LAST June the Climbers’ Club very kindly allowed two of us to use their excellent hut, the Bosigran Count House, which is on the north coast of Cornwall some seven miles west of St. Ives. There is a bus service which passes within a mile or so of the hut, but we reached it on bicycles hired in Penzance. This is much the best way, and we found the bicycles invaluable for reaching other parts of the coast, the Chair Ladder, for instance, being twenty miles away. Most of the climbing seems to lie on the cliffs on the north coast of the "toe" of Cornwall, between St. Ives and Land’s End; but some of the best, including the Chair Ladder, is just south of Land’s End. We arrived on a blazing June afternoon, and after a little scrambling around we dived into the sea, braving the breakers, and then spent the rest of the day sunbathing.
The Count House stands a few hundred yards from Bosigran Castle, a steep face of clifF some hundred and eighty feet high, which has, so far as we know, not yet been climbed direct. At the foot of this cliff stands Porthmoina Pinnacle, a narrow, fan-shaped, slice of rock, one face of which rises almost sheer for a hundred and fifty feet. We spent a whole day here and climbed all the recognised routes. We found the central western traverse the best for its sustained interest, and then the central eastern traverse for its verticality and the smallness of its holds. The climbs on this pinnacle give delightfully airy situations, though the standard of difficulty is never higher than " very difficult."
When we arrived in Cornwall we expected the climbing to be stiff; as photographs, and in particular Brian Donkin’s superb film, shown to the C.U.M.C. last Easter, had seemed to indicate. This is, however, a deception. Cornish granite is 80 rough that vertical rocks are often ascended with perfect ease, and the limiting factor is not so much the smallness of the finger holds, as the discomfort they cause the climber. On all but the hardest climbs there is as a rule a lavish supply of "jug- handles ". At times one-feels tempted to discard the rope, but this would be rash – the rock may be easy, but the sea is rough. The rope is not needed so much for checking a fall, as for fishing out the unlucky from the sea, which, even on a fine summer’s day, is rough enough to do serious harm to anyone staying in it for more than a few seconds. In any case it would be well-nigh impossible to land unaided, although while we were there J.M.E., who was also oh holiday, was developing an amazing technique for getting out of rough seas on to vertical rock. Imagine trying to do . this with the waves breaking against the rock with such force that they shoot upwards for thirty feet; and it is even possible, if one is traversing low, that the sea may take the initiative with an unusually large wave, and sweep the unfortunate climber dean off his holds, It is on such occasions that a rope becomes essential.
There is a wealth of description of the climbs, and of how to get to them, pinned up in the sitting room at the Count House, and also some useful large-scale maps; but it has been the policy not to describe in detail the actual climbs, but rather to indicate the best climbing grounds: a practice which we found amply justi6ed by the increased fascination of doing unknown and unrecorded climbs. Those who like to know every step of their climbs beforehand had better avoid Cornwall. We consider it is much more fun to wander where- ever one feels the inclination and climb anything that looks interesting. In the accounts in the hut we found the traverse from the Great Zawn to Brandy’s referred to as the finest climb in the district, and accordingly set out to try it. The best sport is often to be found in long traverses round the coast, perhaps on account of the general lack of height, and the perfection of the ledges. These are incidentally superb for sun-bathing. Keeping a wary eye on the tide, the climber can work his way from cove to cove, passing over rocks of widely varying difficulty all the way. There are many inlets which present problems, sometimes forcing him to climb higher to circumvent them, or else to descend until the gap is narrow enough to permit him to step across; or perhaps forming an impasse, when he will have to swim for it. We did not finish this particular climb, but consider that it would be hard to beat.
We walked eastwards along the cliff, and then down to the sea, and began by traversing some interesting slabs, until we came to a deep gorge where the sea cut inland between steep walls for about twenty yards. This we concluded must be the Great Zawn, and we crossed it in stockinged feet by a bridge of rocks at the inland end. Then there followed two further zawns, each one harder than the one before, Thc second had walls so steep and smooth that a crossing up one side and down the other was out of the question, and it looked as if we should have to turn back, until we found that at one point the sides con- verged for all but four feet, where a long step would just reach an awkwardly sloping foothold on the other side, which led into a vertical crack. After all preparations had been made and the rope firmly belayed, the step proved to be of the utmost simplicity. The third gorge was a very different matter. The problem was this: on our side easy rocks led down to the water’s edge, and at the end of the zawn was a cliff of vertical grass. On the other side, twenty feet away, was a steep wall, up which the only way was by means of a crack, whose first ten feet looked unappetisingly difficult. Between us and this crack was a churning mass of water which rushed up the gorge every few seconds in a solid wall fully eight feet high. Could we climb the crack, having swum across, and get sufficiently high in time to escape the next wave? We answered the challenge by sitting down on the rocks like a couple of seers, attempting to predict after how many waves would come a lull. We worked out many a fancy rule, but each was a miserable failure. Eventually we stuffed our rubbers into the rucksack and gently lowered ourselves to the very variable water’s edge. Here we quickly tied ourselves on to the rock, and were immediately knocked silly, disconcerted and drenched, by the next big wave. After meditating awhile on the brink, one of us finally took a deep breath and plunged into the momentarily quiescent foam, while the other held on grimly to rope and rock. Everything went blank for the leader and the next thing he knew was that his fingers were instinctively clutching at the intended hand- hold. Somehow he managed to scramble ten feet up the crack before the next wave came and all but washed away his feet; it subsided and he was left safe. The second man followed in like manner, and then we both spent some happy minutes of great relief drying our clothes in the sun, while we sat and sun-bathed and ate chocolate. The rest of the climb as far as Bosigran Castle included an interesting traverse and crack, about "very difficult," and then easy rocks. When we got to the Castle, we found that time did not permit us to go any further: but from all accounts the remainder of the climb is even better than what had gone before.
The next day we cycled over to the Chair Ladder, which is on the south-west corner of Cornwall, and facing into the sun. It has an intriguing pair of granite buttresses, so furnished with niches and nobs that it seemed possible to wander all over them. We discovered three or four excellent climbs between a hundred and a hundred and fifty feet in length, varying between "difficult" and "very difficult" in standard. Our visit was however, tinged with tragedy, as there were four fatalities, among young cormorants who walked off a ledge in disgust at us, and fell to their doom on the rocks below. The Chair Ladder deserves several visits, as also, we should imagine, does Carn Les Boel, which we did not have an opportnuity of climbing.
In conclusion, if you take our advice and visit Cornwall some day, be warned from the outset that you will certainly be disappointed if you go there in search of the awe-inspiring and the sublime. Cornish climbs are rather trifling in comparison with the real thing, but their charm lies in the striking differences between them; in that variety they give, which is the essence of a full life. Cornwall does not deserve the yearly pilgrimage which the hills demand from the initiated, but for a change it cannot be too highly recommended; especially to those in search of a hot too strenuous holiday, with fine weather.