The Next Horizon
Page 14
The slab led up to a niche below a ferocious-looking overhanging chimney, comprising a whole mass of blocks that seemed morticed into each other, but there were cracks in between the blocks, and surprisingly, the structure seemed sound. I slotted in a nut, felt more confident, and once again straddle out. This was the kind of climbing that I have always enjoyed – steep and technical, where one could use one’s skill to avoid putting too much weight on one’s arms. The bridging holds kept arriving; another nut runner – it was going free. I could hardly believe it. I now seemed straddled out over the car park more than 200 feet below, and could see the ground between my legs. A hand over the top, a final heave, and I was standing on top of a flake, only twenty feet below the line of overhangs that led back into the centre of the face. The time seemed to have gone in a matter of minutes, though in fact I had been working for two hours. John followed up slowly, because he was frozen stiff from the long wait below. As he worked his way towards me I kept glancing behind me; a crack jammed with earth led up to the great jutting roof above, but characteristically there was a line of weakness below the roof, a horizontal dyke that would give hand-holds, and what seemed to be another intermittent crack line that relented to give the occasional foot-hold. This led to a great shield of rock that jutted out from under the roof, and barred the way to the start of the groove which we knew led to the top.
John poked his head over the top of the overhang I’d just led. He was as bemused as I by the fantastic nature of the climbing. It had not been desperately hard, just wonderful, sensational climbing, in a magnificent situation.
But it wasn’t over. The day was now drawing to a close – only a couple of hours to dark, and we still had a long way to go. I started up the crack behind the pedestal – it was just the right width for hand-jamming, but I had to clear the earth before I could slot in my hands. I was now cold and stiff from the delay while I had brought John up to my position. There is an additional nervous strain while doing a new route which one never experiences in repeating a climb, and on this one in particular, the scale and steepness, combined with the cold, almost gave the climb Alpine proportions.
I was nervous and a little frightened as I struggled up the crack, making heavy weather of something that should have been easy. By the time I reached the overhang I was trembling with exertion and my own nervous tension. I had now reached the traverse into the centre of the Face – at first quite easy, but very steep to tiring arms. Step carefully, swing across, and then the Shield. Close up, it looked even less reassuring than it had from below.
‘There’s a crack this side of it,’ I shouted back.
And I hammered in an angle piton, just under the overhang in the solid part of the rock. Swinging out and across on it, I was just able to reach across the Shield to feel round the other side.
‘There’s a bloody crack going right back behind it; it’s detached from the rock,’ I shouted again.
‘Looks pretty solid to me,’ said John from below. He’s a very reassuring second.
‘It’s all very well for you, you don’t have to try swinging round it. If it came away, I’d have a ton of rock on top of me.’
I tapped it with my peg-hammer. It sounded hollow – but it didn’t shift at all. About six feet high and four feet across, it seemed cemented to the sheer wall immediately below the roof in some completely inexplicable way. There was a good line of hand-holds along its top, but I was frightened to trust them; I could imagine, with dazzling clarity, myself clinging to the top of this shield of rock, and feeling it keel outwards and then crashing down with me beneath it.
I hovered and teetered on the edge of the Shield, trying to summon some courage and then John released me.
‘You’d better do something soon,’ he remarked. ‘It’ll be dark in half an hour.’
That settled it – we couldn’t possibly get to the top before dark. We’d have to try to escape – no question of abseiling back down. However, there was the possibility of traversing right instead of left, into the top of Barry Annette’s Direct Finish to Sceptre. It wasn’t easy, but anything that avoided that terrifying Shield seemed welcome, and I thrutched up the final crack that led to a small pinnacle on the edge of the High Rock. I got up as it was growing dark, and John felt his way up behind me to the top.
We hadn’t succeeded, but it had been one of the best days’ climbing I had ever had. We soon convinced ourselves that there was a way across the Shield, that it was a lot more solid than it looked – and then we began to plan when we could return. There was no question of finishing the climb the following day; John had an assignment as a photographer, and I had a lecture to give in the North – but what if someone else came and snatched our route.
‘I know of at least three others who’ve got their eye on it,’ warned John. ‘Pete Crew was talking about it only last week, and I believe Chris Jones has been sniffing around the gorge.’
Pete sounded the most formidable competition. In the early sixties he had established himself as one of the best young rock-climbers in the country, and was certainly the most prolific. Perhaps not as brilliant a technician as Martin Boysen, he had a restless dynamism and drive which enabled him to snatch a huge number of good routes, often in direct competition with others. He came from Barnsley and his father had worked on the railway. Pete had got a scholarship to Oxford, had been bored and irritated by the academic strictures of the University, and had abandoned his university career to start a small mail-order climbing business in Manchester, in partnership with another Oxford man, Pete Hutchinson. After a time, Pete Crew had tired of this and had gone into computers, working in London. Most of his climbing was based in North Wales, but he had made one or two very successful forays into other areas to snatch the odd ‘last great problem’. He had done this very successfully, a few years before, in the Lake District, when the local Lake District climbers, led by Lakeland’s most formidable modern pioneer, Alan Austin, had been laying siege to the prominent unclimbed pillar on Esk Buttress. This had already defeated several parties, and one of the contestants in the Austin team, Jack Soper, while drinking in a Welsh pub, had been unwise enough to mention the fact that they were going to try the climb on the next fine weekend. Crew overheard this remark, and the very next weekend set out, hotfoot for the Lakes. The Soper/Austin party, blissfully unaware of any competition, had made a leisured start for the crag, only to find Crew and Baz Ingle, his normal climbing partner, embarked on their carefully planned line. The moral of the story is that all’s fair in love, war and bagging new routes, and if you want to preserve a new line, the only solution is to guard it with a mantle of security that would shame MI5!
We all swore each other to secrecy, and arranged to meet in three weeks’ time, when we hoped the weather might be a little warmer – but only two days had gone by when John phoned me from Guildford, where he lives.
‘I think we’d better get moving,’ he told me. ‘I’ve heard that Crew has been talking about our line, and is planning to go down next weekend, to climb it.’
‘Does he know about our effort?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think so, but he’s had the line itself in mind for some time. I think he’s planning to do it with Chris Jones.’
‘I can’t possibly get down till next week; I’ve got a couple of lectures, one on Thursday, and the other on Saturday.’
‘Well, it could be too late by then; they could easily have a go at it this weekend.’
‘We’ll just have to hope for the best; I can’t possibly make it. Could you get away early next week though?’
‘Yes, that would be okay.’
‘Right. How about trying to find out whether Pete is planning to go down. You know him pretty well, don’t you?’
‘Don’t you think there’s a risk of his smelling a rat? He still mightn’t know anything of our plans.’
‘That’s true – we’d better just hope for the best, and hope they don’t go for our route. It’s still bloody cold.’
At last Wednesday came, and Tony and I drove down in my Minivan. It was still very cold and a fall of fresh snow covered the hillside and car park. Our route looked reassuringly virginal, but how could we be sure until we had made a closer investigation?
There was no point in repeating the lower part, and so we abseiled down our escape route, to a small and uncomfortable stance immediately below the overhang. Mike Thompson was looking ill, and complained that he still had not recovered from ’flu, but none of us took much notice; we were too intent on trying to complete the climb, and I was already tensed by the thought of that big, seemingly precarious shield of rock that I would have to swing round.
Reaching it fresh, at the beginning of a day, it didn’t seem quite as frightening as on the previous occasion. The peg I had left by the side of it was still there, and somehow, because it was already in place, seemed sounder than when I had first hammered it in. The Shield looked more solid. Even so, I didn’t like the idea of swinging round it, hand over hand.
I tapped a piton into a crack in the middle of the Shield – it didn’t shift at all – clipped in an étrier and gingerly put my weight on the rung. If it does come down, I reasoned, I should be swung to one side by the rope, out of its path, and with this prayer I trusted my weight to the step of the étrier, reached round the other side of the Shield, and swung across, on to a small ledge the other side. These days, the move is made free by a hand traverse over the top of the Shield. It has stood the test of time, and is probably as solid as the cliff it is cemented to – but on a first ascent, you view the rock in a different perspective, everything being unknown, untried. As a result, you, the climber, are keyed up to a degree unknown if you are following a guidebook ascent. There is always the doubt as to whether the next move is possible, the worry of how to get back down if it isn’t. And that is the joy of making first ascents – one way we can taste the thrill of exploration on our cluttered, over-developed planet – a pioneering experience that can be had above the Cheddar car park, on a cliff in Wales, or on a secluded crag in the heart of Scotland.
The groove stretched above me, both threatening and inviting. It looked hard. First, I had to set up a belay and bring Mike across. He had been feeling progressively more ill as I had teetered and struggled on the Shield.
‘I don’t think I’ll be able to make it,’ he called. ‘I feel bloody weak. It’ll be better if one of the others could do it.’
Tony Greenbank had been looking after John Cleare’s rope while the latter took photographs, and so, after a lot of manoeuvring, Mike and he changed over and Tony came across to join me. One of Tony’s special charms, and a quality that makes him a brilliant second, is his enthusiasm and ability to flatter.
As he swung around the Shield, he kept up a constant barrage of ‘Great, man, great. You must feel terrific about leading that.’ ‘This’ll be the greatest route ever.’ ‘You’re climbing fantastically.’
My ego swelled accordingly, and as we changed over the belays I had another look up the groove. It was vertical all the way, with a couple of small overhangs protruding, at about thirty and sixty feet. Surely, it couldn’t possibly go free – or could it? There was certainly a good finger-jamming crack to start it; you could bridge out on either wall of the groove, which even on this vertical rock meant you could stay in balance.
I started out, wafted upwards by a barrage of enthusiastic praise by Tony. It was superb climbing – I could look straight down between my straddled legs, to Tony half hanging on his belay on the narrow ledge, and then on down to the car park, now nearly 300 feet below.
A few cars had stopped; Mike, below, tried to persuade their drivers to move out to a safe distance from the base of the cliff. But our figures must have seemed too remote to pose a threat. I reached a small ledge, with a boulder perched precariously on it. I couldn’t possibly get over it without dislodging it, and perhaps hitting Tony.
‘Look out, I’m going to drop a rock,’ I shouted.
The onlookers just gawped.
‘Get out of the way, I’ve got to chuck a rock down.’
They didn’t seem to hear me – I had to push it outwards to get it away from my second. I gave it a heave, and it described a graceful arc down to the ground, landing with a resounding thud about twenty feet from the nearest parked car. The onlookers moved back to a respectable distance, and I continued climbing.
I had reached the first overhang – miraculously a hold appeared round the corner – a pull and I was up round it; more bridging, another nut runner in, the next overhang – concentration, yet a sensation of acute enjoyment, of being in control over mind and muscle. Another few movements, a ledge in sight, and it’s finished. And then, a feeling of pure ecstasy, at the end of a superb piece of climbing. One more pitch that was interesting, but not as hard as the previous pitches, and we were on top of the gorge. We had completed our climb. What had started as a route for a television broadcast had turned out to be the most satisfying I have completed in this country. It had all the makings of a classic route. It was a magnificent line up a stretch of unclimbed rock; there was only the one escape on it, and somehow, that didn’t detract from the feeling of commitment while climbing. Most satisfying of all, it had yielded almost entirely free climbing, with only the odd piton for direct aid or protection. In subsequent ascents by others, even this comparatively small level of aid has been eliminated.
The idea of the climb had been evolved from commercial motives, but did this destroy any of the pure enjoyment that one should experience from climbing? I don’t think so. I have often been asked whether I can continue to enjoy climbing when I know I am dependent upon it for a large part of my income. I think this shows a confused interpretation of motives and values. I certainly couldn’t tolerate teaching other people how to climb, or even taking less competent people climbing, as a guide. But it is not the payment which would spoil it for me, it is merely that I like stretching myself to my own limits in climbing, and one can only do that when climbing with someone of similar calibre.
To do the things I love doing and get paid for them at the same time seems the perfect answer and, I imagine, is the motive for professionalism in the majority of sportsmen. However, I was worried about one facet of this type of career: I disliked the idea of total dependence upon being a performer, or gladiator, in high-standard climbing. For a start, one’s career would be limited to the period whilst at the top of the sport; and there was another objection – that of being pressurised into climbs which were outside the boundaries of risk that one was prepared to accept. I wanted to develop my own powers as a writer and photographer so that I should become more broadly based in my career.
But finding our way up the High Rock on Cheddar gave us everything that climbing can offer – even down to a bit of healthy competition, in the shape of the threat (which, in the event proved baseless), of someone else snatching our route from us.
Having got the route in the bag, we now had to wait until May, when we were due to climb it in front of the cameras. In the meantime, back at home in the Lakes, I was storming through the final stages of my book, and we were looking for somewhere else to live. We were tired of the inevitable restrictions imposed on anyone living in furnished accommodation and, not having enough money to buy a house, decided to try to rent an unfurnished cottage. But hunting for unfurnished cottages in the Lake District is like searching for the lost Grail. Having given in our notice for Easter, we were beginning to contemplate erecting our tent in a field somewhere, when at last our search bore fruit. I was tired of the South-West corner of the Lake District. It is very beautiful, but is outside the main climbing area. I fancied getting closer to Keswick, which is the closest the Lake District has to a climbing centre.
One morning, at the end of a wild goose chase to the no
rth of Keswick, we saw an advertisement in the paper for a cottage at Kirkland, near Ennerdale. It was farther into West Cumberland than I had originally intended, and would obviously present problems in getting out of the Lake District to give lectures. Even so, we were desperate, and therefore went over to see it.
West Cumberland is a small world of its own, isolated to the west by the Irish Sea and to the east by Lakeland fells. As a result, it has developed its own special character, charm and problems. In the space of a few square miles are concentrated some of the most beautiful and remote valleys in the Lake District, rolling fell country where, even on a bank holiday, you won’t meet anyone all day. As you approach the coastline, dead slag heaps rise from little mining villages of terraced houses, brave in the face of dying pits, with bright-painted door lintels and woodwork. On the coast itself, a trinity of industrial seaports combine some of the worst relics of industrialisation with a peculiar fascination of their own.
The route from Keswick to Kirkland goes through no-man’s-land, between the fells and the industrial belt, through sleepy, unspoilt Cockermouth and then over a winding hedged road, to Cleator Moor and Egremont. Kirkland itself is like most of the little mining villages whose original purpose for being there has long vanished with the closing of the mines. It is a terrace of houses, perched on the crest of a hill, as if dropped there by a careless god. Somehow, they do not belong to the patchwork of pastures around them; are not sculptured into the land, as are Lakeland’s farms and cottages. The road, fast narrowing, winds down a hill towards Ennerdale village. To the east is the great sweep of Ennerdale, with its lake and pine-clad slopes, which culminates in the rounded mass of Pillar Mountain.
Bank End Cottage was on a lane through two gates, tacked on to the end of a farm. This was part of the land, cradled in the arms of two grassy spurs that framed an ever-magnificent view of the hills around Ennerdale. The lake and valley bottom were hidden by dimpled hillocks to our immediate front, but above them rose the fells, a view more limited than the one from the road down from Kirkland, but in its way more attractive, with a tantalising quality of hidden secrets that I came to appreciate; and at Bank End Cottage we were to know a stronger feeling of homemaking than we had before experienced. But first, we had to rent the house. The owner lived at the farm at the end of the track – a quiet man, whose life, and probably those of his children, would be devoted to farming the land immediately around him. He had advertised the cottage at thirty bob a week. It had two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, a big living-room downstairs, and a small dining-room to the side of it, which was tailor-made for my study. The staircase was a half spiral of stone; the floor was stone flagged; the walls three feet thick; there were small, deep-set windows and a low-beamed ceiling. Even the garden was perfect – a little patch of deep, sweet-smelling grass, bounded by a high hedge with an old wooden seat, softened with age and wood-rot, in the corner. The fact that there was only an Elsan for a toilet seemed unimportant when balanced with the beauty of the cottage.