We had some careful work still before us. The bed of the gully led steeply up to another large and slightly overhanging boulder that blocked the direct route, and our only possible method of getting above it was to cut steps away on the right, trusting to sundry very insecure grass holds. But these were much better than usual by reason of the frost. In fact the whole climb is perfectly sound in winter, though rendered very difficult. In summer it is often easy but dangerous.
TOP OF THE CENTRAL GULLY, IN WINTER. GREAT END]
From the steep right-hand side of the gully we could traverse with care to the main bed again, just above the boulder; whence to the top of the gully, looking from here like an Alpine pass, was a broad stretch of unspotted snow. There we joined the second party, who had come by the steep grass ledges of the central route. Their labours had been great--or else, indeed, they would easily have managed to get ahead of us--but not so much from the intrinsic difficulty of their route as from the need of continual caution in the more open portions of the climb. They had reached a ledge that overlooked the right branch, and were proposing to descend to our snow slope and cut steps up with us. We were nothing loth to give them a chance of showing their skill with the axe, and for a while halted to enjoy the grand prospect behind us, looking straight away towards Sprinkling Tarn and Borrowdale. But we found ourselves frequently buffeted by strong gusts of wind that swept furiously down the gully. The whirling snow at the little _col_, now so near, warned us of an approaching _tourmente_ on the ridge. Our section soon decided to start again, and just below a small cornice that crowned the gully we forged ahead, and plunged through the powdery fringe of overhanging snow. We sank in up to our waists, and had to wrestle mightily against the hurricane to find a firm footing on the wind-swept rocks beyond. It was no joke standing about there with the sharp, cold, drift snow from the Pikes blowing into our smarting faces. We could not hear ourselves speak, it was almost impossible to see the correct course; but there were two or three among us well acquainted with this ridge in its bitterest moods, and to these the others trusted. We floundered down to the right towards Esk Hause across the wilderness of blocks strewn over the great plateau, and in a hundred yards came to a boulder large enough to possess a lee side of its own. Here we halted for a chilly half-hour, waiting for the third section to arrive. I possessed their luncheon in my knapsack, a most regrettable circumstance from our point of view, inasmuch as it tied us to Great End so long as it pleased them to amuse themselves down there on the leeside of the mountain. We quickly demolished our own share of the provisions, and with an unselfishness rarely present in the great latterday mountaineering expeditions, decided to leave them a few sandwiches and to cloy the hungry edge of our remaining appetites with tobacco. We were not all smokers, but everybody present assisted in lighting the first pipe, such a labour was it to keep a match burning. We waited there in a close bundle until our feet were half frozen and our faces stiff with icicles. Then we became rather nervous about our missing friends, and debated whether they meant to reach the top that day, or whether they had turned their backs to the lunch and made for Sprinkling Tarn. The latter course seemed at once the most expedient for them and the most convenient for us, and gladly we acted on this assumption. It was just as well we did so, for the frost had sharply nipped some of us, and it was long before my heels gave me any sensation but that of a pair of snowballs in my boots. We slung round the Esk Hause, and had some fine glissading to the hollow of the hill below the crags.