into the gully. This sounds as if the last man had a comparatively easy climb. But as the ascent is literally made through the air, unless an extra rope is sent down to help him with a noose at the end which can be used as a stirrup, he will arrive up above in a somewhat congested state. Moreover, he must insist that the two ropes be worked by reasonable people, otherwise he will be unfortunate enough to probably complete his ascent in an inverted position, and be apt to lose faith in the use of the Alpine rope.
It has already been pointed out that above the Split-Block is a vertical precipice. Across this face about twenty-five feet above the Split-Block there is another way up, which does away with the necessity of descending into the Savage gully. It was first climbed by G. Solly. But it is a most dangerous climb, for the leader must traverse across this perpendicular face hanging on by his hands alone, and—here is where the danger comes in—should he be unable to finish the climb, and theworst piece which needs the expenditure of most energy is at the very end, the leader is quite unable to return: there he hangs till he can hold on no longer, then he drops! I myself have seen this happen. The subsequent escape, not only of the leader but of the rest of the party, was the most marvellous piece of luck I have ever seen on the mountains, and even now makes me shudder when I think of it.
Collier has also varied this climb by getting up directly from the end of the ledge beyond the Split-Block; but, after all, the original manner employed by the first party in 1891 still remains the most satisfactory method for overcoming the difficulty at this spot on the Pillar climb. Above this, a gully leads to within two or three hundred feet of the top, which can be reached by an interesting rock climb of no great difficulty.
This ascent of the Pillar Rock is certainly a remarkably fine one. It is full of variety, and nearly the whole of it is on bare rock; moreover, owing to the great steepness during the greater part of the climb, it produces an exhilarating feeling of being perched in mid-air most of the time. I should think nowadays it cannot be difficult to find, but when we first tried it, a few scratches here and there on the rock were our only guides.
Of the ghyll climbs, the one on the Screes already mentioned is well worth trying. It was first climbed by Hastings, Robinson, and myself; and I could not have been in better company. Robinson isthegreat authority on the hills of the Lake district; there is not a rock on a mountain-side that he does not know. In sunshine or mist, in daylight or at midnight, he will guide one safely over passes or down precipitous mountain-sides. Every tree and every stone is a landmark to him. It was on a perfect winter's morning, many years ago now, that we started for the great gully in the Screes. Not a breath of air stirred; hoar frost covered the ground; the trees were a mass of silver, glittering in the morning sun. If from the road by Wastdale Hall the rock face opposite be examined, it does not seem to be much broken, but as one approaches the gullies deepen, and in reality are great gashes penetrating far into the hillside.
The bottom of the gully is reached by ascending a mass of loose stones which stretch almost down to the lake-side. In the gully there is no great difficulty at first, but after a short time it branches off into two, and it is the left-hand branch which has to be followed. The stream was frozen, forming a beautiful cascade of ice, and we were forced on to the buttress that divides the two gullies. Hastingswas sent on to prospect, whilst I had to back him up as far as possible. With considerable trouble he managed to traverse back to the left into the main gully, using infinitesimal knobs of rock for foot and hand hold. We then followed, to find ourselves in a narrow cleft cut far into the side of the hill. Perpendicular walls rose on both sides for several hundred feet; above us stretched cascade after cascade of solid ice, always at a very steep angle and sometimes perpendicular. Up these we cut our way with our axes, sometimes being helped by making the steps close to the walls, and using any small inequalities on the rock face to steady us in our steps. At last we came to the final pitch. Far above us at the top, the stream coming over a hanging ledge on the right had frozen into masses of insecure icicles, some twenty or more feet long, and thus prevented us from getting up on that side. However, at the left-hand corner, at the top of the pitch, a rock was wedged, overhanging the gully, but leaving underneath a cave of considerable size. We managed to get as far up as the cave; there we placed Robinson, in a position of great importance and responsibility, for he had to hitch himself to a jammed boulder at the back, and hold both Hastings and me steady on the other end of the rope. I placed myself in the most secure position I could:my right foot occupied a capacious hole cut in the bottom of the icicles, whilst my left was far away on the other side of the gully, on a small but obliging shelf in the rock face. In this interesting attitude, like the Colossus of Rhodes, I spanned the gulf, and was anchored to the boulder as well as to Robinson. Next, Hastings, with considerable agility, climbed on to my shoulders; from that exalted position he could reach the edge of the overhanging stone, underneath which Robinson was shivering, and, after great exertions, was able finally to pull himself up on to the top. Then Robinson and I followed on the rope. No doubt when the gully is dry, with neither ice nor water in it, the climb would be much modified. Above this pitch the climbing is easy as the gully opens out, and the route to the top may be varied according to taste; some ways are difficult and some are easy.
There is one more climb, the recollection of which always gives me pleasure; indeed it was one of the most delightful I ever had in this splendid land of rock scrambles. On the great precipice of Scawfell, Moss ghyll is the most easterly of the three gullies which look towards the Pikes.
When we attacked it, this ghyll had not been climbed, although several parties had been up a considerable distance. The highest point attainedwas just underneath a huge overhanging block of rock, weighing hundreds of tons, which formed the roof of a great cave. Robinson, Hastings, and I were anxious to see whether it was not possible in some way to circumvent this objectionable block. We had already carefully prospected the upper part of the ghyll from above, finding that there was no difficulty once this obstacle was passed. We therefore next attacked the ghyll from the bottom, hoping that we should be able to discover a way where others had failed.
Starting from below we chose the easiest route up the rock face on the right hand of the ghyll. Here the climbing chiefly consisted in getting from one ledge to another, up slabs of rock. We soon, however, got into the gully itself, where we found a perpendicular wall, up which we had to climb, before reaching a ledge, which the first party of exploration had called the 'Tennis Court' on account of its large size when compared with those lower down. If it were to grow vigorously, perhaps in its manhood it might become just large enough to run about on, but when we first made its acquaintance it must have been in its early childhood. From here we traversed back into the ghyll and got underneath the great overhanging block.
We found that below the great slab which formed the roof another smaller one spanned the ghyll, forming the top of a great door to the cave behind. Under this we passed, and clambered up on to the top of it. Over our heads the great rock roof stretched some distance over the ghyll. Our only chance was to traverse straight out to the right, over the side of the ghyll, till one was no longer overshadowed by the roof above, and then, if possible, climb up the face of rock, and traverse back again above the obstacle into the ghyll once more.
This was easier to plan than to carry out; absolutely no handhold could be found, but only one little projecting ledge jutting out about a quarter of an inch and about a couple of inches long to stand on; moreover, a lip of rock overhung this little ledge, making it impossible to grip it satisfactorily with one's foot. Beyond this there were six or eight feet of the nearly perpendicular rock wall to traverse.
I was asked to try it. So, being highly pleased at being intrusted with such delicate operations, I with great deliberation stretched out my foot and tried to grip the little edge with the side nails of my boot. Just as I was going to put my whole weight on to this right foot, the nails, unable to hold on such a minute surface, gave way, and if Hastings had not instantly with a mighty pulljerked me back, I should have been swinging on the rope in mid-air. But we were determined not to be beaten. Hastings's ice-axe was next brought into requisition, and what followed I have no doubt will be severely criticised by more orthodox mountaineers than myself: as it was my suggestion I must take the blame.I hacked a step in the rock![O]It was very hard work, but that upper lip to the step had to go, and Hastings's ice-axe, being an extraordinary one, performed its work admirably, and without damage to anything else than the rock. I then was able to get a much firmer foothold, and getting across this 'bad step,' clambered up the rock till I reached a spot where a capital hitch could be got over a jutting pin of rock, and the rest of the party followed. We then climbed out of the ghyll on the left up some slabs of rock.
A few days later, Moss ghyll was again climbed by a party led by J. Collier. They did not follow our track to the left after the overhanging rock had been passed, but climbed straight up, using a crack which looks almost impossible from below, thus adding an extra piece of splendid climbing to this expedition.
That Collier did not follow our route was, I believe, entirely due to Robinson, who, being so excessively delighted with having at last conquered Moss ghyll, wrote a long account of it in the climbing book at the inn, and being in this particular instance far more capable of successfully climbing Moss ghyll than describing how it was done, produced a tale where the points of the compass got, so to speak, 'snarked.'
But to return to our climb: just as it was getting dark we emerged on to the top of Scawfell. The sun-god had plunged once more into the baths of ocean, leaving behind him the golden splendour of a perfect evening. In the far distance lay the sea, with banks of sullen mist brooding over it; nearer, like a purple curtain, stretched the low hills by the coast; whilst far away in the south, towering into the sunset glow, out of a level surface of sea mists rose the peaks of Snowdon and the two Carnedds in Wales.
Towards the east, range after range of mountain crests encompassed the horizon as far as the eye could see, from the Yorkshire moors, with their strong, massive outline crowned by Ingleboro and Whernside, to Skiddaw and the Scotch hills beyond the sands of the Solway.
Delicate pearl-grey shadows creep in amongst the wealth of interlacing mountain forms in the clear air, deepening towards the far east into the darkness of approaching night. No sound breaks the stillness, all around are piled the tumbled fragments of the hills, hoary with the memories of forgotten years. The present fades away, and is lost in the vast ocean of time; a lifetime seems a mere shadow in the presence of these changeless hills. Slowly this inscrutable pageant passes, but blacker grow the evening shadows; naught remains but the mists of the coming night, and darkness soon will fall upon this lonely mountain-land.
'A land of old, upheaven from the abyssBy fire, to sink into the abyss again;Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,And the long mountains ended in a coastOf ever-shifting sand, and far awayThe phantom circle of a moaning sea.'
'A land of old, upheaven from the abyssBy fire, to sink into the abyss again;Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,And the long mountains ended in a coastOf ever-shifting sand, and far awayThe phantom circle of a moaning sea.'
'... Restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarmOf hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone,But rush upon me thronging, and presentTimes past.'Milton.
'... Restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarmOf hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone,But rush upon me thronging, and presentTimes past.'Milton.
On winter evenings, when out of doors the fogs and dirt of London reign supreme, it is the wisest course to sit at home in one's arm-chair, warmed by the blaze of a comfortable fire, and with some favourite book for a companion, to watch the smoke curl upwards from one's pipe. But after a time the book falls on to one's knees, and all sorts and conditions of pictures float lazily through the tobacco mists. I have been told that effects are due to causes. Perhaps these undisciplined wanderings of my brain may be only the inevitable result of a good dinner; perhaps the quiet content that I feel may be caused only by a spirit of contradiction—a knowledge that the arm-chair and the desultory visions of my brain should be ruthlessly put aside, to give place to exact, well-regulated thoughts concentrated on necessary labour. Be it what it may, I will not work to-night. A nebulouspeace of mind has claimed and absorbed me which it would be impious to dispel. I shall let my memory lift the curtain behind which lies the past.
The thousand and one small duties of the present, mostly absurd trivialities, the insignificance of which is only equalled by their persistence, can be neglected for once, and shall be as dust in the balance, without weight to disturb the equipoise of my mind. Letters from people I do not know, requesting information on subjects that do not concern me—letters which, as far as I can see, merely stamp the writers as belonging to that class of human animal incapable of thinking for itself—these shall remain unanswered. Why should such shallow creatures be allowed to worry the more robust portion of the universe by their energetic yet irritating display of letter-writing? why have I to spend much ink and thought in answering them? Truly this is a weary world! Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards. Worries and bothers are for ever at one's elbow.
But here I am thus early inveighing against the petty annoyances of the present instead of enjoying those reminiscences of former years that, viewed through the mists of time, have their pleasures enhanced and their pains discounted; when I canallow my memory a free field from which it may pick the fairest flowers that have blossomed in those bygone years.
Ah! a quotation comes wandering by: when it is at home it may be found in an 'Ode to the Terrestrial Globe,' by an unhappy wretch:—