CHAPTER VIII

_THE ENNERDALE CENTRAL GULLY AND TWO LITTLE CHIMNEYS_

There is no royal road to learning, and the converse proposition is equally true. There is no learning along a royal road. Some years ago I went up the Central Gully of the Gable behind an experienced climber, when conditions were at their best. It was a royal road to me, and I came away with but a vague notion of its difficulties, without having learnt anything. It is the leader that can give the truest description of an easy climb. Where the one man can do all the work, his followers go up without a thought beyond their rope’s length. When difficulties are shared discussion is necessary, and the memory is assisted by subsequent references to faulty moves or to troubles that all were instrumental in overcoming. It is astonishing how few men can recall the details of a rock climb to the extent of recapitulating the successive pitches in, say, two hours of gully work. And yet the faculty is well worth cultivating, inasmuch as it accentuates the pleasures of retrospection and may be called into active service by the inquiries of others wishing to follow. Indeed the best introduction to guideless climbing is to ascend rock peaks that we have afore-time accomplished with guides in front of us, where we shall find our memories taxed now and again in the effort to recall the route taken previously. To lie in bed and remember every foothold on the Matterhorn may require more ascents than one; but however wicked it is for a Zermatt guide to indulge in such a pastime, the average amateur may well envy him his accomplishment.

Quite recently I had the opportunity of joining a party up the Central Gully. We had come over to Gable Crag after an hour or two on the Eagle’s Nest _arête_ and the neighbouring rocks. Our plan was to get up the chief pitches in the gully, and then, instead of bearing up to the right at the foot of the final wall, to take to the narrow vertical chimney that passes up its centre and leads to the highest point of the crags--to treat it as an old friend with a new face.

But before taking to the gully there was another little chimney to visit, that had been recently ‘invented’ by Dr. Simpson and Mr. Patchell, on their way to the Great Central. It is a singular thing that this remarkably interesting way up Gable Crag should have so long remained undiscovered. The reference in the Wastdale book is as follows: ‘A walk of a hundred feet along a grass ledge from the point where the wire fence from Beckhead touches the rocks of the Gable, followed by a hundred feet of scrambling up a wild and much broken gully, leads to a small cairn which marks the foot of a chimney on the left. This runs up in a direction parallel to the face of the cliff, and so is not clearly seen except at close quarters. It is very straight and narrow, especially in the middle pitch, and makes an interesting climb of about eighty feet.’

We worked round the scree and broken rock from the top of the Napes to Gable Crag. Then by keeping fairly low down we arrived at the end of the wire fence from Beckhead, and were in a position to profit by the description already supplied. The fence ends abruptly on the face of a crag that is somewhat separated from the main mass of Gable. Between the two a scree gully runs downwards in the direction of Brandreth, and the Doctor’s Chimney is found to spring from a point a hundred feet up from the foot of this gully. The crag interferes with the view of the chimney from the neighbourhood of Beckhead, though from the nearer slopes of Kirkfell the little climb is almost as well marked as the Oblique Chimney.

The hand-and-foot work begins on the right side of the recess, and the climber makes directly up to a little pinnacle about thirty feet above him. There is no need to back up the chimney at first. The pinnacle offers comfortable standing-room for one only, but the leader can manipulate the rope for the second until the latter is within a foot or two of the platform. Then by passing a few coils of rope round the top of the pinnacle he can make the second safe while he effects the rather awkward passage back into the crack. Both hands seize an excellent hold on the opposite wall, perfectly safe but a trifle remote for a man with a short reach, and then the foothold is quitted and the body dragged into a good jamming position. The crack is very narrow, and extensive slipping is almost an impossibility. It now becomes necessary to wriggle up inch by inch with slight hold for the extremities and too much for intermediate excrescences. A few feet higher and the chimney is at its narrowest. Here follows an uncomfortable rearrangement of the system. The handholds have hitherto been best on the left wall, and the climber has accordingly faced that way. But now the holds dwindle down to nothing on that side and others appear on the right. We may either climb out of the crack and on to the buttress, or preferably effect a half-turn of the body and so get to face the right wall. This is most safely accomplished by working outwards a bit before twisting. A small stone is half jammed in the crack and may be used for a foothold, though too insecure for any hauling purposes. The struggling now becomes a little less irregular. The ledges are excellent for the hands, and in a few feet we reach the level of the floor of a little cave roofed in by a couple of overhanging blocks. This place again is only large enough for one cave-dweller to inhabit, and the leader has his choice of procedure--either to run out another twelve feet before the second man comes up, or to wait till his follower reaches the narrowest part of the crack. To avoid the trouble of re-arranging the rope, the latter plan is better, though it involves a little risk of peppering the crack man with small stones that are only too willing to lower their present level at the roof of the cave.

The last move is moderately easy. By pulling up on to the horizontal ledge on the left buttress the loose stones are almost avoided, and then some easy steps land the leader in safety a few yards from the upper edge of the crags. When all are up, a traverse of about fifty yards to the right discloses a rough but quick route down to the scree gully and the wire fence, or the same traverse continued along the contour-line leads to the Westmorland crags and the beginning of the ordinary scree descent towards Gavel Neese.

The Doctor’s Chimney deserves to be popular. It is a perfectly safe climb, and offers excellent practice for the arms. On the whole it is probably a little easier than the Oblique Chimney, especially when descended, for it is so narrow that there is little need to seek footholds until the level of the pinnacle is reached. It has the advantage over its more famous rival of being easily hit off in misty weather; for a scree gully is then less mistakable than a rocky sheep walk, and a wire fence than a ‘bottle-shaped’ pinnacle.

Such, then, was our digression before making for the foot of the Central Gully. Another party of friends had comfortably ensconced themselves in various corners on the small crag opposite the chimney, and were interested observers of our performance. They smoked cigarettes and offered advice freely; their day’s work was done, and to watch others still hard at it was perfect luxury. When we emerged panting from the top they threw away their cigarette ends and strolled down to Wastdale for tea. It required much moral strength to refrain from joining them, but there was the Great Central still on hand, and that other little chimney to prospect. If it were as difficult as report said, then we were bound to stay and climb it. So we worked round to the end of the wire fence and looked for our gully. Its name perhaps suggests a great gap in the mountain side, visible for miles round, and as unavoidable by the wanderer on this side of Gable as the Edgware Road is said to be by the Frenchman in London. But if this be so the name is misleading. Many people fail to find the gully in bad weather. Its entrance from below is narrow and its exit above is ill defined. A short distance to the east of the Doctor’s Chimney the scree-walk up the crag, that leads past the relics of the smuggler’s inclosure, insures a safe passage to the top of the cliff. This scree gully faces Kirkfell, and but for the usually poor light on this north face of the mountain it might be easily recognized from that side. Scarcely a hundred yards away from the end of the fence the narrow opening of the Central Gully may be found; from Beckhead it appears in profile, and is not-always manifest. Walking eastwards along the scree beneath the crags, it is the first really obvious passage into the heart of the mountain after leaving the Doctor’s Chimney; the easy scree walk is not much impressed in the face, and in a mist it has often been entirely overlooked. Even in cloudy weather the first pitch of our gully can be discerned a few feet above us, and identified by the buttress that partially divides it, the chock-stone in its right branch, and the fine-looking ‘jammed-stone pinnacle’ that shows up a little higher on the left.

The first clear account of the gully appeared in the Wastdale book: ‘In the great gully are found two pitches near the bottom. The top part may be varied by crossing a grass slope and joining the easy scree route, or the climb may be continued by going straight forward. This looks very hard, but on close inspection the difficulty entirely disappears; for the climber is able to pass behind a square tower of rock, and in this way to enter on the final bit of grass and rock that brings him out at the top.’

We were a party of three, and managed comfortably with eighty feet of rope. The first pitch was easy, what with dry rocks and warm weather. Our guide started up the buttress that divides the gully, and at a convenient opportunity stepped back on to the loose stones in the bed. A few feet brought us to the second pitch, a trifle harder than the first. Again the leader worked up a buttress on the left of the gully, but this time well in the hollow. Near the top of the obstruction the left leg had to take the place of the right, a good handhold above serving to insure the safe transfer, and then a ledge could be reached by the right foot. The body was next swung over to that side, and so to the crest of the pitch.

Here the gully looked very attractive. On the left rose the jammed-stone pinnacle, an easy chimney leading up to the cleft that separates it from the mountain. Two big boulders bridge the cleft near the crest of the little passage, the higher one offering a safe way to the summit of the pinnacle. It is from here that the progress or ‘rake’ can be made out across to the foot of the Oblique Chimney and on towards Stony Gully at the east end of Gable Crag.

Just above us a third pitch barred the way. The gully was much wider here, and greater diversity of method was now possible. The guide counselled the direct attack of the short crack in front. The philosopher prudently suggested that time was an object and the crack a hard nut; we ought to take the easy corner on the left. The friend that completed our trio gave the casting vote in favour of overtime and ten hours’ work per day during holidays. The crack was certainly awkward. It was at first easiest to face towards the right and work up nine or ten feet. Then when the foothold was of the fanciest of orders it became desirable to effect a half-turn of the body so that the other side of the crack might be faced. Once the turn was accomplished, a fine hand-hold made the rest easy; we could pull up the corner and walk out at the top, some twenty-five feet above the foot of the pitch. Our friend was thinking evidently of his casting vote when he followed the guide; for at the turning-point a slip cast him on to the rope and gave him an extra turn that he scarcely appreciated. But the leader was safely ensconced above, and the poor fellow hastened up to assure himself that the rope really had been held tightly. The philosopher eschewed the cause of this momentary retrogression, and came quietly up the grass and rock corner well to the left of the gully.

We were now almost out on the face of the mountain. Very little remained of the gully as such. The ordinary walk away towards the right was perfectly plain. Mr. Robinson’s route upwards, described in the extract just quoted, was a little to the left, but not at all easy to locate, for the square tower of rock blocked the direct view of the climb. Straight up above us we saw a wall of about a hundred feet of apparently sheer rock, down the centre of which passed the crack or chimney that we were to take for our finish.

Loose earthy steps led to the foot of the wall, and for a moment we thought with some apprehension that the first part was going to be seriously troublesome. At a height of twenty-five feet or so some narrow splintered boulders completely filled up the crack and overhung considerably. Just below them the climbing was obviously awkward, by reason of the footholds that were not there, if the ancient Hibernianism may be tolerated, and the necessary leverage on the boulders when we were using them for all they were worth would imperil their stability and our own. But after mounting the first twelve feet with, perhaps, more case than we had anticipated, a narrow ledge showed up on the right wall for about ten feet, and we noticed with relief that at its further extremity another traverse led back to the crack in a slanting direction to a point just above the critical spot. This diversion we promptly accepted, and found it altogether satisfactory. The lower ledge was just wide enough for the feet, and handholds just good enough for the balance of the body during the transfer. At the further end it was easy scrambling to the upper ledge, which showed itself as a broad and safe path to a little niche where the crack was somewhat enlarged. The floor of the niche was formed of loose stones supported on the larger jammed blocks that had affrighted us below, and was sufficiently commodious for all the party to place themselves securely thereon. Probably the next part of the climb was the hardest. That, at any rate, was the opinion of those who had recommended the route to us, and after their kindly advice we were gratefully prepared to accept anything from them in the way of opinion. The chimney was vertical and its two walls almost holdless.

Direct progress seemed barred by three thick plates of rock wedged into the crack and projecting outwards some three or four feet. Over these we had to make our way, and if their edges proved to be unsatisfactory for the fingers to grip or the arms to clasp, then we should have to return with the ignominy of defeat. On the one hand appearances were against us; the pitch looked impossible. But on the other we knew it had been climbed once or twice before, and assuredly under no better conditions than were vouchsafed to ourselves. Far away down at the foot of the gully we noticed a couple of men who had been walking Wastdale-wards after a hard day, but were gazing up at us in some curiosity to know how we were going to tackle our problem. It would never do to go back now.

And thus, after sacrificing such time and small reflections to the reputed difficulty of the place as its admirers would have claimed of us, we turned our gaze upwards and climbed the pitch. It went off pleasantly enough. An easy clamber led to a second platform immediately below the jammed plates. A foot or two higher, and a ledge on the left could be used for the one hand, the edge of the lowest overhanging block with the other, while the left leg was swung up on to a shelf. The attitude was awkward just for the moment, but with both arms clasping the plate of rock, which was perfectly trustworthy, there could be no thought of falling for the leader, who had only to thrust himself forward into an upper recess and wriggle into safety.

Here he discovered another level platform, neatly turfed and obviously constructed as a climber’s resting place. It would have been easy to stay there and negotiate the rope for the other men below, but the next pitch was only ten feet higher up, and led to a still better corner. Therefore he went on by straightforward hand-and-foot work, and climbed the pitch by its left-hand branch. The chimney is here about eight feet wide, divided into two by a long and narrow boulder.

The right-hand branch is just possible, but the sense of insecurity at one spot almost demands help from below. On the left a deep recess is floored with splintered blocks that threaten to break away but cannot easily manage it. The boulder offered enough assistance in the way of holds, especially a sharp edge at the top, and when overcome showed itself to be the last genuine obstacle in our course. We were soon all gathered together at the little notch that marks the top of the chimney, and after adding a stone to the cairn that stands there, we marched up some thirty feet of solid buttress and broke at a plunge through the thick cornice of old snow that yet remained as a token of the hard winter that had come and gone.

The easy finish to the right of the last vertical wall passes up scree from the top of the third pitch, and takes us on to a ridge of rock above the Smuggler’s Retreat. Here it joins the Scree Gully, and we have a small piece of hand-and-foot work before it narrows, then curves away to the left, and finally ends on a ledge of broken rock close to the highest point.