I was waiting at Arthington Junction, near Leeds — a station
specially constructed to inculcate the virtue of patience, though it is
believed that the complaints of incensed passengers have done much to modify
its original useful purpose,when my eye was attracted by a singular clump of
timber standing out solitary and conspicuous on a bare hillside. A gentleman in
corduroys was near me on the platform, regaling the evening air with his views
on railway companies. Of him I inquired the name of those trees. 'Trees! Haw, haw!
Why that was Awmescliff Craag.' I was unacquainted with gritstone then, and
knew not its little ways. Of course, I had met it walking down the street, with
a man behind it bawling out 'Knives and scissors to grind!' and I had no idea
that it lived in mills and ground up corn and things; but I had never before
encountered it in its wild state on its native heath.
I did not then
suspect the facility with which it can simulate the appearance of the bosky
grove, nor had I the slightest idea of the amount of sport that Almes Cliff —
Great Almias Cliff of maps and guide-books — would someday afford me, or of the
quantity of clothes and skin I should leave thereon by way of compensation.
Gritstone may popularly be described as a glorified lump of petrified
sandstone. This great roughness allows of climbing methods which would be out
of the question on almost any other kind of rock. You can take liberties which
ordinary rock would resent; and for this reason gritstone is not good practice for a beginner. In other words if
the gritstone climbs were composed of rock of the Borrowdale or Snowdonian
series, half of them would not 'go', ie...would be impossible.
On the other hand,
gritstone has certain little peculiarities of its own. Without decency or
warning the roughness changes to an absolutely smooth bevel, of course entirely
to your disadvantage, affording no possibilities for either grip or friction.Or else the rock bulges out unexpectedly and knocks you backwards. Also, when
it comes on to rain, the surface is transmuted into a nasty, mossy, greasy
slime. Almes Cliff Crags give some of the finest gritstone climbing I know. In
appearance they are insignificant, two escarpments of grit, one below the
other, and neither more than sixty feet in altitude at the highest point. Sixty
feet! What is that? Men who get killed in the Alps do the thing in style and
tumble half a mile or so. All very well. Sixty feet is quite sufficient.
Anyone
who doubts this has only to step off the coping of his house on to the pavement
to be convinced. Happily this danger can only be obviated by sending round a
friend with a rope to the top of the cliff to play you up, and this should invariably
be done until you have assured yourself by frequent ascents that the climb is
well within your powers. I italicize these words, because the cliff is visited
by climbers of exceptional skill, and climbing of a somewhat desperate nature
is occasionally indulged in.
Onlookers who know
nothing of the game may be tempted to follow in their foot and hand holds (if
they can find them), and may hurt themselves. One of the best climb on Almes
Cliff is the Great Chimney on the High Man. It gives some fifty or sixty feet
of straightforward back-and- knee-work.The climber enters the chimney right
shoulder first, and with a little difficulty works his way up till his toes are
lodged in the lower crack. Then comes the tug of war. The next ten feet are
quite holdless and the roughness and angle of the crack something to the
climber's disadvantage. The body is firmly braced across the chimney by lateral
pressure of the arms, knees and feet, and is then lifted vertically a few
inches by a desperate wriggle. This is repeated several times, till the hands
can be reached into the upper crack, when it is usual to rest awhile. It is not
so easy to get the feet up to that crack as may appear at first sight. Closer
inspection will show the (proper) right wall just above it overhangs it considerably.
The finish of the climb, a long a, reach over a rounded edge, is not quite nice
in a high wind. Who was the first tailor? I don't mean Adam, with his fig
leaves, but the first man who took up tailoring commercially? Because I'm sure he invented gritstone. It plays
the dickens with ones clothes, especially when you back up. Once have I been
compelled to depart hurriedly to the nearest village to be, like a newly paid
bill,reseated. After my last day's scrambling there I pursued my homeward way
with my hands pensively clasped behind my back whenever I sighted anybody. The
climbing at Almes Cliff is almost inexhaustible. I could name half a hundred
problems right away, and some courses are of first class severity. I know of no
harder in climb in England than Parsons' Chimney. I have seen it done once, and
attempted it more than once, but, like Mr. OG Jones's friend, I do not like that 'infernal dangling'.
The Leaf Climb is quite a hard
little struggle. The left arm and knee are wedged between the jammed boulder
and the containing wall,and the body is levered up until the right knee and
arm can be thrown across. Then a comprehensive
wriggle brings the top of the stone within reach of the climber's left hand.
The Leaf can be passed easily on the climber's right, and
this course is to be preferred in heavy wind. There is a Stomach Traverse on
the famous Pillar Stone in Ennerdale, Cumberland, and there is a Stomach
Traverse on Almes Cliff. The Pillar Traverse is not very difficult, quite
reasonably safe though in emergency sensational. The difficulty consists in
hauling oneself about forty feet along a diagonal crack on the face of the
precipice; the safety lies in the fact that it is possible to wedge the left
arm and leg so firmly in the crack that it is something of a tussle to get them
out; the sensationalism arises from the fact that a considerable portion of
your frame is supported by some two thousand odd feet of the thinnest of thin
nothingness, with a nice, accommodating, and entirely finishing bump about
three hundred feet down to speed you on your short cut to the Liza Valley.
The
Almes Cliff Traverse is somewhat different. It is fairly safe — you cannot fall
more than 40ft; the sensationalism is to be found — easily — in the realisation
that you are quite likely to come off anywhere between the 4ft and the 40ft. And
the difficulty! There is no mistake about that. There are two points of attack
curiously resembling each other, yet differing as far as the right from the
left. The right shoulder attack :The right arm first, and afterwards the knee,
are wedged in a crack, and the body is then forced upwards by desperate
wrigglings aided by wild scrapings with the left foot (clearly shown by the
white scratches) until both hands can be reached to the top of a ledge to the
left of the climber. The left shoulder attack is very similar, except that the
arm has to be braced, elbow and palm and rather less vigour and a great deal
more delicate balance are required. On the ledge the climber generally lies on
his 'tummy'
This
position, however, is not the origin of the name of the climb. The next move is
to traverse laterally and upwards across the face of the cliff, with the
fingers in one horizontal crack and the toes in another. This would be
comparatively easy were it not that the rock between the cracks bulges out like
a typical alderman's corporation. The balance in places is nice enough, even
for a thin man. Whence the name of the climb. The bouldering at Almes cliff is
second to none. Ilkley would be another happy hunting ground were it not that
it is more frequented than the Almes Cliff district. There are one or two good
things on the Cow and the Calf, but the best of the scrambling is in the Valley
of Rocks. The Split Rocks Climb is not easy in itself, and is specially
valuable as instructive in the art of feeling at ease on a dangerous face. The
Crooked Crack is one of the stiffest little bits in broad Yorkshire; and there
are many others. Gritstone climbing is not mountaineering of course.
Nevertheless, much can be learnt. Balance, backing up, something of the
management of the rope something of the art of climbing with the least possible
fatigue, and all sorts of little things that go to make the complete climber.
CE Benson: First Published in Fry's Outdoor Magazine-1906
