Part 7

Miss Koecher (March 31, 1890) was apparently the first lady to ascend.

It was first climbed from the west; the way on the opposite side is perhaps less severe, but longer and more varied.

The rock is frequently photographed, and an illustrated article on it appeared in the _Pall Mall Budget_ of June 5, 1890.

=Needle Ridge= is that ridge of the _Napes_ on _Great Gable_ which is immediately behind the _Napes Needle_. It was discovered in 1884 by the writer and Mr. Robinson, and ascended by them in a somewhat desultory fashion; that is to say, they cut in from the east side nearly at the top of the difficult face which forms its lower extremity, and also avoided the topmost piece by passing over on to the easy terrace on the west side of the ridge. The _arête_ was climbed in a strict and conscientious manner for the first time by the writer in 1886. This was a descent, and apparently the first strict ascent was made by Messrs. Slingsby, Hastings Hopkinson, and a brother of the writer.

=North Climb.=--The first to describe this climb on Scafell was Mr. Seatree, who says:

'From the ridge we traversed a ledge of grass-covered rock [the Rake's Progress] to the right, until we reached a detached boulder, stepping upon which we were enabled to get hand-hold of a crevice 6 or 7 ft. from where we stood. To draw ourselves up so as to get our feet upon this was the difficulty; there is only one small foot-hold in that distance, and to have slipped here would have precipitated the climber many feet below. Having succeeded in gaining this foot-hold, we found ourselves in a small rectangular recess, with barely room to turn round. From here it was necessary to draw ourselves carefully over two other ledges into a small rift in the rocks, and then traverse on our hands and knees another narrow ledge of about 8 ft. to the left, which brought us nearly in a line with Mickledoor Ridge. From here all was comparatively smooth sailing.'

This climb had been made many years before (1869) by Major Ponsonby Cundill, R.E., who left his stick in the deep crack behind the ledge which Mr. Seatree traversed on his hands and knees. The stick was found in 1884 by Mr. Chas. Cookson. This ledge, by the way, should certainly be walked or at least sidled in an upright attitude, otherwise ungainly gambollings are necessary when the time comes for stepping off at the other end. The descent of the _North Climb_ is decidedly difficult, unless the ascent has been made just previously, and the climb whether up or down is an excellent test of style.

A couple of yards to the left there is an alternative to the 'rectangular recess,' and it is known as the 'Rift.' It is to be done by a wild struggle. It was at one time the wetter and harder of the two ways, but the conditions are now reversed.

=Old Wall.=--On the east side of the Pillar Rock a natural line of rock runs down to the head of _Walker's Gully_, having, however, a narrow passage by means of which sheep may reach the Low Man. A hundred years ago or more, the shepherds built a wall of loose stones to stop the sheep, and though little of the wall remains, the name clings to the spot. At one time the _North-east Route_ was usually spoken of as the _Old Wall Way_.

=Patriarch.=--By this name the Rev. James Jackson, of Sandwith in Cumberland, was very widely known. It is an abbreviation of one which he himself invented and assumed--'Patriarch of the Pillarites.' Some considerable mention of him is made by Mr. Williamson, but his readers will be glad to have further particulars, for this was a man of no ordinary stamp. Born at Millom just before the series of naval victories which closed the eighteenth century, he passed his boyhood in the thick of the Buonaparte struggle and shared in it personally when a mere lad. However, he soon changed the colour of his coat and entered the Church; but long before his connection with the Pillar he had ceased to take any active part in his profession. Thenceforward he lived at his ease, amusing himself by rambles and scrambles far and near among the fells. 'I have knocked about,' he said himself, 'among the mountains ever since, till I may almost say "I knaw iv'ry craag."' That he was somewhat of an egotist cannot be denied. In his letters as in his poems his own feats form the burden of his song. To this point all topics converged with the same certainty that all roads are said to lead to Rome. He was never tired of relating how, for instance, in his sixty-ninth year he had one day walked 46 miles in 14-1/2 hours, on the third day following 56 miles in 18 hours, and after a similar interval 60 miles in less than 20 hours, thus accomplishing within one week three walks, any one of which might well knock up many a man of half his age; how, on another occasion, he had found two brethren of his own cloth struggling feebly to surmount the difficulties of Rossett Gill; how, taking pity upon their tender years, he had transferred their knapsacks to his own venerable shoulders and, striding on before, encouraged them to complete their weary task. A man aged between sixty and seventy might fairly plume himself on such an exploit. He also rejoiced greatly in the fact that he had been the first student of St. Bees College--a distinction of which, as he justly said, no one could ever deprive him. But the feat on which he especially prided himself was one of bodily activity. During the third part of a century he held the living of Rivington, near Bolton-le-Moors. It chanced that the weathercock of his church had become loose, and the masons rather shrank from the risk of going up to secure it. Here was an opportunity which our friend could not forego; and Rivington witnessed the unwonted spectacle of a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England solemnly swarming up his own steeple and making fast the vane 'under circumstances of terror which made the workmen recoil from the task, and the gazing rustics turn sick with horror at the sight!' While walking proudly back to his parsonage he composed a commemorative epigram which will bear quotation:

Who has not heard of Steeple Jack, That lion-hearted Saxon? Though I'm not he, he was my sire, For I am 'Steeple Jackson'!

Indeed, his fancy was as lively as his limbs were supple. He was ever on the watch for some analogy or antithesis; ever producing some new alliteration or epigram expressive of such contrasts as that between his age and his activity. His favourite description of himself was 'senex juvenilis'--an idea which he frequently put into English, e.g.:

If this in your mind you will fix When I make the Pillar my toy, I was born in 1, 7, 9, 6, And you'll think me a nimble old boy.

On the late Mr. Maitland, a well-known climber, as only second to himself in age and ardour, he bestowed the title 'Maitland of Many Mounts' and 'Patriarch Presumptive of the Pillarites.' There is nothing strange in his thus designating a successor and bestowing titles of honour; for these are matter of royal privilege, and he looked upon himself as the Mountain Monarch and always expected climbers to attend his mimic court and pay him homage. But he had many a high-flown alias besides. When Mr. Pendlebury came under his notice he contrasted himself with the Senior Wrangler, rather neatly, as the 'Senior Scrambler'; after his ascent of the Pillar he dubbed himself 'St. Jacobus Stylites'; and many other titles are introduced into the occasional poems on which he expended much of his ingenuity.

His bodily powers were not allowed to rust away. 'My adopted motto,' he said, 'is "Stare nescio,"' and some idea of his boundless love of enterprise may be formed from one of his letters: 'I have been twelve months afloat on the wide, wide sea. I have been beneath the falls of Niagara. I have sung "God save the King" in the hall of St. Peter's; I have ascended Vesuvius in the eruption of 1828; I have capped Snowdon in Wales and Slieve Donard in Ireland, and nearly all the hills in this district.... It only remains for me to mount the Pillar Rock!' Before the end of the following May this hope was gratified, and a proud moment it was for this veteran climber when, seated serenely on the summit, he was able to record in a Greek inscription (written, as he carefully notes, 'without specs') his ascent of the famous rock. Think of the life, the energy, the determination that must have been in him! Years seemed to be powerless to check the current of his blood. Where are we to look for another of his age--he was now in his eightieth year--showing any approach to the same combination of enterprise, pluck and bodily vigour? It cannot be wondered at that his success filled him with the keenest delight. He wrote off at once in high glee to his friends and felt quite injured if, in their reply or their delay in replying, he detected any sign of indifference to his exploit. But true to his motto 'Stare nescio,' he was not content with this. Within a month we find him expressing a fear that his title 'Patriarch of the Pillarites' might not be acknowledged by 'the Western division of the Order,' and announcing his intention of climbing the Pillar from the west also in order to secure his claim. He playfully proposes, moreover, that while he, 'the aged errant knight,' with his faithful squire toiled up from the west, a certain fair Pillarite should arrive at the summit from the east and crown his success on the spot by the bestowal on him of her hand and heart. According to all approved precedent the 'aged errant knight' ought to have bound his lady's favour around his clerical hat and ranged the mountains extorting from the passing tourist at the point of his alpenstock a confession of her peerless beauty; or for her sake betaken himself to the Rock and there passed nights of vigil and days of toil assisting distressed damsels in the terrible passage of the 'Slab.' Whatever he did, he made no attempt on the west route. Perhaps despair of the reward had cooled his zeal--zeal conditional like that of the Hindoo teacher who, when asked whether he professed the creed which he was anxious to teach, naïvely replied, 'I am not a Christian; but I expect to be one shortly--if sufficient inducement offers.'

There is a sad and sharp contrast in turning from his high spirits and playful fancy to his sudden death. It has been described elsewhere. Though fourscore and two was (as he himself expressed it on the very day of his death) the 'howdah' on his back, it cannot be said that the ever-growing howdah had crushed its bearer. His vigour was unimpaired. Like Walter Ewbank,

To the very last, He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale.

Indeed, the same thing might have happened to a boy. It was an accident; but it might be rash to say that it was a misfortune, or that he would himself have regarded any other death as preferable. His life had already been longer and more varied than falls to ordinary men; but the change could not long have been delayed. A few months would have seen his faculties failing and his powers decayed. To a man of his habits and temperament inaction would have been the most terrible affliction, and though he might have dragged on for years, his strength would truly have been labour and sorrow.

Two years before he had stood close to this very spot. 'Almost all the mountains,' he said, 'which I had known in youth, in manhood, and in old age were visible, and seemed to give me a kindly greeting "for auld lang syne." In the fervour of admiration I might have chanted, "Nunc dimittis, Domine, servum tuum in pace."' We may well believe that, had the old man foreseen his fate, he would have gladly welcomed it, and have found for it no fitter place among all his beloved mountains than this quiet cove almost within the shadow of the majestic rock.

=Patterdale= is a place where a climber may spend a week or two with much enjoyment, though the quality of the rocks is by no means first-rate. It is the best centre for _Helvellyn_, _Fairfield_, and _St. Sunday Crag_, and convenient for _Swarthbeck_ and the whole _High Street_ range. On _Place Fell_, fine as it looks, there is not much worth climbing. _Deepdale_ and _Dovedale_ are both worth exploring.

=Pavey Ark=, one of the Langdale Pikes, is easily reached in three-quarters of an hour from Dungeon Gill. On it will be found some splendid climbing, including the _Big Gully_, the _Little Gully_, _Jack's Rake_ (q.v.), and many minor points of interest. The two chief gullies stand on either side of a buttress of rock, the top of which forms a tooth on the sky line. The _Little Gully_ is on the south side of it, and is V-shaped, giving a very straightforward but pleasant climb. But the _Great Gully_ has two considerable difficulties, one low down and the other near the top. The lower is caused by a huge block covering a considerable cavern. The way is either right through the cavern and out again through a narrow hole, or up a high grassy bank on the right hand. In either case a narrow place is reached, walled in between the big block and a smaller one on the right hand. Here the difficulty is that the walls nearly meet towards the top, so that it is necessary, in order to get room for the head, to go rather 'outside.' However, a second man with a rope can hold the leader very securely, and a piece of rock having come away, the headroom is much more commodious than it used to be. Just below the level of _Jack's Rake_ there are some very 'brant and slape' inclines of wet or muddy rock, which most people consider the worst part of the climb. There is very little hold, and what there is was on the occasion of the first ascent lubricated by a film of fine mud. On reaching _Jack's Rake_ several variations may be made, and straight ahead there is a very neat little chimney. These upper rocks are of splendid gripping quality; rough as a cow's tongue, it would be quite difficult to make a slip on them. The Big Gully was climbed by the writer in the summer of 1882, and the small one in June 1886. In March 1887 Mr. Slingsby made a note about the former in the Wastdale Head book. He says that it took his party two hours and forty minutes, but his estimate of the height of the gully at 1,300 ft. is more than double of the truth, and must be due to a slip of the pen.

In the book at Millbeck there is a note by the same distinguished climber, dated May 30, 1887, in which he records an ascent of this gully made by Miss Mabel Hastings, and gives the height of it as 600 or 650 ft.

=Penyghent.=--The sixth in height of the Yorkshire hills, but long supposed, on account of its finer shape, to be the highest of them all. As late as 1770 it was reckoned at 3,930 ft. It can be ascended from Horton station in little over an hour. Celtic scholars revel in the name; they practically agree that it means 'head of something,' but cannot accept each other's views as to what that something is. When Defoe was in this neighbourhood he saw 'nothing but high mountains, which had a terrible aspect, and more frightful than any in Monmouthshire or Derbyshire, especially _Pengent Hill_.'

=Piers Gill=, in Wastdale, on the north front of _Lingmell_, has a vast literature of its own. As a rock ravine, not in limestone, it is only second to _Deep Gill_ on _Scafell_ and the great gully in the Wastwater _Screes_, both of which are far less easy of access than this, which can be reached from Wastdale Head in half an hour. The difficulties depend entirely on the quantity of water. One, the 'cave pitch,' may be passed at the cost of a wetting almost at any time; but above it is another, known as the 'Bridge Fall,' from a vast column of fallen rock which spans the stream a few yards above it, which is at all times difficult, and in nineteen seasons out of twenty wholly impossible.

Until the unprecedented drought of 1893 it had never been climbed. Even then a less brilliant climber than Dr. Collier would scarcely have succeeded. His ascent was made on April 29, 1893, and his companions were Messrs. Winser, W. Jones, and Fairbairn. The big pitch was found to be 40 or 50 ft. high, the lowest part of it apparently overhanging. The first few feet were climbed about three feet to the right of the falling water, after which the leader was able to reach the other side of the gill by stretching his left foot across it just outside the water. By this means this great and hitherto insuperable difficulty was overcome. Unless we are entering on a cycle of dry seasons, the exploit is one which will not be repeated for some time.

Various accidents and minor mishaps have taken place in Piers Gill. One is described by Mr. Payn, and the injured man was, I believe, a shepherd called Tom Hale. Mr. W.O. Burrows had a bad fall above the bridge, and people descending from the _Pikes_ are often pounded about the same spot. Some years ago a tourist had to pass the night in the gill without food, but protested that he was 'quite consoled by the beautiful scenery.' The discovery of the route up the east side of the _Pillar Rock_ was within an ace of being delayed for years, owing to the band of bold explorers who were to work it out becoming entangled in _Piers Gill_ while on their way to _Wastdale Head_.

The name is spelt 'Pease' by Mr. Payn and by most of the early authorities, and judging by the analogy of other places in the North of England this would appear to be more correct.

=Pike o' Stickle=, also known as _Steel Pike_ and sometimes as the _Sugarloaf_, drops into Langdale from the north in one continuous slope, which for length and steepness has not many rivals in England. The top piece of the hill is curiously symmetrical, and resembles a haycock or a thimble. It is not easy to find satisfactory climbs on it. Mr. Gwynne says of it: 'A very fine peak, that, viewed from the valley, has very much the appearance of the Mönch. It runs down towards the _Stake_ Pass in a spur, which must be the starting-point of most of the climbs on this mountain. There is a curious gully here, too, which is worthy of the climber's attention. It does not run from top to bottom, but suddenly begins about the middle of the crag. The difficulty is to get at this gully, and some pretty climbing can be obtained in the attempt.'

=Pillar Rock.=--There are but three directions from which the _Pillar_ is commonly approached--namely, Ennerdale (Gillerthwaite), Buttermere, and Wastdale Head. In each case the guide-books (except Baddeley's) exhibit a suspicious shyness of specifying any time for the walk. Wherever the present writer gives times, they must be understood to be the quickest of which he happens to have made any note; for the best test of times is a 'reductio ad minima.' A journey may be indefinitely prolonged, but it cannot be shortened beyond a certain limit; thus, _Scafell Pike_ cannot be reached from Wastdale Head in much less than 60 minutes of hard going, while the walk up the Pillar Fell cannot be cut down much below 75 minutes. This supplies us with a trustworthy comparison, although for a hot day that pace is not to be recommended; in each case double the time is not more than a fair allowance. Never let yourself be hurried at starting, come home as hard as ever you like; it is the chamois-hunter's system, and by far the best. Baddeley seems to reverse the principle, for he allows 2 to 2-1/2 hours for the ascent via Black Sail, and says that it is shorter by Wind Gap; yet for the _descent_ from Wind Gap (which is, say, 20 minutes short of the summit) he gives as a fair allowance 2 to 3 hours. Perhaps he preferred conforming to what is apparently the approved fox-hunting style:

Harkaway! See, she's off! O'er hill and through whol We spank till we're gaily nar done, Than, hingan a lip like a motherless fwol, _Sledder heàmmward, but nit in a run_.

_From Ennerdale_: From Gillerthwaite, a farmhouse nearly a mile and a half above the lake, the Pillar is not far distant; but the direct way is exceedingly rough, and it will be found best to make use of the path up _Wingate Cove_, skirting round the mountain, when by that means a considerable height has been gained. The way is so rough that many people think it an economy of labour to go right on up the gap, and then left over the summit of the mountain.

One of the best ways of approaching the Pillar is to sleep at the little inn at the foot of the lake and row up from there to the water head. For walking the whole way from the inn to the fell-top Baddeley allows 3 to 3-1/2 hours.

_From Buttermere_: After crossing _Scarf Gap_ some keep to the track as far as the summit of the Black Sail Pass, and then turn to the right up the ridge of the Pillar Fell, while others adopt the more laborious plan of working upwards after descending the valley until nearly opposite the Rock, which in this way is certainly seen to much greater advantage. If the return be made by way of the mountain ridge, some little time may be saved by descending into Ennerdale down _Green Cove_, nearly half a mile short of Black Sail and 250 ft. higher; for Black Sail, being much nearer the head of the valley than either Scarf Gap or the Pillar, can only be used for going from one to the other at the expense of making a considerable _détour_. For the ascent, however, Green Cove is not so decidedly recommended, as many will prefer to make the round by the regular pass for the sake of the more gradual rise.

_From Wastdale_: The vast majority of visitors come from this direction, and almost all follow the same track, plodding up from Mosedale to the top of _Black Sail_ and then turning left along the ridge of the mountain. Mosedale, by the way, must not be confused with any of the numerous other valleys of the same name: it sometimes appears in the form 'Moresdale' or 'Mossdale' (Moos-thal, near Laibach in Austria, is exactly parallel), and generally indicates scenery of a dreary character; for such valleys are often, as in this case, the half-drained beds of ancient lakes, by the loss of which the scenery has seriously suffered.

Ladies who ascend by Black Sail will find it best to keep to the path as long as possible, i.e. as far as the top of the pass, but others may save something by breasting the hill on the left soon after reaching _Gatherstone Head_, apparently a glacier mound, which rises just beyond where the track crosses the stream (Gatherstone Beck) which comes down from the pass.