Image:Old Cumbria Gazetteer
You know how quickly a route can assert itself upon
your tied-on, racked-up and ready-to-climb enthusiasm: it grabs you when you
think you're grabbing it. '6m right of a rowan', and the starting jugs of the
spiky buttress satisfy your eagerness to get going in the lead for the first
pitch. Then, suddenly, you're balancing on a toe-point on top of a spike facing
a steep wall that has closed up its compact face and you're feeling around for
the smallest of finger holds just to give you time to work out the next move.
But time is what you've not got on your rack. Time is what you were supposed to
have bought by regular visits to the synthetic indoors through the winter
(which in my case, I had not got).
So it was back to that familiar dialogue between the
'Do something quick!' voice and the 'Stay cool!' voice. At a second stretch of
a foot to the sloping ledge out on the right, I decided that the friction had
to be good enough. And, at the same moment, my fingers found a little square
edge that had been above my head all the time. Committed now, the most tempting
holds were at full stretch, but I risked my foot skidding off before my fingers
could close for a breath-held pull.
At this point the Artist arrived and started chatting
to the Welsh Editor who was holding my ropes, seemingly on a bit of a
'Hiraeth'. They were joking about something. The sling around the spike seemed
a long way below. There was no question of my greeting the Artist (I was too
gripped), although at the back of my mind I knew it would seem churlish —
especially since he was responsible for my acquaintance with the hidden gems
of Longsleddale.
Indirectly, he was responsible for my winter-long obsession
with Sadgill Wall — which is only Mild Severe, south-facing, now with two stars
and perfect for a first Lakes route after the snow and rain have stopped. Little did
I realise that I would be dragging the Welsh Editor out of his Sunday morning
bed, to do it in a day's flash from Sheffield on what was to be the hottest day
of the year. 'When we were young', I remember Pat Ament telling a Buxton
conference audience, 'we had some scary adventures and we came back barely
alive.' At the end of this long June day that's how we would feel, but without
the benefit or excuse of youth.
My acquaintance with Longsleddale had begun 10 years
earlier when David Craig and I had met the Artist to climb his father's route
on the opposite side of the Valley. Exactly 60 years after the first ascent, we
climbed Black Cleft HVD on a dry afternoon at the end of summer. Having a
thrillingly bold swing right at the top, it was so much better than the name
implied. Then, last year, we truanted from the newly-revived Kendal Film
Festival and the Artist belayed Gill's lead on Dandle Buttress HD, whilst I
took snaps. The top of the first pitch was surprisingly strenuous, so Gill
belayed early for me to lead through. This brought us out onto the airy
buttress up which Gill led from exposed ridge, to frictionous slabs, to a steep
little corner and 'Spike Minor' (as the nomenclature of 1929 has it). The
narrow neck containing 'Spike Major', that joined the buttress to the mountain,
had us exclaiming in amazement and dancing along Alpine-style. Walking out that
day, I looked over my shoulder and noticed someone leading across a slab below
an overhang on the right of the crag: Sadgill. Wall made its mark on my mind.
Next spring, I thought:
So here I was at last (actually not in the first flush
of spring, but certainly flushed), and about to spring for those jugs in silent
terror whilst the Artist joked with the Welsh Editor out of sight below. A
little leap; a firm fist-grip: a scrabble of feet and the jagged ridge led up
to a steep pull to the most solid of spike belays. 'Now, what did you have in mind for this drawing?'
shouted the Artist, who had loped up the scree with the long
stride of a local.
'A crag sketch like your dad's guide book drawings,' I
called down. `You mean from back down there'....'Errr, yes.'
'Right,' came the nonplussed reply, and the Artist
promptly slid down the steep grass on his bum, like a kid having a great time
in his back garden — which of course he was.
Fortunately, the Welsh Editor declined an offer of the
next lead, so I got to discover why this route has gained a star since the
previous guide. The second pitch is simply stunning: steep, well-protected and
needing a thoughtful approach. It begins by a swing along the edge of a
slanting crack to a thread behind jammed spikes; then launches across, the slab
below the overhang in a brilliant puzzle of footholds and always sharp spikes
for grateful fingers. The belay ledge is one of those places where it simply
feels good to balance the close reading of rock beside you and the open reading
of river, and meadow, and mountain beyond.
Now a conundrum presents itself: where to begin a
traverse, of the steep slab on the right? I went up to place a sling on a small
spike and up again to traverse at a break. This may have been too high and too
safe, but the heat of the day was taking its toll; getting up vertical heather
to the rowan belay took a sapping effort. The Welsh Editor yanked on the
bilberry roots into the grassy bay above and tied on to the broken wall of the
bay. Here, I started up a crack, found myself stepping round to the right and
up onto another eagle-eerie of a ledge below the '3 metre crack'. It's actually
the corner on its left, which is climbed by foot-jams and long pulls.
As rock gave way to heather, I slumped beside the last
rock on which to belay. I felt weak and whacked; taking in the rope took a
dry-mouthed effort. The Welsh Editor arrived in better shape than me. The
Artist was still at his post, leaning back against a boulder still sketching
far below. Now came the narrow neck of pinnacles that is the top of Dandle
Buttress. It should have been fun, but the last heave up the last pinnacle
drained the last of my strength and I flopped down on the turf that curves over
into the short descent gully. I was glad I had a helmet on to keep the sun off
and equally glad I had the new boots clipped to my harness for the grueling
steep descent. But I advised the Welsh Editor to keep his rock-shoes on for the
first part of the under-cut descent gully, which is both tricky and loose. In
the shade below it, we changed into our boots and frankly, lay back a bit in
the cool breeze that always funnels through here.
Then, over another grassy col, and we were sliding
down scree and steep grass seeking a seepage in the stream bed to suck at and
slap on our burning necks. Below the crag, we descended slowly towards a boulder,
big enough to offer shade to two sad gits panting like sheep: the Artist popped
up, not at all pooped by the heat. Re-hydrating at the pub, Julian Cooper showed
us his sketchbook and Ian Smith thought he might have a photo or three. I
thought I might be able to write a piece without exaggerating the heat,
perhaps, and resisting the title 'Sadgit Wall'.
Julian's drawing of the route is so intensely full of
information and impressions that it's the very opposite of William Heaton
Cooper's economical sketches of crags for the FRRC Lake District climbing
guides. "Your father really understood crag structure." said Harry
Griffin to Julian when I took him to see Julian's recent paintings from his
trip to Kanchenjunga Base camp. Harry first climbed Sadgill Wall in 1949 and
now, just a month before his 90th birthday, he remembered that first pitch as
"Feeling VS: it was steep, smooth and holdless. We were wearing clinkers
on our boots, not tricounis. Eric Arnison and Tom Philipson and I each had a go
at that first pitch and failed. Then I remembered that I had some black rubbers
in my rucksack and succeeded. But credit must go to the other two, you know,
who did the whole climb in clinkers."
I remember the interesting challenge of working out
the route and feeling lonely and exposed in the upper reaches of the climb. We
had no slings, just the rope that was tied round our waists. I never climbed it
again, but lots of people come and tell me how much they have enjoyed it.'
Well, me too, Harry. I for one am looking forward to climbing it again and
perhaps feeling less of a sad git on Sadgill Wall!
Terry Gifford: First published in The Joy of Climbing
