pilgrimage, a few words must be said in praise of Borrowdale’s other
guardian height. “What was the great Parnassus’ self to thee?” wrote
Wordsworth, addressing Skiddaw; and the rock-climber smiles at the
question, for Skiddaw, having no rocks, is more attractive to the
tripper than to the cragsman. Yet no true lover of mountains will
fail to delight in Skiddaw, though it must be confessed that the
ordinary way of ascent, leading along the dullest part of the range,
which overlooks the treeless “forest,” does its utmost to make the
mountain seem uninteresting. It is significant of the local apathy and
lack of initiative, in dealing with mountain scenery, that a route
which was originally chosen in the days when such ascents were made
on horseback should still be the only recognized one for pedestrians,
and that the tourist, after following the path up dreary slopes to the
summit, should still retrace his steps by the same way--unless he is so
fortunate as to be lost in the mist, and to gain a new experience of
Skiddaw by some irregular and more exciting descent.
For the real charm of Skiddaw lies in its southern and western
portions, facing Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite, and the descent, at
least, should be made in this direction, over the great shoulder known
as Carlside, from which one may turn right or left, along the narrow
ridge of Longside, or down the lovely glen of Millbeck. It is from
this point that one can best appreciate, at close quarters, the beauty
as well as the bulk of Skiddaw. Every one who has been in Borrowdale
is familiar with the clear-cut outline of the mountain, standing out
so simple and shapely against the northern sky, and flanked on either
hand by the wooded promontories of Latrigg and the Dodd--a picture
which is in marked contrast to the notched and jagged battlements of
Scafell--and there is certainly a wonderful symmetry in the massive
buttresses, alternating with the deep-grooved glens, rounded off, like
a piece of sculpture, in flawless lines. But, seen closer, the mountain
reveals itself as a vast slope of varied colour and composition,
smooth everywhere, but patched and streaked with long strips of shale,
or grass, or heather, which hang down the great breast of the hill
for many hundreds of feet with surprising steepness. At the top is
a wilderness of stone, below it a green tract of turf or bilberry,
merging into purple heather or wide fields of fern, and all so subtly
woven and blended as to produce, especially in late summer and autumn,
a rich combination of tints. The Millbeck Valley, in particular,
divided by a pyramid-shaped buttress which juts out from Carlside, is
then most gorgeously clad in a vestment of many textures and hues.
Not less delightful, though for the most part unknown, is the descent
by Longside, a sharp spur, quite unlike the general character of the
mountain, which runs out north-westward from Carlside and culminates in
Ullock Pike; from which point, looking across a wild glen, one has the
most impressive of all near views of Skiddaw, sinking from cope to base
in a colossal steep of bare screes, which by its very monotony baffles
the eye of the spectator and cheats calculation as to its height.
I will say, then, that Skiddaw, albeit despised of climbers, is as
well worth knowing, in its own distinctive character, as Scafell
itself; but those who would know it must seek it not by the beaten
track but by the pathless solitudes where the raven still flies
undisturbed. Approach it in the right spirit, and Skiddaw will open
its heart to you, and you will learn that it is none the less a great
mountain because you cannot break your neck upon its slopes.
IV
Pleasures of the Heights
“What pleasure lives in height? the shepherd sang.” Only a very
lovesick shepherd, who had his own reasons for praising the valley at
the expense of the mountain, could have asked a question so foolish;
for the pleasures of the heights are manifold and beyond count. Let us
consider a few of these pleasures, just those cheap and simple ones
which are in the reach of anybody who, without aspiring to be a skilled
rock-climber or Alpinist, is drawn by his love for our English or Welsh
hills to spend long days among their solitudes, and to cope with the
difficulties, such as they are, of weather and season in planning and
effecting his ascents--the choice of routes, the fording of streams,
the avoidance of precipices, and the keeping of the right course in
dense and blinding mists.
Equipped, then, with a modicum of food, with map, compass, and
field-glasses, we sally forth emancipated from all that usually deadens
us to the direct messages of Nature. For it is one of Nature’s citadels
that we are scaling, and we know not in which of her varying moods
we shall find her; but we know that in these uplands all her moods
are beautiful, and that it is not the fair-weather climber that is
privileged to comprehend them best. Here, at least, is a region where
in all seasons, and in all weathers, not a sight or sound but brings
contentment to the mind.
It has been remarked by Elisée Reclus, in his charming _History of a
Mountain_, that of all forms of travel to travel upwards is the most
instructive, for by climbing a few thousand feet we enjoy more novel
experiences than in a lateral journey of as many miles, and it often
happens that the first experience of the climber, as of the aeronaut,
is to find himself in the country of the clouds.
As we start up the valley, perhaps, the “white horses” of last night’s
rain-storms are still racing down the slopes, and our staircase of
mingled grass and rock bears the shadow of the dense cloud overhead--a
scene of unrelieved dreariness to those who are unaware of what glories
it may be the gateway. Toiling upwards, we reach the swirling fringe
of vapour, which closes gradually round us and wraps from us all view
of the familiar landscape below. Still on and up we press, till, as we
set foot on the higher ridges, the magic of cloud-land begins; for lo!
what in the ordinary light of day were mere rocks and buttresses are
changed now and magnified into mysterious shadowy forms, looming dimly
out upon us from the mist, until we half wonder whether the compass
or our own memory has misled us, and we have strayed into some strange
unmapped district where the air is thick with phantoms. Often and often
have I had such thought, when beclouded on the great rocky plateau of
the Glyders or Scafell Pikes, or groping my way along one of the narrow
“cribs” of Carnarvonshire or one of the Cumberland “edges”; and I do
not think that any one imbued with the love of mountains would exchange
these hours of cloudy surmisings for all the crystal skies that give
the “views”, so desired of tourists, from the top. Not that I would
undervalue the exhilarating sensation--unlike anything else in life--of
reaching the summit of a mountain; but to the true mountaineer all
other interests are subordinate to the fact of the mountain-presence
itself, even if that presence be veiled, as it often is, in remorseless
drift of rain-cloud.
For it may be admitted that mountains, like some other objects of
human affection, are apt to subject their lovers to a chilling ordeal,
days and weeks of repeated denials and disappointments, until at times
the most ardent may despond; or if one present himself as a returned
prodigal, seeking instant favour after absence, he may but find, as
Thoreau expressed it, that there has been killed for him “the fatted
cloud.” But to the faithful there will come at last, quite suddenly and
unexpectedly perhaps, a moment which makes such gracious amends that
all past unkindnesses are forgotten. You are standing, it may be, on
some high ridge or summit, drenched with rain, buffeted by winds, and
wondering if perchance any sign is to be vouchsafed to you. The mist
floats by in thick interminable volume. But see! What is that small
dark rift in the grey monotonous curtain? Wider and wider it grows,
until it is framed there, like a magic stage among the clouds, and
through that gap, where a moment before you saw but twenty paces, you
may now see as many miles, a fair expanse of valleys, lakes and rivers,
with the sea gleaming in the background. Another moment, and it is
gone--to be restored again, and withdrawn again, in quick succession--a
shifting scene more glorious than ever eye has witnessed, save in the
region of clouds or dreams.
In a thick mist, such as is apt to enfold with extreme suddenness the
hills of which I speak, perhaps not to release them for days from its
shadowy grip, the careful use of a compass is almost a necessity,
except in places where the landmarks are familiar and beyond mistake;
for the transformation which the mountains undergo is surprising even
to those who know them best; and if once the true sense of direction
be lost, it is most difficult to recover it, especially on broad,
smooth plateaus or hillsides where there are no sharp-featured rocks.
In the ascent there is less likelihood of going astray, for there is
but one summit, and by climbing we shall find it; but in descending
there is always a greater possibility of error, with the chance, if we
get on the wrong side of the watershed, of emerging some twenty miles
away from home. The sensation of thus coming down on the reverse side
of a mountain range is most perplexing, for at first sight, and until
we can readjust our minds to the fact, everything seems confused, the
quarters of the horizon have changed places, north is south, and we
can hardly believe that our left is not our right. A friend of mine
who was lost on Snowdon in a mist, made his way down, as he thought,
towards Llanberis, with the intention of thence walking rightward
to Pen-y-Gwryd; he reached a road which he took to be the pass of
Llanberis, and duly turned to the right. Not until after he had
walked some miles did he discover that he was well on the way towards
Carnarvon, having descended, without knowing it, on the wrong side of
Snowdon and into a different part of Wales.
To be lost in a fog is of course no uncommon experience among strangers
who cross the fells. On one occasion (not strictly to be classed among
“pleasures” of the heights), when descending from Scafell Pike to
Langdale in furious storm and cloud, I met near Angle Tarn a wandering,
one-eyed tramp, who presented about as miserable an appearance as human
being could attain. The proverbial “drowned rat” would have scorned to
exchange plight with him. He had been discharged, he told me, a few
days before, from a hospital in a northern town, where they had taken
out one of his eyes without consulting him, and with the remaining eye
he was seeking his way to a relative at Keswick by the Stake Pass,
from which he had hopelessly wandered. As we descended Rossett Gill
together, for I took him back to Langdale, he confided to me that this
was his first experience of a mountain, and he thought it would suffice
till his death--an event which, but for his happening to meet our
party, would probably not have been long delayed.
A strange effect is produced, when one is descending, if the clouds are
descending too; for the deepening mist then makes the delay in reaching
sunlight seem endless. Down and down we go, and the gloom is still
beneath us, until we begin to wonder, like the first voyagers on the
Atlantic, whether we are sinking into some bottomless abyss from which
it may be impossible to re-arise; it becomes a burden and nightmare to
the mind; then at last there is a darkening of the vapour in one spot,
and far below we see the jet-black water of a tarn, or a bit of brown
mountain-side across the glen.
More inspiriting is the effect of climbing through and above the
clouds, as one sometimes can do, until one looks down from an upper
land of sunshine on a sea of mist below, from which the rocky peaks and
promontories emerge like islands. It occasionally happens, when some
high ridge is bathed in cloud on one side and in sun on the other, that
a climber, standing on the edge of the gulf, will see a small circular
rainbow projected on the mist, with his own head forming the centre of
it--a rare and curious experience for the wayworn pilgrim, thus to find
his image, like that of a saint, with a halo round his head, emblazoned
on the mountain vapours! Who shall say that the modern pilgrim is not
blessed, as his forerunners were, with celestial apparitions? The first
time I saw this phenomenon was on the ridge of Ben Nevis. I have also
seen it from Blaven, in Skye, and from the top of Scafell, looking down
into the cloud-filled chasm of Mickledore.
Not less marvellous are the transformations of the clouds themselves,
when, after a spell of storm, they break up under triumphant sunshine
and drift disbanded along the slopes. I remember how once, descending
from Tryfan after a wet and dismal day, and returning across the low
grassy moorlands to Capel Curig, I witnessed that strange form of
mountain mirage recorded by Wordsworth in “The Excursion.” The corner
of the valley above Llyn Ogwen was filled with dense mists, which came
seething and boiling out of the hollow like steam from a cauldron, and
as they broke up into small wisps and wreaths, under combined wind and
sunshine, gave an extraordinary appearance to the northern front of
Carnedd Dafydd, which was enveloped in a maze of billowy vapour, until
it was impossible to distinguish rock from cloud or cloud from rock,
and the illusion was exactly that which the poet has described:
Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf,
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky,
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed
…
In fleecy folds voluminous enwrapped.
It is nearly fifty years since I saw that sight, but we do not forget
what we see among mountains as what we read in books.
There dwell in the memory too (for I must not give the impression that
the mountains are always scourged with storm) the days and sometimes
weeks in succession when the weather is without a flaw--trance-like
spells when the hills stand calm and pensive in every vicissitude
of loveliness, now clear and imminent, with ridges sharply outlined
against the sky, now dim and ghostly, half shrouded in a mild and
breathless haze. But even the loveliest day is seldom perfected without
the ministry of cloud, for clouds are the Genii of the mountains,
concealing much, but revealing more, by their presence, and bringing
to view the manifold depths and distances that would otherwise be
unobserved. You cannot learn the moods and character of a mountain
until you have studied its attendant clouds.
Nor must the pleasures of winter be overlooked, for, as Southey wrote
of the mountains:
Who sees them only in their summer hour,
Sees but their beauties half, and knows not half their power.
It was pointed out by the same writer that snow, instead of making the
view of the fells monotonous, has a contrary effect, “it brings out all
their recesses, and differentiates all their inequalities.” Even clouds
are scarcely more efficacious in revealing the hitherto unnoticed
distances; for the snow, when not too deep, is a mask which does not
conceal, but takes a delicate impression of the hillside, so that
every crack and crinkle, every unsuspected groove, ravine, terrace, or
even sheep-path, is made to stand out in clear relief. To rocks, in
particular, a thin powdering of snow will give a strange, chequered,
almost ethereal look, reminding one of Scott’s lines about Melrose
Abbey seen under moonlight:
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory.
In the joy felt by the experienced climber on arriving at his
mountain-top the view, perhaps, plays but a subordinate part, though
there is always a fascination in a very distant prospect across sea
or plain, such as one may get in the early morning, or when the air
is clear after a rain shower or a snow squall, as when, from Wales or
Cumberland, as the case may be, one sees the Isle of Man resting like a
dream on the water, with a pillow of fleecy cloud around it. In this
respect the views from the two districts are very similar, for on every
side except the east their horizons extend to the sea, and both possess
the same great charm, lacking in the Alps and other continental ranges,
of overlooking a coast-line broken by shallow estuaries, where at low
tide there is an expanse of gleaming red sands, with the plain of dim
blue water in the rear. To have seen Snowdon from Scafell, or Scafell
from Snowdon, across the hundred miles that lie between them, is a rare
privilege which few climbers have enjoyed, and of which, in spite of
many visits to either mountain, I cannot personally speak; far more
often it is the great northern headland of Carnedd Llewelyn which is
discerned from the Cumbrian hills and bars the further view. Apart from
such remarkable sights as these, the pleasure of the summit, I think,
arises chiefly from that sense of _power_ to which a wide outlook
contributes--you feel how vast a territory you “command” from your airy
fortress; you are for the moment an overseer of men, a super-man, with
all the kingdoms of the world stretched at your feet.
Having spoken of the sights, let me speak of the sounds of the
mountain, for the ear is not less fascinated than the eye in these
echoing temples, where the upper cloughs and chambers are as huge
whispering galleries, and sounds are often carried from immense
distances, yet in so modulated and subtle a tone as to leave a
haunting impression on the mind. There is a solemnity about these
mountain voices which is only comparable, on a larger scale, to
the effects produced in the hollow space of a cathedral; hence the
perfect appropriateness, as has been pointed out, of Wordsworth’s much
criticized reference to the “solemn voice” of the mountain lamb. The
singing of the stream below, the deep croak of the raven as he sails on
his straight course overhead, the shrill cry of the wheeling buzzard,
the bleat of a sheep and even the noise of a detached stone falling
from the cliff to the screes, come to us with a significance which
would hardly be intelligible elsewhere. The wind, too, has some strange
things to tell us, as it tears itself into shreds on the rocks, or
lifts the water from the tarns and streams and dashes it in spray to
the sky, or startles us with muffled subterranean sobbings as we cross
some exposed ridge. Listening among the higher mountains in rough or
cloudy weather, we may hear sounds so wild and mysterious that their
origin wholly baffles us. There is also felt, at times, a strange
apprehension--or should we say premonition?--of the presence of human
beings, which may be due to the ear having become unconsciously aware
of their approach, if not to some other sense more poignant and occult.
One sometimes sees strange companionships on mountains. Once, when
I was on the Glyder Fach with some friends, we heard the steps of a
party ascending by the steep northern screes from Cwm Tryfan, and
presently two men came into sight, the leader with a cloak thrown over
his shoulder in cavalier-like style, the follower in the garb of a
serving man. In this manner they crossed the summit-plateau, and when
they neared the edge of the southern escarpment, the valet (for that
he was valet, not guide, we inferred both from his demeanour and the
order of their procession) dropped respectfully to the rear, while
his master stood for some time as if wrapped in thought, and gazing
out over the wide scene that had Cardigan Bay as its limit. Then, the
reverie ended, he turned back towards Cwm Tryfan, and followed by
his demure attendant, descended as he had come. Was he a prince or a
poet, we wondered; and if a poet, how could his sensitiveness bear the
near presence of a servant--a servant!--in that great freedom of the
mountain, where one would expect the distinctions of rank to disappear?
The voices of the mountain streams become, of course, less powerful in
proportion to the height to which the traveller attains, until from the
distant summits he hears them only in fitful intervals, now clear, now
hushed, according to the force and direction of the wind; but alike in
the valley and on the hillside there is that singular aerial quality
in the sound which makes it different to all other voices in Nature.
This is the music which De Quincey described as like that “of pealing
anthems, as if streaming from the open portals of some illimitable
cathedral,” and he adds, with special reference to the river Brathay,
in Langdale, that “such a sound does actually arise, in many states
of the weather, from the peculiar action of the river upon its rocky
bed; and many times I have heard it, of a quiet night, when no stranger
could have been persuaded to believe it other than the sound of choral
chanting, distant, solemn, saintly.” The same illusion, if it be an
illusion, may be felt by one who rests with closed eyes on the bank of
any of the small steep becks, which go purling down the slopes, to feed
the larger rivers below.
And now for the joys of the descent. The regret with which the mountain
lover turns his back on the summits and leaves
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
is tempered with the pleasure of choosing some well-pounded scree-slope
or soft grassy stair, down which he may race, with the skill and
sureness of foot which long practice has given him, towards the abodes
of men, and, like a miser turned spendthrift, may squander in one wild
fling the thousands of upward steps so laboriously amassed. It is
extraordinary with what speed, given suitable foothold, you may run
from top to bottom of a mountain which it took you hours to climb; the
Alpine glissade is hardly more glorious. Then, if the day be hot, there
awaits you that supreme reward and crown of your labours--the bath.
Can bliss be greater than that of coming down sun-scorched and
footsore, to the divine cool streams which fall from hill to valley
through a series of rock-pools, each a fit bath-place for an emperor,
or to the lakes which tempt the swimmer below, or to the sea itself,
never far distant from these mountains? To bathe after a stern day on
the heights is the elysium of the climber; no ordinary mortals can
understand the passion with which he betakes himself to the healing
waters. After coming off the Glyders in a burning sun, I have known the
traveller leap into Llyn Idwal, to the consternation of its motionless
fishermen; I have seen wonder, too, in the faces of wood-cutters by
Buttermere, at the sight of a fellow-being rushing down crazed, as they
thought, from the banks of High Stile, and plunging into the lake even
while a thunderstorm burst overhead. Assuredly the Delectable Mountains
themselves can contain nothing more delectable than their streams.
There is a reckless joy, too, in the descent on a wet and stormy
afternoon, when, after facing rain and wind for hours on the ridges,
we return home drenched and weather-beaten, with the exhilaration
that arises in the mind which has nothing to hope or to fear. Indeed,
the foul day has its proper place, no less than the fair day, in the
economy of the hills, when the rain-curtain is drawn visibly across the
valley, and scores of white runnels are coursing down the slopes, and
the voice of the swollen river sounds hoarser every hour, while it
rises as only a mountain river can rise.
Such are some of the pleasures which the mountaineer is heir to. But
whether we leave the heights in calm or storm, in sunshine or shadow,
we leave them only for the moment; we descend, but with an inner
prompting to return. However prosperous our ascent may have been, there
is always the something left undone, the ridge unclimbed or valley
unexplored, which is the spur to further effort. Here, if nowhere else
in the land, the sense of satiety is unknown; and it is to this mental
tonic, even more than to the bracing air of the heights, that we owe
the unwearied spirit which nerves us to walk more leagues upon the
mountains than we could walk miles upon the plain. For in the lowlands
we walk with the body only; in the highlands we walk also with the
mind.
V
Wild Life