British Mountaineering
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BRITISH MOUNTAINEERING CLAUDE E.BENSON THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation i http://www.archive.org/details/britishmountaineOObens BRITISH MOUNTAINEERING BRITISH MOUNTAINEERING By C. E. BENSON MEMBER OF THE CLIMBERS' CLUB AND YORKSHIRE RAMBLERS' CLUB LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED NEW YORK: E. P. BUTTON & CO 1909 8 DA f CONTENTS Preface ........ xi 1-20 I Introductory . ... II Equipment ....... 21- 43 III R.^MBLiNG ...... 44- 65 iv scr.\mbling ...... 66-102 \' Practice Climbs on Low Crags . 103-141 \'I Hock Climbing ...... 142-163 \'II Winter Climbing ..... 164-178 \'Iir I'I.xceptionallv Severe Courses . 179-181 Mountaineering in Skye .... 181-183 Mountaineering for Ladies . 183-189 . 190-201 IX Dangers of Mountaineering . X Medical Hints 202-211 12-21 List of Mountaineering Centres, etc. 2 Glossary 219-220 Index 221-224 868672 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Pavey Ark, Stickle Tarn, and Bowfell, Cumberland Frontispiece PAGE On the Granite Cliffs of Cornwall . 9 Glen Sannox, Arran .... II Chimneying ...... IS 26 The Shoes of the Faithful . Equipment : Boots, nails, helmet, gloves, rucksacks, knots, compass, axe, cover and sling for axe, knife 28-40 Peaks of the Castles and Carlin's Leap, Arran 44 Crummock Water and the Buttcrmcre I'"ells . 46 A Pinnacle on the Little Glydcr . 60 Cir Mhor, Arran, from near the Saddle 61 Gate Crag, Borrowdale, Cumberland 80 The Face of the Langdale Pikes from Blea Tarn Ro id 84 Bowfell : A view up Eskdale 85 Steep Grass ...... 91 A Pleasant Scramble ..... <|- Pick loi A Face Climb—Ciritstone .... 105 101) .'V Fancy Bit of Bouldering .... Ben Eighe, Torridon ..... I I 3 Safeguarded by the Rope— .\ Dillicult Crack 1 14 Brassington Rock.s— .\ h^ace Climb 117 East Arete, Brecdon ..... 1 i8 A Tough Bit of Rock on the Cornish Cliffs . 119 A Sensational Bit of Bouldering . A Difficult Face-climb on Granite 133 LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS PAGE Bracing the Knees I3S Back and Foot . Work ^37 Back and Knee Work (Constricted) 138 A Difficult Chimney— Foot and Knee Wor 139 A Difficult Chimney—another position 140 The North Face of Scafell . 142 Cir Mhor, from the Slo]X's of Cloatfell, Arran 155 Playing liim up .... 160 Ben Nevis in Winter . 165 Wastdale in Winter 167 Glissading ..... 175 Crampons (descending an ice slope) 177 Sgurr Alasdair, Skye . 182 PREFACE The author desires to express his warmest thanks to the many fehovv-chmbers who haw assisted him in liis work with advice, criticism, and with illustrations, indeed the kindness lie has experienced—sometimes from mountaineers he has never even seen—has been remarkable, and he wishes to record here his most cordial appreciation of it. He would only add that where he has repeated himself, as in the case of Mr. C. E. Matthews' noteworthy words (Chapters I and IX), and elsewhere, he has done so advisedly. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY The story of mountaineering in any given portion of the earth, whether it be in the Himalaya or in Scotland, in the Caucasus or in Cumberland, comes back, in the long run, to the story of the Alps, and will be found, mutatis mutandis, to have developed on very similar lines. Until comparatively recently, with occasional lucid intervals, the Alps were objects of terror and ' horror,' unattainable, forbidden wastes, the abodes of demons, dragons, and malevolent spirits. By and by, as super- stition gave way to common sense, the beauty, the sublimity, the attraction of the mountains began to be recognized, and a chosen few learnt to worship them with distant reverence, and sought to impart to others their new-found emotions. At about the same time the peaks, passes, and glaciers became the quarry of another chosen few. The hand that beckoned the earli- est of these pioneers was the hand of science, but the voice was the voice of the mountains. In 1857 a Band of Brothers met together and formed a club, the Alpine Club, the primary object of which was mountaineering pure and simple (though exceptions have been occasion- ally made, and a few meml)ers admitted by reason of their devotion to Alpine art or literature, or their researches in matters immediately connected with the mountains), and from that time climbing became recog- nized as a sport. In the tracks of these leaders came hundreds of tourists of varying sensibility, and scores of \'igorous enthusiasts, daring, but, alas ! imprudent and ' H.M. i; 2 INTRODUCTORY unskilled. The former vandalized the valleys, the latter attacked the peaks, and on them the mountains took a natural and terrible revenge, insomuch that, for a time, the sport of mountaineering was, in the eyes of the undiscerning, discredited. Then came the tardy recognition that the pastime was indeed ' a reputable pursuit for sensible men,' and that, in the great majority of cases, the blame of the accident must be laid, not on the mountain, but on the man. Lastly, alas and alas ! followed the inevitable concomitants of the advance of civilization, the caterer, the hotel proprietor, the tripper, and, worst of all, the ' lift ' and ' funicular ' railways, whereby the august mountains, the great world's altar stairs, are defaced and vulgarized, so far as it is possible to vulgarize the sublimest features of nature. Through most of these phases our British hills have passed, though not quite in the same order. As objects of horror they followed the conventional lines for many centuries, and the overwhelming terror of their aspect seems to have paralysed the a-sthetic perceptions even ' of men of great natural sensibility. Thus Defoe : I now entered Westmorland, a county eminent only for being the wildest, most barren, and frightful of any that I have passed over in England or in Wales. The west side, which borders on Cumberland, is indeed bounded by a chain of almost unpassable mountains, which in the language of the country are called Fells.' After this it comes as something of a disappointment to be told that every weekday during the summer months scores of tourists, in coaches or motors, on cycles or on foot, pass through the heart of these fright- ful scenes, rejoicing indeed in their beauty, without even a qualm of fear except perhaps that of being run into by a motor. It is amusing to reflect on the emotions our hills inspired in the contemporaries of the men that fought at Minden. ' In area of paper covered with descrip- tions of it English Lakeland is probably many square miles ahead of any equal portion of the earth's surface,' and it is probably more familiar to Britons as a whole INTRODUCTORY 3 than any of our other highlands, so that it is from writings on the Lake District that we can most readily learn. It may interest the long processions of tourists who year after year, on foot or on ponies, ascend Hel- vellyn, to know that they are scaling ' a mountain of tremendous grandeur, upon whose brows the snow^s hang as upon a glacier.' At any rate it w^as so in those days. I have seen some fine cornices on the imposing eastern front of Helvellyn, but the Wythburn side always struck me as being rather tame. I have also been by Thirlmere pretty often, but I did not realize that I was in ' a scene of desolation which is much heightened by the appearance of the immense craggy masses that seem to hang on the side of Helvellyn, from whose slopes they have apparently been severed, but arrested in their tremendous progress down the mountain by the impulse of gravitation ' (this is a hard saying). ' Huge and innumerable fragments of rocks hang pendant from its sides, and appear ready to fall and overwhelm the curious traveller who dares to ascend its wild and fan- tastic heights.' Saddleback, to the north of the Helvellyn range, in addition to its terrific aspect, had also its demons. At least, according to Mr. Jenkinson (the writer of one of the best of the Lake District Guides) its alternative title, Blen- cathra, signifies the Peak of Demons (the more probable meaning is Arthur's Seat). Demons apart, however, the mountain was sufliciently formidable, and even to-day the ascent requires care,^ though scarcely by the ' routes described : When we had ascended about a mile, one of the party, on looking round, was so aston- ished with the different appearance of objects in the valley so far beneath us that he declined proceeding.' A little later another of the ])arty ' wished to loose blood and return.' This was a bad condition to be in on what are, nowadays, easy grass slopes, but what about the stroll over by Watendlath in Borrowdale ? ' To mo\-e upwards, kecjMng a steady eye on objects before ' Since these lines went to press, a gentleman has fallen whilst ascending Sharp Edge, Saddleback, with fatal result^f. 4 INTRODUCTORY us, was no great exercise to the brain, but it rather gave it a rotation to look back on what was past and see our companions below, clinging, as it appeared, to the mountain side.' In spite of its manifold terrors the ascent of Saddle- back was successfully accomphshed, and we learn that the views under the eye of the mountain itself (were) ' so tremendous and appahing that few persons have sufficient resolution to experience the emotions which those awful scenes inspire.' One daring mountaineer peeped over Foule Crag into ' a frightful abyss to the bottom of which the eye could not penetrate,' and certainly it is not an experiment to be recommended to people with unsteady heads.