Coniston Fells: Original painting-Delmar Harmood-Banner 1938
Arthritis Cottage,
Ambleside,
Cumbria.
Dear Jeanette,
I am sorry...I apologise. I feel desolate. I did not mean to
make you unhappy with what I said about your soloing Hopkinson’s Crack on Dow
Crag. I never imagined you would flounce out of the climbing shop as you did,
slamming the door and making us squirm with embarrassment. We Brits dislike
scenes. I was clearly the culprit. “She didn’t like that,” said Julia,wrapping
a pair of Huecos at the till. No, clearly you didn’t. Yet I had meant well.
Jeanette is, of course, no more your name than Arthritis
Cottage is my address. But you know me - or should do by now. (When was it we
last climbed together on Dow- 1953 ? I simply can’t take things seriously. But
I feel serious enough to want to protect your identity as I try to make up for
my calamitous mistake. In those days Dow Crag was a giant place. Still is: an
eyrie of the mountain gods; its ramparts the kind that make the climber’s heart
skip a beat when seen from deep in the valley near Torver, or high on the
footpath from Coniston. The times our bunch from Ladnek had on Dow! Was there
ever a dull moment? Unlike today where the po-faced reign.
So you see, Jeanette, my memories are fond ones, treasured
from an age ago when everything was sunlight and laughter, when you were a
leading light. You in your shorts and long brown legs, joyfully and
outrageously- for that time - soloing Hopkinson’s Crack. When I introduced you
to Julia thus, I was re-living my golden and most affectionate moments of
climbing innocence.
Your angry rejoinder that “Tony may live in the past but I
prefer to live in the present!”, not to mention your double-quick exit through
the door - saddened me utterly. Everyone looked so accusingly at me. Perhaps
Jeanette, for all your success as head one of the biggest British branches of
an international organisation, you regret that you’re no longer climbing.
Possibly it’s too painful to bring back those days when your hair was a cap of
blondest curls and when the sun blazed like a blowtorch, heating the rock on
which you smeared so daringly in your Woolworth’s rubbers. If that is the case,
then is it any wonder my words struck such a painful chord?
Hopkinson’s Crack rockets into the air from the depths of
the Amphitheatre – an unusual feature for Dow, where many routes climb exposed
battlements, busy with climbers at weekends. How different is the setting for
those solos of Hoppy’s you did! Grim, silent walls surround you on either side.
Just to reach the foot of the crack seemed an expedition, about that time when
Everest was climbed, as we cranked fearfully up into the Amphitheatre past the
massive boulder jammed in Easter Gully; or instead descended into its
bottomless pit from the steep end of Easy Terrace, tricounis grating on wet rock.
The situation of Hopkinson’s Crack graded Hard Severe but
verging on VS – is galactic. On the left is the mendacious pillar of Great
Central Route, while on the right is Black Wall. How your heart must have raced
when soloing: especially when you drew level with the small rock stance and the
crux of Hopkinson’s loomed overhead.
You were climbing a deep cleft until then, but at this point
your world fell away. I seem to remember you climbed the right wall, heart
stopping in its exposure. The alternative is to climb the crack, bridging occasionally,
reaching and reaching again, up past the big hex that fits so snugly in the back,
to where many (including me) make an inglorious landing on the Bandstand.
Climbing solo though, you bypassed this famous haven and
continued straight on up the crack, the next pitch an arrow-straight skyshot
offering bridging that is exquisite. Is it surprising, therefore, you might now
regret no longer doing what you once did with such elan and such prowess?
In those days,Jeanette, routes like Eliminate A and Murray’s
Direct were a world away. But possibly you went on to do both before you hung
up your rubbers and wet day socks. I sincerely hope so, for they are also quite
magical. I climbed them first in the 1960’s. But they are the kind of routes
you would so enjoy: the best sort in the world. Eliminate A, to start with,
pierces the front of the great buttress on the left, its bigness on a par with
that of Notre Dame. A smooth wall is shaded by a slanting roof, continuing
above like a great rock prow. That any VS can breach its front is unthinkable. Yet
Eliminate A does just that, with four particularly memorable pitches. The first
runs out 90 feet of rope above the depths of Great Gully, leering up at the
intrepid leader engrossed in placing his gear; layaways and rockovers, the kind
at which you used to excel, dear Jeanette, coming at you faster than you can
stop them.
The shelf below the Rochers Perchers pitch arrives as a
welcome refuge, but the take-off up the next mauvais pas comes as a shock; so overhung you stay dry in the rain,
you are soon above a chuteful of thin air. Here is where Neil Allinson felt
himself slipping down the crag and
realised the block he was pulling on ( one of the heavy Rochers Perchers
themselves) was slowly sliding down towards him. Have you met Neil? He’s the
coal miner who inadvertently pulled the Rochers Perches off; said it was like
the pit roof coming down in Eldon Drift Colliery, Co. Durham.
The third of Eliminate A’s great pitches is the next one,
slanting up leftwards beneath the great roof and using the edge of a crack as a
handrail, made all the more enthralling for its lack of gear especially as you
pull through and over onto the steep slab above - which is the fourth pitch of
note. And what an immaculate pitch it is! A rising traverse on the very lip of
the roof which has shadowed you for so long, with nothing but outer space
below.
On you climb, up and up past the steepest rock, with holds
and runners always coming. There’s a further pitch above, but it’s difficult to
trace. The crack of Aréte, Chimney and Crack is a popular finish however.And
then Murray’s Direct, the third of this trio of three-star routes. Then, when we
used to stash our Bergen sacks under the cave on the scree, bouldering on the nail-worn
slab immediately behind (4b today), I never dreamed that one day I, too would
climb the inexorably smooth slab of Tiger Traverse - let alone the imperial
line above: a magnificent corner hooded by overhangs and the essence of
perpendicularity. Yet that is Murray’s Direct.
The Tiger Traverse slab is so tilted, the climber feels about
to be tipped off onto the horrific landing below, gnarly jagged rocks and all.
But wait. Today’s gear saves the day. Wires and Friends fit into a horizontal break
immediately above the step up from a pointed flake, the next moves up and away
also being protected by a further placement before the padding starts. Then happy
holds are here again.
Tiger Traverse over, the open-book corner above is
positively inviting. There are beautiful
holds for bridging; everything is so steep. But this is only the link pitch.
The crux is still above, the corner itself deepening and cowled with overhangs. Glance down between
your legs as you bridge out above the tiny stance and it’s spit-straight to the
screes. Then the immediate climbing has all your attention. Is it a layback, or
a jamming crack, or will you bridge it as well? So near the belay, yet so
wonderfully poised in such an outlandish position, it has seen the drying of
the saliva glands inside many a leader’s mouth - that sure symptom of apprehension.
No spitting now: at least not until relief once more flows through the body as you
bridge and bridge again to reach better holds and begin to feel you are
winning.
Shielded from the sun after mid-day but bathed in it before,
Murray’s Direct is a well-protected line, complementing superbly both Eliminate
A and, dear Jeanette, that climb I always associate with you, Hopkinson’s
Crack. Whether you ever return to the rock or not (and surely it’s never too
late, looking as fit as you do) I can
only wish you the very best. And hope you will now realise that whenever I
might have so innocently gone on about Hopkinson’s
in the past, I saw it as a landmark to cherish rather than the reverse. A
beacon in the light as the years roll by. We all need them.
Take care then,
Jeanette. Fight gravity in all its insidious
forms. There are so many straight faces around today, not to mention individuals
with independent “miens”. Wherever did light-heartedness go?
All love and best wishes,
Yours affectionately,
Antonio (and his ice cream kart).
Antonio Frascarti:First published in Climber April 1992
