button to main menu  Martineau's Complete Guide to the English Lakes, 1855

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Page 165:-
[unaccus]tomed nerves, though there is no real danger. It was in trying the other ridge, (which it is always fool-hardy to do,) that Charles Gough fell from the precipice, where his corpse was watched by his dog for two months, till it was found. Every one knows the story, as told by Wordsworth and Scott. There are stakes near the tarn where horses are fastened, and then there is a steep scramble to the top.
  view from Helvellyn
There are precipices on the east of the summit; but its mossy plain slopes gently towards the west. No mountain in the district is, we believe, so often climbed. Its central situation renders the view attractive on every account; it is very conspicuous; and it is not difficult of ascent. According to the Ordnance Surveyors, its height is 3,055 feet above the level of the sea; that is, 33 feet higher than Skiddaw, and rather more than 100 feet lower than Scawfell Pike. There are three modes of ascent from the Grasmere side;- the one by Grisedale Tarn: another from Wythburn; and a third further on from Legberthwaite. The one from Wythburn is the shortest, but by much the steepest,- the track beginning at once to climb the hill opposite the Nag's Head. The gushing stream which crosses the mail road near the Nag's Head comes down from Brownrigg's well,- the spring which refreshes the traveller on his way up or down,- bursting from the mountain side within 300 yards of the summit. There are two cairns on two summits, not far apart, from between which, in an angle in the hill, the best view to the north is obtained. These Men, (as such piles of stones are called) mark the
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