Just opposite the corner round which one turns into the Lord’s Rake a rather slightly marked gully starts up from the side of the rake. It becomes better defined a few yards higher, and leads directly into Steep Ghyll. Almost at the same spot a ledge is to be noticed passing round to the left of the huge wall fronting us at this corner. This is the start of the Rake’s Progress, the happy name given to the well-known terrace leading to Mickledore. We shall have further occasion to allude to this ledge, but we now pass up the Lord’s Rake till in a few feet we come to a magnificent gully on our left, recognizable under any conditions except the most snowy by the cave at its foot. A fine View of Deep Ghyll and its surroundings may be obtained by scrambling up to the low ridge that faces us as we look outwards from the cave. The ridge is somewhat broken up, and the terrible accident that caused the death of Professor Milnes Marshall at this spot must be a warning to any who wander up without thought of danger.
The orthodox route up the first pitch in Deep Ghyll is by the cave and chimney. It is the most interesting way, and probably in dry clean weather it is the easiest. When the chimney is cased with ice the route may become impossible. In that case a recess in the right wall (right, of course, when looking up at the climb) is often taken as a winter emergency exit; for although the holds are slight in summer, loose stones well bound up make it quite feasible in frosty weather.
The hardest way up the pitch is by the thin cleft between the big boulder and the left wall.
Passing up for about 150 feet we find a steep slope of rock occupying the left half of the gully. The scree in the other half leads up into a cave whose black rectangular aperture may have been observed from the Lord’s Rake ridge. The cave is formed by the ubiquitous jammed boulder, and no through route can be effected. A thin chimney cuts between the rock slope and the huge vertical left wall that rises with scarcely a break to the Low Man on the Scawfell Pinnacle. This chimney constitutes the easiest and safest route over the second pitch. On the right face an irregular ledge leads to a larger chimney (Robinson’s), which with some trouble can be followed till a level about twenty feet above the top of the cave pitch is reached. Thence a small terrace offers an easy promenade to the upper bed of the gully. A third way of taking the difficulty has been found; indeed, it is the most obvious way, though much the hardest. It is to climb the left wall of the cave entrance, and then wriggle up between the rock slope and the cave boulder.