Chippings
(The Editor invites contributions to this column on subjects of interest to Ramblers.) Editorial: The Editor regrets the late appearance of this issue and can only plead in mitigation the restriction on his leisure which the Mayoralty of an important – he had nearly said importunate – borough imposes.
As the size of Nos. 9, 10 and 11 was such as to make the scrapping of the present stock of binding cases probable if No. I2 were included in Vol. 3, it has been decided to make No. 12 the first of a new volume. An index to Vol. 3 is in preparation and will be issued, if possible, with No. 12.
Gaping Ghyll In 1912:- An expedition to Gaping Ghyll was made at Whitsuntide this year, for the fourth time in succession, and the practice may now be considered to have become a recognized institution.
From the general appearance presented by the moor in the neighbourhood of the camping-ground proper, it is evident that we are rapidly approaching the time when what may be called ” fractional camping” will share the fate of plural voting and the ideal state of “one man one tent ” be reached.
We have evolved considerably since the days when we cooked our meals on a primitive stone fire-place fed with wood from Rayside Plantation, for this year Robinson was able to provide us with a dinner of several courses cooked in the most recent type of Primus-stove oven, an event which filled the hearts of the old and hardened campers with dismay as they recalled the days when they had performed wondrous feats without greater sustenance than that derived from the consumption of two sardines and a tinned pear. However, the times have changed and it is the fashion to cavil at the younger generation.
Of our actual doings there is perhaps little of novelty to record. The tackle for the descent worked admirably, and, in addition to our own members, a large number of visitors were able to view the wonders of Gaping Ghyll.
Very satisfactory progress was made with the survey, which was resumed at the end-point of the previous year’s work in the passages beyond the Stream Chamber.
On the first day the survey was carried as far as the great boulder in the Stream Chamber, including a portion of the Upper Stream Passage. From previous accounts of this region we had got the impression that this passage was comparatively short, but we found that there were two branches, and the survey of the right-hand branch, which is about 500 ft. long and extremely narrow in parts, occupied the whole of the second day.
The survey-party included Barstow, Brown, Buckley, Dalton, Hall, Stenhouse Williams and Rule.
On the surface, Brodrick and Wingfield were busily engaged with the further examination of the Rat-Hole. They endeavoured to establish communication with the Great Chamber by lowering plumb-lines from the end of the passage, but no sign of the lines was seen in the , Chamber and it is now practically certain that a ledge exists somewhere in the shaft at the end of the Rat-Hole, which arrests the descent of objects lowered down.
Digging operations were resumed in the fissure lying north of the Flood Entrance, and a depth of 20 ft. was reached.
In the matter of weather we were particularly fortunate, for the Whitsuntide week-end proved to be one of the very few dry week-ends experienced during the early part of the summer of 1912.
Given favourable weather conditions it is probable that one more expedition will suffice for the completion of the survey in the New Passage, as far as the T junction. From this point to the Great Chamber the passage has already been accurately mapped.
A feature of the 1912 camp was the success of the campfire sing-songs, which revealed much hitherto undisclosed talent. The tendency to lapse into formal speech-making as the evening advances must, however, be suppressed with a firm hand.
It has often occurred to the writer that the scene round the camp-fire offers great opportunities to the writer of drama. Those who are well acquainted with the amenities of camp life on the banks of Fell Beck will appreciate the possibilities of development in various directions afforded by the following fragment:-
Scene 1. – The Camp Fire, Gaping Ghyll.
Time:- Rather late in the evening after a strenuous day.
T. B—-h: Now what would you say was the length of that passage, W— —d?
C. R. W—–d (casually): Oh! I don’t know. Say, about thirty-five feet.
H. B—-k (anxiously): I should rather be inclined to say thirty-five feet six inches, or possibly seven inches.
E. G. I—–d (waking from a reverie): Gentlemen, for the last time, any advance on thirty-five seven? (Laughter.)
H. B—-k (indignantly): Look here, you fellows, this isn’t a joke, it’s a serious matter ……
(Curtain).
A. Rule.
Recent Pot-Hole Explorations:-
On Fountains Fell:- New Year Pot: 150 ft. Two single ladder pitches. (April 2nd, 1911. Barstow, Dalton, R. F. Stobart, E. E. Roberts.)
On Penyghent:- Little Hull Hole: 240 ft. First pitch, 80 ft. (Oct. 29th, 1911. Barstow, Roberts, Stobart). Second pitch, over 100 ft. (May 5th, 1912, the same, with Addyman and Chappell).
Long Churn: 130 ft. Shaft of 90 ft. and passage. (July 12th and Oct. 6th, 1912. Addyman, Hastings, Hudson, R. F. Stobart, J. G. Stobart and Roberts).
Cowskull Pot: 70 ft. Between Long Churn and Jackdaw Hole, and
Cross Pot: 85 ft. A quarter of a mile away (July 13th, Stobart and Roberts).
Sell Gill Hole: Three single ladder pitches, probably the third descent. (July 14th, Stobart and Roberts).
On Ingleborough:- Mere Gill Hole: 500 ft. (May 27th, 1912, see Y.R.C.J., vol. iv, p. 31).
On Whernside:- Greensett Cave: (Oct. 1912.) Charlesworth and Roberts followed up the stream 200 yds. and made an exit into a sink half way to the swallow hole.
Nidderdale:- Goyden Pot: (June 1912.) An entrance to a complicated system of passages was found by Barstow and Stobart, and a survey was made by them and others.
E. E. R.
The Club Meet At Horton-In-Ribblesdale, on the 5th and 6th October, 1912, has inspired the following verselets by a well-known hand:-
Ho ! Comrades, fill your glasses,
And get your pipes alight,
The Ramblers meet with slippered feet
Around the fire to-night.
To-night their lips and features
Are wreathed with smoke-clouds all,
From Brigg beside the fender
To Chappell by the wall.
And plainly and more plainly
Now through the smoke appears
Each member of that gallant band
With brimming tumbler in his hand
Filled with the liquid of that brand
That sobers (m’yes!) and cheers.
And now from the piano
May the bard Campbell see
The features of each sporting Tyke
Who’s come by motor, train, or bike,
To that brave company.
There’s Constantine the Winsome,
Louis “Le Débonnaire,”
And Erik of the oilskin coat,
Who brings your heart into your throat
By acting of the giddy goat
However you may swear.
The Chesterfield of Scotland
Is at the meet to-night,
And Harry of the beetle brows
And arms of muckle might,
And Benson of the shining pate
Replete with chestnuts up-to-date
And Pomfret’s skald, who from the grate
Doth fervently recite.
And the grave Sieur de Senlac,
Chief of the Bradford throng!
And with him, spectacles on nose,
The man whose name will not wash clothes,
And Barstow of the skimpy hose,
And Clarkson of the song.
And Booth the veteran of G. G.,
And Leach, his tried compére,
And with them Perky Robinson,
The artiste culinaire:
Le chef de la G. G. cuisine,
And Waud, and Sam of sober mien
On potting and yot-holing keen,
And lissome Stobart frère.
And now from the piano
A clash of sound clangs forth,
As Charlesworth lustily trolls out
A ballad of the North:
And louder still and louder
The roof and rafters ring,
As Ramblers join with song or shout
Not knowing what it’s all about,
But that’s a thing which matters “nowt”
Provided that they sing.
Then to the hideous discord
Of comb, and whoop and yell,
Roberts relates in melody
How “gallant Fairshon” fell.
And so with chant and tale and jest,
The evening keeps agoing,
And Clarkson sings a stave or two,
And good old Buckley, staunch and true,
And Connie – which is something new,
So what’s the next thing he will do,
My goodness! My goodness!
My goodness! There’s no knowing!
Motor-Cycling In The Lake District:- The following account, taken from the Yorkshire Post of the 26th October, 1912, of the Auto-Cycle Union’s Autumn Trial, shows that the possibilities of the Playground of England are not exhausted: “The start was given at Kendal at 8 a.m., and there were many spectators. The morning was cold and dull, the roads not in quite perfect condition, shady places carrying a lot of grease. The first climb was out of Kendal westward, a steep hill rising within a few yards of the starting point. No one failed on this, but several machines had difficulty. A few miles out was another hill, and then for several miles there was nothing noteworthy. Brigsteer Brow, with its masked start, caused two or three machines to fail, and a few miles further Sizergh Fellside, approached by a narrow lane, saw a crop of failures. Belts and chains stretched and gave way, and more than one engine failed at the stiff task. From this point to the well-known, or rather much-talked-about, Towtop, was plain sailing. Towtop is a steep, twisty bank, with an execrable surface, and it was no wonder that more failures were recorded. After Staveley the route was carried up Gummers How, which, however, did not seem to give so much trouble. The surface was fairly decent. Kirkstone Pass from Ambleside was the next mount, and its 1 in 4, 1 in 6, and 1 in 8 portions thinned down the competitors somewhat, and the County Council had added to the difficulty, for a thick paste of clay covered the very worst place in the ascent As one competitor put it, it was all right grinding up through the clay, but when it was so soft as to roll up before the front wheel it was rather too bad. Patterdale, Watermillock, Troutbeck-in-Cumberland were the next points before Keswick, and every survivor went through those favourably. On the return route Red Bank was a trying ascent; its surface was greasy, and its pitches seemed steeper than ever. The bad place of the whole route, however, came when the motor cyclists were asked to climb from Great Langdale up to Blea Tarn. At first, the route was a bad one, but after a few competitors had passed, the surface was like a ploughed field, and offered as much purchase for driving wheels. Only three machines are reported to have made perfect ascents. A few of the others got up by running alongside at the worst places, and the passenger machines by shedding their extra weight. Not a few of the entrants were willing to cry enough – for the rain was descending smartly – and to take the return route down Great Langdale to Ambleside and Kendal. There was another test plotted by an energetic secretary, the ascent of Ellers Brow from Skelwith Bridge, a détour which gave a hill of terrible severity, narrow and greasy. Competitors kept arriving at Kendal from three o’clock to six, all wet through, and with tales of adventure to record. The Lake country had justified its selection as a most severe testing ground for the motor cycle – the routes taken are a good sample of the sport which can be offered in the way of stiff climbs” – and there is still Sty Head left!
Proposed Wrynose And Hardknott Road:- Those who know – and love – the grass-grown road leading from Little Langdale over Wrynose to Cockley Beck at the headwaters of the Duddon and thence over Hardknott into Eskdale will not welcome the proposal to make it fit for coaches and motor-cars. Our Lake-land sanctuaries are not so many that we can afford to lose even one of them.
Climbing At Ilkley:- As it is not improbable that I am the “London advertiser” of Almes Cliff Crag, it may not be unbecoming in me to suggest an explanation of the relative neglect of the Ilkley Rocks. Some years ago, one fine summer morning, I started for Ilkley on scrambling intent, with a Clerk in Holy Orders, and not without misgivings which my companion derided. We tackled only one climb, which I think from Mr. Greenwood’s description must have been No. 21. Anyhow, about halfway up I came to a few inches I could not make go. (Mr. F. Botterill afterwards told me that that small portion had up to then remained unclimbed direct.) By the aid, however, of a long left leg, I managed to get on after a little fuddling, and the finish was relatively easy. When I looked down my worst fears were realized. All holiday Ilkley was gaping at us, and two-thirds of it had cameras. The Holy Clerk then came up, but stuck at the mauvaiz pas. A combination of events – neglect to watch his leader, neglect to notice the left (proper right) wall, annoyance at the check, extra annoyance at failing where a man no whit his superior had succeeded, double extra annoyance at being the cynosure of a silly crowd – led to the temporary disestablishment of the Church.
It is therefore in the interests of the enjoyment of the climber, the dignity of the Church and of public morality that Ilkley be neglected, at any rate during the season.
Nevertheless, Ilkley is not wholly unsung. Attention was called to these Crags in an article of mine in Fry’s magazine, portion of which was afterwards reproduced in France. – C. E. B.
The Late Clinton Thomas Dent, F.R.C.S., &c.:- On August 26th the hand of death removed one of the earliest and most distinguished of our Honorary Members, and the Yorkshire Ramblers, like many another club and public body, now mourns the loss. Dent was a many-sided man, with a great variety of interests. An obituary notice in The British Medical Journal for September 14th shows what was his well deserved reputation as a surgeon. We, however, are principally interested in him as a great mountaineer, especially as some years ago he gave us a delightful lecture in Leeds on the subject. His speeches at the Alpine Club and elsewhere were invariably good and full of dry humour, his delivery was telling and kept his audience spell bound. As a writer I need only refer to “Above the Snow Line,” “Badminton on Mountaineering,” and numerous papers in the Alpine Journal. In the latter, one entitled “The Rocky Mountains in Skye” (Vol. XV. page 422) has a very special interest to British mountaineers. As one who for thirty years enjoyed Dent’s friendship, not only in the city and the plain but also on the rugged mountain crests, I know well the worth of the man we have lost. Whatever he undertook he put into it all his zeal, erudite knowledge and enthusiasm. His powers, and they were great, were probably inherited from his North Country ancestors. – W. C. S.
The Late J. Archer Thomson:- All who have climbed in Wales or who have read the late Mr. Thomson’s climbing articles, or his Lliwedd and Ogwen guide-books, will understand what a gap his untimely death has made in the ranks of English climbers. He was one of the pioneers of climbing in Snowdonia, and knew that district as few others.
The Ski-Ing Disaster At Finse this spring, by which Dr Templeton, of Newcastle and Mr. Warren, of Hull, lost their lives through losing their way in a mountain storm, is a reminder of the risk to be encountered in those waste uplands of featureless snow, and of the importance of a party remaining together in bad weather.
New Members: The following have been elected since our last issue:-
Charlesworth, Arthur, M.Sc., 100 Bankside Street, Leeds.
Clarkson, Walter, 11 Mario Street, Leeds.
Claughton, Wm. Thos. Alban, F.R.C.O., Giggleswick School, Settle.
Hall, Archibald Alexr., M.Sc., Ph.D., Armstrong College, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Middleton, Alan Lomas, Glebe House, Far Headingley, Leeds.
Neumann, Chas. Fredk., Giggleswick School, Settle.
Slingsby, Arthur Morris, 56th Rifies, Frontier Force, Kohat, India.
Smallpage, Frederic Hartley, 10 Heworth Green, York.
Spratt, Joseph Thomas, 22 Springwood Avenue, Huddersfield.
Stobart, John Geoffrey, Harperley Park, Harperley Station, Co. Durham.
Club Lectures:- The following summaries (by the readers of the papers) may be of interest to those members who were not able to be present:-
J. M. Davidson in his “Alpine Reminiscences,” – commencing with an account of his early experiences in the Oberland mountains, where, without any previous breaking-in on English rocks, he found himself in late October, described some amusing situations in which he became involved. Further incidents and expeditions in the Oberland, Valais and Dauphiny districts were narrated, and the lecture concluded with a detailed account of one or two climbs on the Chamounix Aiguilles.
C. E. Benson gave an account of his “Member’s Holiday” under the title of “Rambles round about Ullswater,” and exhibited a series of slides of views taken in that district. In the course of the evening he commented on the difficulty of describing a serious climb, contrasting the apparent invidiousness of possibly overestimating the difficulties and the real criminality of underrating them. He animadverted on the recent publication, authoritatively sanctioned, of descriptions of climbs which at any rate touched the borderland of the unjustifiable. It was possible, he said, that the difficulties and dangers of these courses might be happily found to be exaggerated, but if the slabs of the Slanting Gully were really only to be regarded as good practice for their greater severity, he feared that these descriptions must be relegated to the category of deplorable publications. He concluded his lecture with the exhibition of a few slides of the Ingleton Falls.
Reginald Farrer, speaking of his lecture, says: “It would be true to say that my lecture described a tour which, beginning with the Italian Lakes, conveyed its hearers, in the course of plant collecting, up into the fastnesses of Monte Baldo, and thence, travelling northward by way of Botzen, over the Schlern and through the heart of the Rosengarten Dolomites, down into the Fassa-thal, and thence after an excursion southward to the Cimon della Pala and the Rolle Pass. North again out of the Fassathal, over the Pordoi Pass and the Falzarego Pass, through Cortina and up to Misurina.”
Dr. Inglis Clark commenced his lecture on “A Visit to the Brenta District of the Dolomites,” with the marvellous Bocca di Brenta, over which the Crozzon towers like a great obelisk. In this connection the secondary risks of mountaineering were illustrated by incidents in couloir or glacier gorge. A succession of views illustrated a Scottish tour, including Loch Lomond and its mountains, Lochs Tay, Tummel, Tulla and Lubnaig, and passing into Glencoe and to Fort William. The ascent of Ben Nevis in winter by the Moonlight Gully, with its thrilling incidents and narrow escapes, occupied attention for a quarter of an hour, ordinary toned slides being used to illustrate it. The traverse of a forbidden road (for motor cars) in Argyllshire gave an opportunity of showing the wonderful colouring of i Scotland in bracken, seaweed, water, heather and forest, and this was further emphasized by the views of Lochs Garry, Quoich, Maree, Coulin and Torridon. A visit to Switzerland was made to show the extraordinary effects of sunrise and sunset on the Alps, and the lecture terminated with a series of Scottish sunrises and sunsets. The lantern slides shown, with the exception of those of Ben Nevis, were in natural colours, and reproduced with marvellous fidelity the glorious scenes with which mountaineers are familiar.
H. Brodrick in his lecture on “Recent Work at Gaping Ghyll” dealt with the work of exploration and survey carried out by members of the Club during the past three years. The Old S.E. passage has been completely surveyed and mapped, and work is now in progress on the right-hand branch of the S. passages left unsurveyed at the time of discovery. The exploration of the Rat-Hole and Spout Tunnel were described and slides were exhibited illustrating the position and use of the timber-dam which ii has been constructed below the Rat-Hole and should prove L of great assistance in cases of emergency.
The lecturer gave it as his opinion that the amount of water flowing over the lip of the pot-hole from Fell Beck had decreased very considerably during recent years, and that more and more of the water was sinking higher up the stream-bed. This view appears to be confirmed by an examination of the earliest literature dealing with the pot-hole, and more particularly by the fact that the Birkbeck trench was constructed by an explorer who lived in the district, and who made the first descent to the ledge in the summer, at a time of year when the stream-bed below the camping ground is now usually quite dry.
The View was also expressed that the inflowing water at the end of the Old S.E. passage might possibly be derived from Marble Pot, which does not appear to have been coloured at the time of the hydrographical survey of Ingleborough.
Yorkshire And Lakeland: An Appreciation:- Ramblers will, we are sure, thank that veteran mountaineer, Mr. Frederic Harrison, for the following lines, written in the sixties, and now published in his Memoirs (1911):- “My first visit to the Cumberland Lake Country disappointed me, as I had been a devotee of the Scottish mountains for twelve, and of the Alps for ten years. It was very paltry and almost snobbish, and I have lived to be ashamed of my bad taste; nay, I have long since repented in sackcloth and ashes, for I now hold the Lakes to have a rare and peculiar charm. But a crazy ‘gletscherp-man,” as I then was, knew no better. I wrote:-
” ‘I was prepared for something on a small scale, but I never expected anything so like a toy ….. Not merely are the Lakes so incomparably tiny, but they are so spruce and dapper that I can hardly believe them natural.
” ‘Every corner is trimmed out in parks or lawns, and you wander between brick walls as if you were at Fulham. . . . The hills along the Rhine are not lofty, but then they don’t pretend to be mountains. The Scottish are hardly real mountains, but then they are savage. The Italian mountains are civilized, but then they are of exquisite shape. I planned three tours, to occupy me three days, and I used up all three tours before dinner. I shall take one of these lakes for a trout stream, and I would wager I could run right up Helvellyn and back within an hour.
” ‘Ah, well ! The Lakes have another side too. If they are small they are pretty-far prettier than I ever imagined. The foliage far surpasses any that I ever saw. The variety of Windermere is endless, and nothing can be more graceful than the grouping of the hills. The whole country reminds me of the country round Lucerne, and the view from those hill tops is like that from the Righi looking north over the lowland.
” ‘Ah! Now I see how the beauty of the Lakes gains on one when the first shock of their petty size wears off The forms of the hills are certainly very beautiful, and nothing equals the richness and variety of the verdure and the foliage. The land lies in so small a compass that a day’s walk affords a constant succession of exquisite and different views. Indeed, you may see four lakes in that short space, and all in vivid contrast and with new charms.
” ‘From the Lakes I went over to Yorkshire, to Bolton Abbey, and thence across to the East Coast on foot. I soon repented me of my silly contempt of our English hills, and drank in the intoxicating charm of that noble country.
” ‘I walked up and down the best of these Yorkshire valleys and moors – Wharfedale, Wensleydale, Swaledale, Teesdale, Eskdale, from Ingleborough to Leyburn, Helmsley and Pickering to the sea. Yorkshire as a country, though I had seen York City long ago, the moors and rivers and abbeys and castles were new to me, and aroused in my heart a storm of delight.
” ‘How glorious – how inspiring – how dear is this epitome, of England,’ I wrote in my diary, ‘the very essence of our native country – how homely, familiar, and welcome is its beautiful scenery! How delightful those luxuriant valleys, fed by winding or rushing rivers, with the free fresh moor above, the hamlets perched on the hillside or nestling in the hollow of the glens. The great valleys walled in with beetling cliffs and fringed with various foliage – then some grim old feudal castle, brimful of historic memories with the annals of our country graven on its grey walls – the old Gothic church crowded with traditions, names, and works of many long successive ages – the princely park with noble trees and rich pasturages and delicately reared cattle, the very type of nature developed and elevated by man – the awe-inspiring wreck of an abbey, quiet, tender and piteous like Rievaulx – so exquisitely graceful, so humble, silent and deathlike – the very image of a bygone age yet remaining in secluded solitude – recalling an almost forgotten time in its beauty and its mournfulness, like the corpse of one loved, and then the mediæval and not yet modern town, Richmond in Swaledale, fairest of English towns, an endless picture and ever fresh joy. But above all in memory most dear remains the vision of that softly smiling gentle valley of Bolton Abbey in Wharfedale – so severe, so simple, so inspiring – of all spots in the world I think the richest in its fulness of calm, and joy, and peace.’ “
Sunset Hole:- The statement in No. 1l that the waters of Sunset Hole (p. 99 of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society’s Proceedings, vol. XV., p. 287) have been coloured and found to re-appear at Hardraw Kin (P. 95A) is surely incorrect. The former have, in fact, been followed to a point underneath the bottom of Braithwaite Wife Sink-Hole, and are there at a much lower level than Hardraw Kin. The waters of the latter can be traced a long way upwards, and seem to be merely the drainage of an adjacent bog.
E. E. R.
[Web Note:- The highly literate YRC members clearly saw no problem publishing the article in it’s original language, so we have reproduced it here. However for a translation created between my own very rusty french & ‘Babel Fish’, click here (need to make this switch)]
As Others See Us:- We are not sufficiently modest to refrain from printing the following Review of No. 11, from L’Echo des Alpes of April, 1913:-
“La Grande-Bretagne voit aussi s’épanouir une floraison de petits clubs de montagne; le “Club des grimpeurs du Yorkshire” publie un périodique que nous voyons pour la première fois mais, espérons-nous, pas pour la derniére. Le lecteur de ce journal a devant les yeux un choix considérable d’écrits divers.
“Le ‘Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club ‘ quoique société locale, n’en compte pas moins un grand nombre de membres et de tout intrépides; il n’y a qu’à jeter un coup d’oeil dans la rubrique ‘Vacances des membres’ pour se rendre compte . de leur activité. Ascensions de tous genres et dans tous les pays: Suisse, France, Italie, Autriche, Angleterre, Norvège et puis en Syrie, et puis en Palestine!
“M. Claude E. Benson donne le résultat de ses observations et de ses recherches sur un vent local qui souffle parfois avec violence dans le Cumberland.
“Avec MM. C. A. Hill et Hastings, nous pénétrons sous terre, dans des grottes, des cavernes immenses et bizarrement, creusées; le premier nous fait connaître la caverne du Dragon dans l’Ile de Majorque, avec la grotte des Francais laquelle mesure 500 mètres de longueur et contient un lac long de 177 mètres et profond de 4 à 9 metres; avec le second nous pénétrons dans une quantité de grottes, trous, boyaux, comme il s’en trouve beaucoup en Grande-Bretagne.
“Près de Leeds, que nous connaissons par ses manufactures, se trouvent de petites montagnes, des rocs tourmentés où les varappeurs trouvent matière à grimper. M. W. H. Greenwood nous fait faire l’ascension, parfois vertigineuse, souvent difficile, de ces rochers qui rappellent ceux du Salève et en certains points quelques-uns des beaux passages des aiguilles de Chamonix.
“Enfin, un grand article, à coté de beaucoup d’autres que je regrette de ne pouvoir résumer, dans lequel l’editeur du périodique, M. W. Anderton Brigg, indique une route, longue mais jolie et variée, pour aller de Zermatt à Chamonix. Sous le titre ‘dans de vieilles traces,’ il narre sa traversée du Rothorn de Zinal, le passage du col du Grand Cornier qui le mène à Bricolla. De Bricolla, par le col des Bouquetins, ils arrivent à Prarayé, dans le Valpelline. De là ils font une tentative infructueuse, à cause du mauvais temps, pour atteindre le sommet de la Dent d’Hérens. Ensuite, descente du Valpelline, Aoste, Cogne, d’où ils vont faire l’Herbetet, puis descente sur Villeneuve et de là, par la grand’-route à Courmayeur. Par le Mont-Blanc du Tacul, il n’y eut pas moyen de gagner le sommet du Mont-Blanc, ils durent finir leur course a Chamonix. Cela se passait en 1908; le récit, fort bien écrit, est accompagne de superbes photographies.
“Si nous nous sommes un peu étendus sur cet article, c’est que le trajet décrit peut donner envie, à quelques Genevois, de l’employer pour se rendre dans la région de Zermatt, en suivant une route pittoresque, variée, un peu longue mais dans des contrées remarquables.
Great Britain also sees a flowering of small mountaineering clubs; the “Yorkshire climbing club” publishes a periodical that we see for the first time but, let us hope us, not for the last. The reader of this newspaper has in front of the eyes a considerable choice of various writings.
“The `Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club’ though a local organisation, has a great number of members and is very intrepid; you need only glance in the heading ‘Holidays of the members’ to realize of their activity. Ascents of all kinds and in all the countries: Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, England, Norway and then in Syria, and then in Palestine!
“Mr. Claude E. Benson gives the result of his observations and his research on a local wind which blows sometimes with violence in Cumberland.
“With Messers A.C. Hill and Hastings, we penetrate underground, in caves, immense caverns and oddly, dug holes; the first makes known to us the cave of the Dragon in the Island of Majorque, with the cave of the French which measures 500 meters length and contains a lake 177 meters long and from 4 to 9 meters deep; with the second we penetrate in a quantity of caves, holes, bowels, as there are in Great Britain.
“Close to Leeds, that we know by its goods, are small mountains, tormented rocks where the rock climbers find things to climb. Mr. W.H. Greenwood takes us on climbs, sometimes vertiginous, often difficult, of these rocks which point out those of hills and in certain points some of the beautiful routes of the needles of Chamonix.
“Lastly, a great article, beside much of others that I regret not being able to summarize, in which the editor of the periodical, Mr. W. Anderton Brigg, shows the way, long but pretty and varied, to go from Zermatt to Chamonix. Under the title `In Old Tracks’, he tells of his crossing of Rothorn de Zinal, the passage of the col du Grand Cornier which leads it to Bricolla. From Bricolla, by the col des Bouquetins, they arrive at Prarayé, in Valpelline. From there they make an unfruitful attempt, because of the bad weather, to reach the top of the Dent d’Hérens. Then, descent to Valpelline, Aoste, Cogne, from where they went to l’Herbetet, then descent on Villeneuve and from there, by the grand-road to Courmayeur. From Mont Blanc of Tacul, it was not possible to gain the top of Mont Blanc, and they had to finish their journey in Chamonix. That occurred in 1908; the account, extremely well written, is accompany by superb photographs.
“If we extended a little on this article, it is that the way described can give desire, with some Genevese, to encourage them to go in the area of Zermatt, while following a picturesque road, varied, a little long but in areas remarkable.
E. d’A.”
Back Numbers:- These, which are limited in number, can be obtained from the Hon. Librarian (J. H. Buckley, 168 Wellington Street, Leeds). Price: Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 5, 5/- each; No. 2, 10/-; Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, 2/- each. Specially designed green buckram cases for the three volumes, 2/- each. Postage extra.
The Tail-Pieces in this issue are by Mr. Eric Greenwood and are from photographs taken by J. J. Brigg and friends in Sinai. Impressions of the late editor’s fine pen-and-ink sketches of Almscliffe had been made but were found too large for tail-pieces, and they are held over for a too long deferred article on that place.