Two identical needles a 1000 miles apart???
On a wet and windy day in March 1908, a day
far from being conducive for climbing, Rusty Westmorland, [Lakelands’
last climbing pioneer and founding father of Keswick Mountain Rescue
Team in 1946], entered the photographic shop at the top of Lake Road,
in Keswick, where he met George Abraham. They liked each other
instantly and became lifelong friends. A
year later, in March 1909, George and his brother Ashley, invited
Rusty to join the newly formed Fell and Rock Climbing Club. Soon
after joining the club, George invited Rusty to accompany him and his
brother Ashley, to North Wales to do some climbing. This was to be
for Rusty, his first time to Snowdonia and his first ever to ride in
a motor vehicle - George’s open top car which just happened to be
missing its front windscreen. Both new experiences were to make a
lasting impact!
Twelve
months later, George, Ashley and Rusty, took the train from Carlisle
to Folkestone, boarded a ferry to Calais, then boarded a train for
Paris and another to Geneva. During the train journey from Paris to
Geneva, George persuaded Rusty to have a beer in the dining car.
Given his temperance background, this was the first-time alcohol
passed through his lips and he was to note later in his memoirs, that
he enjoyed the taste although he never became a regular beer drinker,
despite liking a wee-dram of whisky or two, now and then! They
first went to the Engadine, a long valley in the Swiss Alps, located
in the canton of Graubünden in southeast Switzerland. It follows the
route of the River Inn from its headwaters at Maloja Pass running
northeast until it flows into Austria, 63 miles downstream. The
Engadin is protected by high mountains on all sides, many of which
had never been climbed. However, after a week of foul and unsettled
weather, they had two choices. First was to return home via Dover,
and second, was to move south to the Dolomites. The latter choice won
the day and they duly made their way to the Dolomite region of the
Italian Alps, near Cortina d' Ampezzo where they found ample
accommodation given that they were the only tourists there at that
time.
The
following day, they set off with all the camera equipment, making
their way up past the foothills across Alpine landscapes, until they
came to the shores of the Dürren See, a lake amongst the Limestone
monoliths with the Alps in ruins due to erosion by countless storms
that rage in and around the area. Such was the vista being presented
to them that George wanted to take a picture. Ashley and Rusty set
about getting the tripod and camera set up, when they were
unexpectedly visited by some disgruntled Austrian soldiers, who
whilst not speaking the English language, made it clear, that no
photography was allowed and if they did not desist immediately, they
and their equipment could well end up in the lake. They
complied and later when ensconced in a Pension, they set about hiring
a suitable guide - Sigismundo Mendari. Rusty admired the
tenacity and endurance of both the Abraham brothers as climbers, and
especially George who he said of him later in life: “George
had a temperament which was equable and good-natured yet he could
show strength and determination.”
Whilst
taking photographs as they climbed the Cima Piccola route, the
hardest of the climbs on the Tre Cime di Laveredo, they noticed a
thunderstorm was gathering. Their guide wanted to make a retreat off
the mountain but George said in tourist German;
“No Zsigmondy Kamin, no pay”.
As it turned out, they went on up despite the onset of the
thunderstorm and ignoring their guides feelings on the matter who
doubtless thought he was working for an English lunatic and that he was going to be made to earn his fee!
Reluctantly,
Mendari led the rope with Rusty following, whilst George being the
ablest and most competent climber of the two brothers, led Ashley who
had the task of carrying the tripod and camera and other associated
equipment as he climbed, in order to leave George’s hands free to
lead the climb. Once George decided on a place to take a photograph,
he would belay Ashley up to him so that George could be held on a
tight rope whilst he got the equipment ready and took the photograph
when he was happy that all was in order.
Rusty
recalls on one occasion, seeing George high on a ledge with his head
under the cloth cape with only two of the three legs of his tripod
touching the rock, whilst Ashley held his brother tight with the rope
as George took the photo. George’s photos were not action shots,
which meant that Mendari and Rusty would have to stay still in a
posed position for at least 40 seconds or more until George was happy
with the pose, before taking the photo.
Not
all their climbs went smoothly. For example, on the Great West Face
of the Conque Torri, Mendari was leading a high pitch up a loose
chimney when he lost hand contact with the rock face, causing Rusty
who was belaying below, some consternation as he himself was not tied
into the rock face which meant if Mendari fell, so would he!
The
outcome was that George lost an inch of skin to one of his fingers
when he automatically reached his hand out to shield his camera lens
from the onslaught of stones whizzing past.
The
photographs from that trip were world class, and some of the first
ever seen from high up in the Dolomites. It is just a great pity that
as Rusty and Mendari appear in a great number of the images, they are
so far away that their features are indistinguishable. It is also a
great pity, that in George Abraham’s book: ‘On Alpine Heights and
British Crags’ (1916), not once does Rusty get a mention by name
unlike Ashley and their Swiss guide. He is instead referred to as
“our friend”.
Perhaps this was George’s way of paying respect to Rusty by calling
him ‘our friend’
rather than by name?
The
area Rusty and the Abrahams were climbing in 1910
Without
any shadow of a doubt, all four climbers made a significant number of
routes during their time in the Dolomites, many of which
historically, are only attributed to George Abraham and to a lesser
degree, Ashley and Mendari. Rusty however, does not get any
recognition for his daring climbs which when you view them in one
place, is both impressive and worthy of such recognition: West Face
Cinque Torri at 7,746ft (2,361m); Croda da Lago at 8,887ft (2709m);
Kleine Zinne Traverse at 9,373ft (2,856m); Rosengartenspitze at
9,780ft (2,980m); Grohmannspitze at 10,255ft (3,125m); Langkofel at
10,436ft (3,180m); Sella Joch Haus at 7,349ft (2,240m); Weisshorn at
14,783ft (4,505m); Aigulle Blaitier at 11,555ft (3,522m); Monch at
13,474ft (4,106m); Torre Grande at 7,709ft (2,349m); Croda da Lago at
8,907ft (2,714m); Torre Inglese at 7,415ft (2,260m) and the Zsigmondy
Kamin route on Cima Piccola standing at 9,350ft (2,849m).
In
November 1975 when Rusty was aged 89 and his memory was starting to
fade, he gave a tape-recorded interview over several days with the
late Alan Hankinson, journalist and author from Keswick. When Rusty
was asked about the 1910 Dolomite trip, he mentioned a story relating
to Napes Needle that Haskett Smith climbed solo in 1886 (the year
Rusty was born), and that the Abraham brothers made famous with their
iconic image which prompted O. G. Jones to visit the Lakes to climb,
and later, became the logo for the Fell & Rock-Climbing Club in
1907.
It
appears that during a respite from climbing and photographing in the
Dolomites, they were sitting at the bar of a guest house, having a
pleasant evening with some Austrian climbers, discussing of course,
rock climbing. During the discussion, one of the Austrian climbers
produced a picture post card of a rock spire, described (in French),
as being the Ascension d’une Aiguille in Chamonix. He commented
that: “Surely the photographers
who made the picture must be frauds”
as he had visited Chamonix before and the Chamonix Aiguille looks
nothing like the postcard. In fact, the rock spire shown, according
to the Austrian, was called the Aiguille de la Nuque!
George
and Ashley grinned like the proverbial Cheshire cat as they looked at
the postcard, knowing that the Austrian’s comment was true in part
as there is such a rock spire called Chamonix Aiguille, but it looked
nothing like that on the postcard and of course, it was not the
Aiguille de la Nuque!
It
transpired, that some enterprising French (or Swiss) photographer,
felt that by taking an original photo of Napes Needle in the Lake
District and “rechristening it
and slightly tweaking the image”,
he could earn some money from the tourists that visited the Alps
believing that the tourists would not know any better!
Mendari
belaying Rusty on the Great West Face of the Conque Torri,
the
pitch above the chimney where Mendari slipped.
Rusty
finished his story by adding: “George
and Ashley said nothing but continued to smile sweetly, knowing that
at least it was a compliment towards their own original ‘English’
specimen.”
Frank
Grant
Carlisle
Cumbria
