button to main menu  Gents Mag 1900 part 2 p.358

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Gentleman's Magazine 1900 part 2 p.358
Between the distant Catbells and the nearer Great End was a splendid vista of Borrowdale with Derwentwater - a well of green, on which floated several darker patches. A sullen waste of water among savage, rocky mountains - the older guide-book writers would have described Styehead Tarn. The Gables stood in a mighty wall across the valley, their foot in depths unseen, their summits now wreathed in swirling cloud. The crest a few seconds ago sheered clear and bright, but a wave of mist overcame it. On Broad Crag we again encountered the horrible pave of oblong blocks piled at all angles, for which this range is notorious. As we got along the ridge - and though laborious, the pace was fast - Wastwater came into view over Lingmell Crags, and we then saw that the Pike, the highest summit in England, was clear of mist. For the last hour a steady drizzling rain had been falling, and we had been wet through for some time, but we faced that last loose slope eagerly. The boulders round the summit attest to patience and ingenuity, for level paths have been made to the half-score low shelters dotted among the crags. From this point we got our only tolerable view of the west. The cauldron of Ennerdale still poured its vapour over Great Gable to roll in long irregular volumes eastward, but through the gap of Wastwater was a darker band - the Irish Sea. At the most favourable moment, almost the whole coast-line from St. Bees to the Lune was in view. Wide expanses of glittering sands marked the estuaries of Kent, Leven, and Duddon, but further out a dense blue mist shut out all possibilities of the view of Man, Ireland, Scotland, and Snowdonia, for which this peak is famous. We did not stay long by the cairn, as at any moment the western breeze might whip an outlying cloud over us; indeed, we had not gone more than halfway towards Broad Crag when this did happen. It was, however, so thin that we hunted saxifrages among the rocks, and had a look down Piers Ghyll before going on. What a tremendous gulf this is! Half a mile down was the main gully, with a few of its cliffs, tiny with distance, visible. Crossing the crags to Great End was an easier task than before, and soon after half-past five we were near Eskhause. Just as we entered the basin of Angle Tarn a big black raven wheeled past with a threatening croak. I made towards the crags it had left, imagining I heard the cries of young, but the sound evaded me. The parent, however, was marked by my brother, who, through his field glasses, distinctly saw it enter a gully in the crags of Pike o' Stickle, and even so distant its angry voice was plainly heard. As we got into Langdalehead, a horseman who had that morning (it was not yet seven o'clock) ridden from Seathwaite, in the Duddon
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