EAGLE FRONT: Eagle
Crag, Buttermere, 500ft VS 4c.
“The final crack looks most
spectacular from the floor of the combe. To my indescribable delight it was
loaded with splendid hidden handholds. Up without pause, with song in my heart,
if not in my throat. A short scramble led to the top of the crag where Bert,
afterwards, joined me. We sat there, together, in the sun. The evening was
still;....
So described Bill Peascod the
crowning moments of one of the finest climbs he pioneered on the
“Appen we
could go across and do Dexter Wall?” offered Baz hopefully, casting loving
glances at the shimmering sunlit crags a mere two hundred yards away, climbers
gearing up below in shorts and T-shirt. But the thought went unanswered.
Instead we slogged up to the toe of Eagle, put on thermals and racked up. There’d
never be a better chance. Baz led off. It was 2 o’clock. We had eight pitches
and 500ft ahead of us. It was cold in the shade, and below on the scree the eye
of a rotting sheep winked up. I tried not to think of omens and turned to watch
Baz move up the rib.
The first
6Oft to a grassy bay is easy enough, not more than V.Diff. I took the rack of
dear and led through. Now the fun was starting. The second pitch is 9Oft, 4c,
and dubbed Little Botterills after the bigger climb put up by its namesake on
Scafell. I got some wires in the steep groove and pulled over onto a gangway
running up to the left. Teetering up I found another good nut, clipped a rusty
old peg and came face to face with ‘The Difficult Bit’, a steep slabby corner
with little in the way of holds. Those available were rounded and sloped down,
away from the crag, making balance an act of faith in sticky rubber. It
suddenly seemed very exposed’
“Right, I’m going for it!” I shouted, and balanced up, boots creeping on holds
and finders with as much adhesion as buttered onions. A rounded pinch-pull got
me level with a small holdless platform. I mantel shelfed on and squatted
there, swaying slightly, like someone caught short with the runs. Laboured
breathing would throw me off backwards. I held it, eased a Rock I into a
fingernail crack and hurried right by faith and friction to more comfortable around
and a bombproof Friend. Phew! Easy slabs left and then flakey jugs back right
to a belting stance. And what a view!
Baz came up smoothly and took over. Pitch 3 is 6Oft, 4c and with an awkward
pull up to start. When Peascod and Bonninton did the route for TV in 1985, Bill
stood on Chris’s head to get up the first bit! I wasn’t in such generous mood
and left Baz to find his own way, but it’s only one long reach, a couple of
shimmies up and a move round the rib to the right before difficulties are over
and the Green Terrace quickly reached. Some might think this big ledge spoils
the route, yet, oddly, it just seems to add to it Basically it’s a walk left
for 7Oft, just one mossy slab to cross. But smooth rubber and wet grass have
about as much affinity for each other as Serbs and Croats, With a worms eye
view of the flora I shuffled across the hanging gardens to the rock ledge at
the end. Belays are minimal and a ill Friend proves useful.
Pitch 5 is
the hardest, 4Sft 4c and needs a cool head. Fortunately, it was Baz’s lead,
though even ‘Mr. Cool’ was heard to murmur ‘There’s not much in the way of
holds’. There’s even less in the way of protection and the step across from the
steep wall into the groove is a bit of a heart—in—mouth affair. But once
committed the holds arrive, not big, but sufficient to land one on Nail Ledge,
where the first ascensionists used a pit nail for a belay! There’s a peg or two
there now, but it’s an exposed, sloping stance - and the prospect ahead
improbable.
“Above
and to my left the wall bulged in a most disconcerting fashion. A way seemed
possible to the right across steep ribs to a water—worn slab. And when my turn
came to move I discovered just how delicate this traverse was and pondered on
the sloping nature of the holds and what they would be like in wet weather.
Gulp! One
look at the rightwards traverse and no way was Pitch 6’s 7Oft 4b. It is, of
course, but it doesn’t look it and is the most exposed part of the whole climb.
I worked right, moving on slopers and little finder undercuts, like a tightrope
artiste - all delicate balance while wrestling with a mouthful of wires. step
across the void and I pulled onto the slab with its alarmingly sloping holds.
But it’s only short and soon there’s a good groove to a fine ledge. But God
help anyone if the slab is wet. Reputedly it often is.
Now for
the ‘piece de resistance’. If one feature draws the eye to Ea1e Crag it’s the
great hanging corner at the top of the buttress, a real ‘open book’ job. We
were at its foot, and it looked quite magnificent. Pure, clean, vertical rock,
soaring up into nothing. Textbook stuff. What a pitch to finish with. 7Oft of
4b bliss for mid -grade bumblers like ourselves. It was Baz’s lead.
I payed
out the ropes and contemplated the combe, nothing between my boots and its
velvet contours 400ft below. Magic. What a situation. But why weren’t the ropes
moving quicker’?
He should
be up it by now?
“What’s up?
Having problems?” I shouted.
“No, no
problems at all. It’s just so good I don’t want it to
end!”
That
rather sums it up. It looks a bit thin, only an off-width crack in the right
anile. But Bill Peascod was right, there are loads of hidden holds making the
bridging easy yet spectacular. At the top a step right onto a grassy belvedere
and one short
scrambling pitch to the top.
We
surfaced, like Bill Peascod and Bert Beck must have done, into the warm evening
sun. We’d been a long time, over 5 hours, but it didn’t matter. We, too, both
felt elated. It had been a memorable climb, all the more so for its sense of
history. Baz set the self-timer and we captured ourselves against the deeply
hued ridges of Dale Head, Grasmoor and Skiddaw behind us. And from the summit of
the fell spectacular views across to Pillar, Cable, Great End and the Scafells.
The weekend crowds had qone. The eveninq was still;....
“We
were alone in the combe -in the
world! The war, the pit.... they didn’t exist. We didn’t say much. What was
there to say? Each of us was drenched in his own emotions, dreaming his own dreams
and experiencing that most exquisite of sensations - the elation of success at having climbed something
really worthwhile. We called the climb Eagle Front”
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