CHAPTER V

_SCAWFELL PINNACLE_

ORDINARY ROUTE.--This magnificent pinnacle offers the finest bit of rock scenery in the Scawfell _massif_. It rises up some 600 feet from the foot of Lord’s Rake in steep and almost unclimbable slabs of smooth rock, forming the left-hand boundary of Deep Ghyll and the right of Steep Ghyll. The latter, and the Professor’s Chimney springing up out of Deep Ghyll, cut it away to some extent from the main mountain mass, from which it is separated by a narrow _col_ or gap familiarly known as the ‘Jordan.’ Unfortunately this gap is too high, and the top of the pinnacle is reached therefrom by a couple of minutes’ scrambling. If only the gap were impossible to reach from above, the climb of Scawfell Pinnacle would necessarily involve some splendid work, and it could almost claim the suggested name of the Little Dru of the Lake District.

From a higher point of view Mr. Williamson’s comparison is very apt. ‘The most conspicuous object at the upper part of Deep Ghyll is a pinnacle rock with some slight resemblance, from certain points of view, to the celebrated Pieter Botte, in Mauritius, except that the stone on the top is much smaller than the knob which forms the summit of the Mauritius mountain. The Deep Ghyll Pinnacle is perhaps best named the Scawfell Pillar, for on examination it will be found to have several features in common with the Ennerdale Pillar. Both have a Pisgah rock and a Jordan gap, both have a High and a Low Man, and both have a slanting slab in similar positions. So inaccessible does the Scawfell Pillar appear, that it is probable no one ever thought of making an attempt upon it till Mr. W. P. Haskett Smith, whose climbs on the Ennerdale Pillar were referred to in a previous article, looking at the rock with the eye of a genius for climbing, thought he could see a way to the top. He made the attempt alone in September of this year [1884] and successfully reached the top, being the first man to set foot on the summit of this ‘forbidden peak.’

But the gap can be reached easily from the summit of Scawfell. If we walk over to the top of Deep Ghyll we may look across to the pinnacle on the right and notice the black out made by the Professor’s Chimney that separates it from us. The knob of rock to the right of the Jordan gap is appropriately called ‘Pisgah’; it is almost exactly of the same height as the cairn on the pinnacle, and is barely thirty feet away from it. By rounding Pisgah to the right, and carefully skirting the head of Moss Ghyll, we reach the Jordan, and find ourselves on a narrow ridge with extremely steep plunges on either side. The short climb that faces us begins in an awkward way, for we have to get up a few feet of overhanging rock before the slope eases off, and a slip backwards of an unroped man would inevitably result in a fall down the Professor’s Chimney or down Steep Ghyll. The firmest rope anchorage for the leader is at the top of Pisgah, but with more to follow him the usual plan is to descend to the gap and loop the rope over a large boulder that lies on the crest of the _col_. He need not worry about the danger of the pitch if the rocks are in good condition. When Mr. Haskett Smith first found this way up on September 3rd, 1884, a few days before he reached the top by way of Steep Ghyll, large quantities of moss had to be removed, and the finger-holds cleared of earth before they could be estimated and safely utilized. Not a particle of moss remains here now; nay, more, a decade of gymnasts have removed much rock by dint of scraping with their nailed boots, and have made obvious the safest route to the summit.

It starts a yard or two to the right of the gap, where a sloping foothold in the overhanging wall shows traces of considerable wear and tear. The hands can find a sufficient bearing pressure near the edge of rock above, but it is unwise to place them too high up on the sloping slab. Then, straightening out on the foothold for a moment, the left hand can find a thin crack good enough for a hold while the body is being levered up over the awkward edge. Then the crack can be followed up the slab to the left till it ends near a little chimney, up which a scramble of six feet brings the climber within touch of the cairn. Formerly a small tin box held many visiting cards, and an ancient pocketbook with the names of the early climbers of the pinnacle. It was almost a breach of etiquette to pay a call here without leaving a card, but the polite old days are past, and men come and go now without this ceremony. A year ago I hunted in vain for the box and fancied that some curiosity-monger had feloniously appropriated it, but since then I believe it has again been seen there. It may easily slip down between the loose stones.

This little climb is dangerous in icy weather, and should not then be undertaken. For there is no particular fun in it when the rocks are glazed, when bare fingers are necessary for the diminished holds, and the slow going inevitably involving benumbed hands.

The long routes up are impossible except when conditions are favourable.

The first long way up the pinnacle was climbed on September 20th, 1884, by Messrs. Haskett Smith and John Robinson. They made the ascent of Steep Ghyll, and then, emerging on the right, climbed up a steep _arête_ to the pinnacle, where they left their names in a glass bottle. Descending again to the upper portion of Steep Ghyll, they passed over to the Jordan and so on to the mountain. With but slight variations, these were the only ways known until 1888. In July of that year a party led by Mr. W. Cecil Slingsby succeeded in climbing out from the lower part of Steep Ghyll on to the north-east face of the pinnacle. By a long and difficult chimney in this wall they reached the Low Man, as the nearly horizontal crest of the first huge buttress is called. Thence a sharp ridge took them direct to the final rocks, which were sufficiently broken to make the finish easy. This route at once commended itself to the better climbers at Wastdale as being safe and sound. The rocks throughout are excellent, and indeed enthusiasts like to compare the finish with the famous ridge of the Rothhorn from Zinal. The chief objection to be urged against the climb is the exposure to wind and cold. I remember once starting up with Mr. Robinson one wet day in August. He led as far as the foot of the difficult Slingsby Chimney, and then resolutely refused to budge an inch further because of the wind, which he asseverated would blow us away to Hollow Stones. I am inclined to believe him now, but at the time we wrangled all the way down to the Lord’s Rake, where some damp but enterprising tourist, pointing up to the vertical crags down which we had been dodging our way, inquired in a feeble tenor voice: ‘Is there a road up there?’

It was not until December 31, 1893, that I made my first complete ascent by this route, accompanied by M. and C., the latter leading all the way up. We crossed the foot of Lord’s Rake, and made for the slight suggestion of a gully that serves to mark the beginning of the ordinary Steep Ghyll Climb. It was quite easy to follow, and rapidly deepened as we rose. In a hundred feet we were in view of the enormous cleft of the ghyll, with its black and glistening walls apparently almost meeting each other a hundred feet over our heads. None of us were attracted by that climb, which is never quite free from hazard, and we looked about for the spot where our route diverged to the right. Here the side of the ghyll was very steep for thirty or forty feet up, but was cut about by ledges and clefts quite good enough for us to mount the wall safely. Then we bore up a little towards the left, so as to approach the smooth outer face of the Low Man. Advance was only possible in one direction, our course taking us out on a nose or pinnacle of rock separated from the main mass by a deep fissure.

The position was very exposed. It could only be approached from one direction, that of Steep Ghyll. A glance down the fissure beneath us revealed the lower half of the tremendous wall to which we were clinging, and though we had plenty of room to sit down and rest ourselves, there was a sense of coming peril in the next move. The illustration facing page 73, taken off the wall from the Lord’s Rake ridge, shows the pinnacle and the fissure that partially separates it from the face. Standing on the highest available point, C. had next to draw himself up on to the little shelf by means of the smallest of holds and the use of his knees. We were able to guard against his slipping back, and were glad to see him clamber up easily to the beginning of the Slingsby Chimney. This begins very awkwardly; it would be proof of unusual agility and nerve for the leader here to manage the first six feet without assistance from below. But an unaided ascent is not impossible, and careful examination will generally cause the climber to discount much of the terror that he is pretty sure to have invested in the spot after reading the early literature of the subject. We hoisted C. up on our shoulders; without hesitation he crept well into the crack vertically above our heads, and wriggled his way out of sight. When we had paid out forty feet of rope, he shouted out to M. to advance, and I was left to speculate on a possible variation of the ascent by the left of the chimney. In due course M. was firmly fixed, and my turn came. The steepness of the first fifteen feet was rather appalling, but it was so simple a matter to wedge firmly into the chimney that there was no sense of insecurity. After the vertical bit, the chimney sloped back at an easier angle, and though some distance had to be climbed before a man might be of much help to those behind he would be perfectly capable of looking after himself. When we reached this level the aspect of the remaining rocks was very much less threatening. It was still a matter of hand-and-foot work, but we could all forge ahead together instead of moving one at a time. The slope eased off again when we reached the Low Man, and by preference we kept to the ridge on the right as much as we could. This was for the sensational view down into Deep Ghyll, though that day we saw little but the rolling mist above and below us. The rock was firm and rough to the touch, and we could well appreciate the comparison with the best parts of the Zinal Rothhorn. Leslie Stephen’s frontispiece in the ‘Playground of Europe’ might have been drawn on our ridge. There was a sense of perfect security out there as we sat astride the sharp ridge or clasped the huge blocks with a fraternal embrace. My only regret was that the _arête_ was all too short--we arrived at the pinnacle much too soon. I proposed to descend to the Jordan and down by the Professor’s Chimney, but my companions pointed out that the latter would be damp and rickety, and such a change from our recent sport that we could get little fun out of it. I reluctantly yielded to the vote of the majority and went off to a halting-place in the hollow at the head of the Moss Ghyll variation exit.

SCAWFELL PINNACLE, DEEP GHYLL ROUTE.--In October, 1887, a strong party led by the brothers Hopkinson found a way down the outside face of the Scawfell Pinnacle, to a point on the ridge within a hundred feet of the first pitch in Deep Ghyll. There they built what is now known as the Hopkinsons’ cairn. In April, 1893, Messrs. C. Hopkinson and Tribe worked up the left wall of the ghyll from the second pitch, and reached the main north _arête_ about sixty feet above the cairn. They were apparently unable to force a way directly up the ridge, and managed instead to descend it for a few yards and then to climb up the face of the Low Man by the 1887 route on the east side of the _arête_.

They thus succeeded in reaching the summit of the pinnacle from Deep Ghyll, and an examination of the illustration facing page 83 of the great wall that they climbed will prove that the performance was an unusually brilliant one. (The photograph shows the north ridge twenty feet to the left of the leader, who is about forty feet above the second man.)

Very little was generally known of that day’s work, the note in the Wastdale climbing book being of the briefest description; and it cannot be counted unto me for originality that in a climb made in 1896 that was intended as a repetition of the above our party left the older route at a point eighty feet up the Deep Ghyll wall, and reached the Low Man by a new line of advance.

We were a party of three. Messrs. George and Ashley Abraham were very keen on trying the new route, and equally anxious to get some good photographs of the great wall. We climbed up the first pitch in Deep Ghyll by the crack on the left, and took the second in the ordinary way. Just where the traverse commences fifteen feet above the top of the central obstacle, a crack starts up the left wall, with a prominent jammed block guarding its entrance. Traversing over a leaf of rock on to the jammed stone, I was steadied for the first twenty feet of ascent by the rope, and could not have come to much harm in the event of a slip. But there was scanty room for a second, and I was compelled to rise with an ever lengthening rope below me. The crack was followed closely, though it soon became so thin and so erect that there was nothing to do but keep on the face of the mountain just to its left, every now and then gripping its sharp edge for handhold. It seemed to be a virgin climb, though this part had really been visited two or three times before. Stones had to be flung down, and grit scraped from the tiny ledges. But on the whole that first sixty feet was not very difficult, though markedly sensational, and I went on slowly to a little niche in the wall.

The eighty-feet length of rope just reached to the crack from which the start was made, and getting George to tie himself on at the lower extremity, I mounted to a higher and larger niche while he cautiously climbed up the crack. The situation was very novel. Some may remember the _firma loca_ in Mr. Sanger Davies’ account of the Croda da Lago. This grass-floored hermitage of mine was truly a _firma loca_, and sitting down comfortably in it I took out a biscuit from my pocket and tried to realize all the view.

It was every bit as appalling as a Dolomite climb. Direct progress upwards seemed quite impossible; a feasible traverse over some badly-sloping moss-covered ledges to the right led to the sky-line at a spot where the _arête_ made a vertical spring upwards for forty feet. A descent would have been seriously difficult, but it was the one thing we did not want. I could hear another climbing party finishing an ascent of the pinnacle by the ordinary route, their voices echoing down the ghyll and cheering me with a sense of neighbourliness. My companions were holding an animated discussion below on the subject of photography. The light was excellent, and our positions most artistic. The cameras were left in the cave at the foot of the ghyll. Ashley was afraid I meant to go up without him; but his professional instinct got the better of his desire to climb, and, shouting out to us to stay where we were for five minutes, he ran round to the high-level traverse on the other side of the ghyll, and down the Lord’s Rake to the cavern.

George had the tripod screw and could not hand it to his brother; so, asking me to hold him firmly with the rope, he practised throwing stones across the gully to the traverse. Then, tying the screw to a stone, he managed to project this over successfully. We composed our limbs to a photographic quiescence. Ashley had a splendid wide-angle lens, which, from his elevated position on the traverse opposite, could take in 400 feet of the cliff, showing the entire route to the summit. It was his turn to take the lead. ‘Mr. Jones! I can’t see you, your clothes are so dark.’ I apologized. ‘Will you step out a foot or two from that hole?’ I was in a cheerful mood and ready to oblige a friend, but the platform was scarcely two feet square, and to acquiesce was to step out a few hundred feet into Deep Ghyll. For this I had not made adequate preparation and told him so. ‘Well, will you take off your coat?’ That I could do with pleasure, and for a while his instructions were levelled at George.

He was in an awkward place and was much cramped in ensuring safety, but Ashley was dissatisfied and insisted on his lifting the left leg. This gave him no foothold to speak of, but in the cause of photography he had been trained to manage without such ordinary aids. He grumbled a little at the inconvenience but obeyed, resolving that if he were living when the next slide was to be exposed he himself would be the manipulator and his brother the centre of the picture. The ghyll had become rather gloomy and we had a lengthy exposure. I was glad to slip on my jacket again and draw in the rope for George’s ascent. When he reached the smaller platform just below me, we tried the traverse over the slabs to the north ridge, and found that it went well enough. We were delighted to find traces of the previous party on the rocks at the corner. They were made by the Hopkinsons three years before (April 2, 1893) in their attempt to mount by the ridge. Their cairn was fifty feet further down, and we now had the satisfaction of seeing for ourselves how to connect the Hopkinson cairn directly with Deep Ghyll.

Then came the question of getting our third man up. We tried to throw the rope-end to him, but it persisted in clinging to the face vertically below us and would not be caught. I had to return to the _firma loca_ and throw the rope from there. Ashley now reached it safely, tied himself on, and hastened up to our level, having left his camera on the traverse below. In this way we found ourselves together again, on the corner of the _arête_. The others fixed themselves to a little belaying-pin while I attempted to swarm up the vertical corner. A couple of feet above their heads I found that the only available holds were sloping the wrong way. They could be easily reached, but were unsafe for hauling, and after clinging for some minutes without advancing an inch I was compelled to descend and reconsider the problem. I thought of Andrea del Sarto:

Ah! but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp Or what’s a Heaven for?

and wondered whether Browning meant this to apply to the crests of climbing-pitches as well as to other objects in life.

At the time we did not know the exact history of the early attempts on the _arête_. As far as we could judge our corner might be inaccessible except with the help of a rope fixed above us. Certainly the scoring of bootnails on the face was scanty. The earlier party three years before might have planned to avoid the bad bit. With doubts like these, I craved permission to look up a chimney on the Deep Ghyll side of the ridge. The other party of climbers had now reached the top of the ghyll, and were watching our manœuvres with interest. Seeing my hesitation they called out to inquire whether we should like a rope from the Low Man. We were grateful for the suggestion, but there was no peril our position, and we asked them to wait for awhile at the top of the gully, and see the issue of our next attempt upwards. Then, traversing over a buttress, I looked up and down the chimney.

It was what is generally called hopeless. To speak definitely, it was much worse than the _arête_, and seeing no alternative I returned to the corner and prepared for another attempt. This time Ashley gave me a shoulder at a slightly lower level on the ghyll side of the ridge. A trying drag upwards with very scanty fingerholds brought my knees on to a satisfying hollow in a little ledge, and steadied by the two side faces of the sloping slab I stepped up and on to it. The cheers of the observing party told us that our _mauvais pas_ was practically overcome. The other two men came up with a little assistance from the rope, and we cleared away the loose stones from our platform. It shelved badly downwards and offered no guarantee of safety in case I fell from the next vertical bit. But George sturdily rammed his brother close against the wall and intimated that the two would accept the responsibility of fielding me if necessary. I mounted their shoulders, and reached up at arm’s length to a sharp and firm edge of rock. A preliminary grind of my boot into a shoulder-blade and then a clear swing out on the arms, a desperate pull-up with knees and toes vainly seeking support, and at last the upper shelf was mounted. But we were all breathless.

The lower edge of the broken crest of rock that marks the Low Man was now close at hand. Close by was the fine cairn built when the pinnacle was first climbed from Lord’s Rake. A few yards off to the east the edge of the cliff was cut by the top of Slingsby’s Chimney, and before us remained the magnificent ridge up to the summit.

Boot scratches were now numerous, both along the ridge and by the left. We took the finish hand over hand, and reached the pinnacle cairn in five minutes. Our time up from Lord’s Rake had been slow--something like four hours--but much had been spent with photography and in reconnoitring. Another day, two years later, I managed it in less than half the time.

A party of three should have 150 feet of rope, or else our awkward tactics in letting the rope down to the ghyll would have to be repeated. Perhaps the long run out for the leader will prevent this route ever becoming popular. It is a great pity that there is no resting-place half way up the wall. With icy conditions it would be criminal to attempt the open face. Yet the climb is one of the very best in the district, and I shall always look back with pleasure to my first introduction to this side of Scawfell Pinnacle.

We hurried down Deep Ghyll by the traverse above both pitches. One of us rushed down too jubilantly, and ill repaid the kindly attention of the other party, now below us, by a profuse shower of stones. With thoughts of all the possible consequences of this indiscretion, we picked up our cameras and strode more sedately down to the others and to Wastdale.

SCAWFELL PINNACLE FROM LORD’S RAKE.--A very fine expedition was undertaken in December, 1887, by Messrs. C. Hopkinson, Holder, H. Woolley, and Bury. Their note on the day’s sport is quoted almost in full: ‘Three of the party, led by Hopkinson, made an attempt on the Deep Ghyll Pinnacle from the entrance to Lord’s Rake. They succeeded in climbing 150 to 200 feet, but were stopped by a steep slab of rock coated with ice. From this point, however, a good traverse was made to the first gully, or chimney, on the left. They forced their way up this gully to the top of the chimney. At the top there was a trough of ice about 30 feet long, surmounted by steep rocks glazed with ice, which brought the party to a stop. They descended the chimney again and returned to Wastdale, unanimously of opinion that the day’s excursion had afforded one of the finest climbs the party had ever accomplished.’

So we may well think, and it is a great pity that the icy conditions of the rock prevented their direct ascent into Slingsby’s chimney. The gully they entered and almost completely ascended, is marked plainly in the general view of the Scawfell Crags from the Pulpit, and at first sight appears to run up continuously to Slingsby’s chimney. Actually, however, it finishes on the side of the nose or pinnacle of rock a few feet lower down, and I believe this pinnacle could be ascended from it by either side. What this earlier party found impossible in the Winter of 1887, Mr. G. T. Walker and I in April, 1898, favoured by the best of conditions, were just able to overcome. We had spent a long and exciting day in the neighbourhood, and were descending Slingsby’s chimney late in the afternoon, when we were suddenly struck with the idea of descending the fissure behind the nose and prospecting the face of rock between it and Deep Ghyll. A rough inspection of the first fifty feet below us proving satisfactory, we hastened down Steep Ghyll and traversed across to the top of the first pitch in Deep Ghyll. In spite of the late hour I could not refrain from a trial trip on the edge of the great Low Man buttress. At the point where the earlier party found the direct ascent barred by smooth ice on the wall, and decided to traverse off to the gully on the left, we had a council of war. It resulted in my throwing down my boots to Walker, and then crawling up fifty feet of, perhaps, the steepest and smoothest slabs to which I have ever trusted myself. This brought me to a tiny corner where I essayed to haul in the rope attached to my companion. But he also had to remove his boots and traverse to a point vertically below me before he could follow up in safety. We were now some distance to the left of the edge of Deep Ghyll, and straight up above us we could distinguish the crack where our new route was to terminate. Getting Walker to lodge firmly in a notch somewhat larger than mine, six feet away on the Steep Ghyll side, I went off again up another forty feet of smooth rock, aided by a zig-zagging crack an inch or so in width, that supplied sufficient lodgment for the toes, and a moderate grip for the finger-tips. After both had arrived thus far, we were able, with extreme care, to reach the side wall of the nose itself, and at a point, perhaps, fifty feet from its crest we turned round its main outside buttress and found ourselves in a spacious chamber with a flat floor and a considerable roof, the first and only genuine resting-place worthy the name that we found along our route. We could look straight down Hopkinson’s gully, and would gladly have descended into it and ‘passed the time of day’ with a little speculative scrambling thereabouts. But darkness was coming on apace, and we had yet a most awkward corner to negotiate before finishing our appointed business. Standing on Walker’s shoulders I screwed myself out at the right-hand top corner of our waiting-room, and started along a traverse across the right face of the nose. The toes of the feet were in a horizontal crack, the heels had no support, and the hands no grip. It was only by pressing the body close to the wall, which was fortunately a few degrees away from the perpendicular, and by sliding the feet along almost inch by inch, that the operation could be effected. It was with no small sense of relief that the end was reached in a few yards, and a narrow vertical fissure entered that gave easy access to the top of the nose. Then we put on our boots again and hurried.

It is thus possible to reach the summit of the Scawfell Pinnacle by a route up the buttress quite independent of either of the great ghylls that flank it. A good variation that has yet to be performed in its entirety, though I believe that every section has been independently climbed, is that of the Hopkinson’s chimney, the nose, and Slingsby’s chimney. Further, that evening’s climb has convinced me that we could have safely reached Hopkinson’s cairn on the edge of Deep Ghyll, and that there is in consequence a most thrilling piece of work possible in the direct ascent of the buttress, the whole way up to the High Man from its base. Slight divergences are, probably, unavoidable in the lower half of the climb, but permitting these there now remain only about forty feet of rock hitherto unascended. It is worth while inspecting the view on page 73. The top of the nose is there plainly seen in profile 4⅜ inches from the bottom; our climb was roughly speaking up to the nose, by a vertical line drawn an inch from the left edge of the picture--somewhat less as it approached completion.

UPPER DEEP GHYLL ROUTE.--Three days after the ascent recorded in the last section, I found that the sharp ridge between the Low Man and the summit of the pinnacle could be reached from the foot of the lowest pitch of the Professor’s Chimney. The suggestion is due to Dr. Collier, who told me some years ago that the only real difficulties are concentrated in the first thirty feet of the ascent. The climb is almost in a straight line, running obliquely up the Deep Ghyll face of the Pinnacle, and is best inspected from the west wall traverse. The first part overhangs considerably, and the holds are of the same character as those on the long slabs of the Low Man buttress, with a sort of absent look about them. But the rocks were dry and warm, in the best possible condition, and two minutes of deliberate movement led me out of danger. There is great variety just here, but the simplest course was to make for a slight chimney in the sharp ridge above my head. In twenty minutes the High Man had been crossed, and the starting-point reached by way of the Professor’s Chimney, but if a companion and a long rope had been vouchsafed on that occasion it would have been a pleasing undertaking to have tried the traverse along the wall to the _firma loca_ of the second section in this chapter.