Snow Over Pillar Fell

By D. L. Reed

An excuse for idleness, if any be needed, is the opportunity it gives for reflection on the good things previously experienced, days in the sun and wind, moments of elation or fear, one’s first gentian, a small, round, warm lochan under Stac Polly on a hot day, the green wall of vertical vegetation on the face of Suilven, roast duck at the Hill Inn, or an omelette two feet long at Arolla, an ” infusion ” in an Austrian hotel, or rum and milk in a tent under Tryfaen ; or even that little known inspiration, whisky and Ovaltine—which, oddly enough, brings me to the story.

There was a cottage in those days in Borrowdale, close to the river and a magnificent glaciated boulder ; no one seemed to know to whom it belonged, or who paid the rent, but someone knew where the key was kept, and to that cottage I was taken for the New Year of 1929. As I was having what in some quarters is known as a ” free lodge,” it was not for me to complain of a few holes in floors or windows, but merely to marvel at the photographs and—a choice piece this—an ash tray which played ” The Old Folks at Home.” We arrived in the evening, ate, drank and were merry, and rose an hour late as usual.

There is a well known concern in the North of England of which it has been said, ” Their trouble is they have too many bright ideas,” and that was rather our trouble. The first, bright to the point of gleaming like pyrites to a prospector, was to drive to the top of Honister and leave the car there in order to get to Pillar. This was speedily agreed; the rest of the programme for short winter’s day and a party of whom one was a novice, was to do a climb on Pillar, slip up to the top of the mountain, put in a circle of Mosedale if time permitted, drop down to Wasdale for tea and return in the early evening. How the return was to be accomplished was a question which was not fully ” faced up to,” as some people say when they mean ” faced.” The car went fairly well up Honister old road, but suddenly flagged and there was an avalanche of nailed boots from all seats, doors, and the dickey, that scrummed down and kept things going.

At 10 a.m. we left Honister Hause going south, at 10.30 a.m. it started to snow. This last is from my notes, there is no record of the snow ceasing. Visibility was poor, my glasses were bunged up with snow, and I didn’t know the lie of the land, so I cannot say whether we just got lost or whether we deliberately altered course, at any rate some time later, still moving easily, we found ourselves on the summit of Green Gable. Some there be who would have slunk off to Great Gable to sidle up a short and easy climb, and some, cast in an even less heroic mould, would have given up the idea of climbing in the snow, but not so our gallant leader—we proceeded briskly towards Black Sail, saw Wastwater and the sea through a temporary clearance, and pushed along the High Level Route to lunch at Robinson’s Cairn.

It was a chilly luncheon and we didn’t linger long water­proofing the knees of our breeches with sardine oil; moreover one of the expedition had a touch of mountain sickness and proposed not to climb. I didn’t fancy being made to climb and envied him his tummy, but as it was abundantly obvious that one couldn’t tackle a serious climb on a day like that, with the rocks smothered in snow, and more coming down and only three hours of daylight, I felt tolerably secure ; but not quite secure enough to know how to take it when Goodfellow said, ” I’m afraid we won’t be able to do anything more difficult than the North,” and Sale replied, ” Well, I’d hoped to do something a bit better but it’s the traditional thing for the New Year. We’d better be moving.” So in desperation I played my one and only card and made a speech about being very slow, holding the others up, spoiling the fun and all that; I put in a bit about the unkindness of leaving a sick man to find his way to Wasdale alone and turned my back on Pillar. It was a poor card and had I known the first thing about the North Climb I might have played a better defensive hand ; as it was I was gently but speedily told why three were necessary and filled in anticipation with the pleasures of being hauled over the Nose.

But even then I didn’t know that if a man was wearing a belt and no braces the rope might pull his shirt right out of his trousers and leave an exposed isthmus for the snow to land on.

Then good idea number two made its insidious appearance when Gowing volunteered to carry all the ice axes except one to Wasdale, saying, and rightly, that more than one would be an incumbrance on the climb but omitting to remark, as did we all, that an axe each would be a comfortable prop and stay when returning along a snowy High Level Route in the dark. So he pushed off to good cheer at Wasdale whilst I was left with those two night hawks, Goodfellow and Sale ; one has known them start to descend the North-East in semi-darkness and I have a vivid memory of crouching under a cornice on Ben Nevis whilst Goodfellow attacked it and emerged on the summit at a time when most people were sitting down to their Good Friday supper.

One of the first things one learns in a French course is ” Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute,” and the next is not to believe it. So I was fully prepared not to believe the others when after clearing away a quantity of snow from the first pitch and struggling up, they told me it was much the most difficult on the whole climb. How right I was ! Moreover, the premier pas had one advantage, the third man could stand well clear at the base whilst the others shovelled snow. There­after with some monotony and for some hours the leader scraped out snow with his axe and dropped it on to the second, who shook it off and kicked it with additions on to the man beneath; and at this point it might be well to repeat that a legitimate fall of snow was still proceeding. Apart from the first pitch and this snowball business no very clear recollections of the climb remain, until we reached the Nose. It appeared that no lofty flights of the imagination had been needed to christen Twisting Chimney and Stomach Traverse; the four winds of heaven met boisterously at the Split Blocks, and the Crevasse demonstrated the truth of Mr. Chesterton’s theory that a view looks particularly impressive when seen through one’s legs.

So we reached that well-known debating floor, the ledge beneath the Nose. The hour was four o’clock, the date December 30th, the weather snowy. To our credit be it said we wasted no time in discussing the merits of the three routes, or recollecting how many people had fallen off the Hand

Traverse just as their companions thought they had succeeded ; Goodfellow descended into Savage Gully and Sale carrying the forward policy perhaps a little too far caused him to complain forthwith of being lowered too far and too fast. Sale quickly joined him in the Gully and left me to solitude, which as the hours dragged on, seemed as unattractive as Selkirk made out, in fact the words of his complaint began to buzz around me. Fortunately I was able to displace them with pleasanter images, big fires, big chairs, hot baths and kindred subjects, also to reflect that ” There is a great deal to be said for Anchovies, the Fifth Symphony,Woollen Underwear, the Cheese of Port Salut, and Kubla Khan.”

Eventually the others appeared and as it was not quite dark, though nearly so, they cannot have been away as long as it seemed. Once again there was no argument; they let me climb on to the flake and then yanked the body smartly over the top without giving it time to explain about the braces. By the time I had adjusted my attire it was 4.30 and the light which had been beaten to its knees at lunch-time definitely took the count. The other two decided they had had enough rock climbing for the day and just walked off the Rock. Heaven knows how they did it, but we reached Robinson’s Cairn with no interesting pitches at all, except once when we lowered the leader over a black and bottomless abyss to find him fetch up on solid ground with his middle level with our feet.

By this time we were a party of strong silent men ; without a word we abandoned all thought of the circuit of Mosedale and with one accord turned our faces towards Looking Stead. We had of course kept on the rope for the traverse and as it was now freezing, and a pernicious wind had arisen, rightly or wrongly we kept it on for the High Level Route. We had a brief unsuccessful struggle with a hybrid lamp, the offspring of a mountain lantern and a miner’s cap lamp, which was as obstinate as a mule or any other animal of dubious ancestry, and then groped off. Some would have called it dark ; it was dark, but our eyes had grown accustomed to the waning light and we made positive progress in the thick soupy sort of semi-darkness reflected from the snow. The pace was fast enough to prevent our getting stiff, a thin sheeting of frozen snow pre­vented the wind from biting us, it began to appear possible to reach Wasdale before breakfast time, so things were looking up. At Looking Stead however, the wind did become rather trying and the party, though tired, moved off into the com­parative shelter of Mosedale without pausing to unrope.

So far everything had gone well although somewhat slowly, but in the valley we received a set-back. We escaped the wind according to plan and we could not object to our tiredness being revealed by the fact that we fell down one after the other at exactly the same place in exactly the same way and after each had warned the other ; the trouble was that it got much warmer, so much warmer that our clothes thawed and we felt thoroughly wet and cold, much too uncomfortable to remove the rope. And so at 8.30 p.m. or thereabouts we filed into the Wasdale Head Hotel, thanked Gowing for refusing to arrange a search party, and got him to untie the knots before we entered the dining room.

Now the mathematician, when he reduces a problem to, say, seventeen simultaneous equations considers it solved, for although the labour of working them out may be very consider­able it requires no finesse and can be performed by any pedestrian algebraist. From the mathematical point of view, therefore, our problem was completed as we had reduced the complications of the North Climb and the difficulties of finding our way from the bridge of the Nose in darkness and snow, to the simple matter of a walk over Styhead. We were not, however sufficiently philosophic to attain this view point nor could we, as one suspects the mathematician does, delegate the working out to some minion ; after a discreet interval, and about the hour of 9.30 p.m., we set forth. Burnthwaite looked a great deal more inviting than the track but we turned not aside until we found ourselves confronted by an unyielding stone wall, then we turned sharp left straight uphill until we regained the track, and laboured along it.

Just before the sign-post someone ventured to have another bright idea, to take a rest whilst sheltered from the north wind which we should assuredly meet on top. We laid ourselves down full length in the snow and wondered whether the robins would cover us with leaves before Gowing made us get up. We did encounter the north wind, cold and wet and very damnable, we passed the tarn, very quiet in that hollow of the hills which seems so immense at night, we arrived at Seathwaite long aiter bedtime. Along the level road it was no longer necessary to concentrate on defying the wind and I began to chew the bitter end of a thought that went something like this :— ” There is a car at the top of Honister—it is a long way to Seatoller and a long climb up Honister—Sale and Good­fellow want that car to drive to Norton to-night—someone must go to get it for them—well, Gowing can go—alone ?— well, who can go with him ? ” And there was only one answer, for I was spending the night at the cottage.

Honister was not so steep as we anticipated and at one a.m. the road was quite free from traffic. We expected that the car would be full of snow and would not start. It was and wouldn’t, at least not till very nearly the bottom of the hill. We rattled into Grange at about the same time as the others arrived on foot, all very weary, very sleepy and oddly enough very hungry, ready almost for what Aglaia called a simple snack—the recipe is fairly well-known—” Take five bulls, pile neatly on a brisk fire, garnish with a sprig of thyme, and serve hot.” But there wasn’t even a single bull handy so we did the best we could with a pound or two of sausages, and a strong noggin of whisky and Ovaltine, which touched the right spot accurately and with celerity.

The hour was now three a.m. and quite properly there is little more to say ; Gowing and I added tea and cheese and marmalade to the sausages and somewhat stiffly climbed the stairs. Sale and Goodfellow set off and drove to Norton, but how they did it I simply cannot tell.