The Central Buttress of Scafell
Edited by Graham Wilson
| cover | hardback | |
| dimensions | 170x120mm, 192 pp | |
| price | £13.95 (list) | £12.50 (website) |
| ISBN | 1 902173 163 | |
“This collection is as taut as a good thriller, as beguiling as a love story and opens a window onto a singular climbing era.”
John Horscroft, Climber, March 2006
Ten historic articles, reproduced by courtesy of the Fell & Rock Climbing Club and The Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club, chart the stages by which this legendary Lake District route was besieged, conquered and finally, apparently, domesticated. Or was it?
In his introduction and commentary, Graham Wilson assesses the growth of the myth, the challenges of the climb and its status ninety years on. The articles range from Ashley Abraham’s call to action in 1907 and Sansom’s account of Herford’s first ascent in 1914 to Mabel Barker and Jack Carswell’s entertaining description of reversing the climb in the 1930s.
And, as a coda, a twenty-first century account by a young woman climber reflects on the achievements of those who went before.
“…there is a rich harvest of writing here that, when brought together, reveals a community sharing the gradual solving of entertaining problems in all its competitive detail… This little book demonstrates what ought also to be true today: how questions of style, imagination and personality are resolved into the changing meaning of a climb.”
Terry Gifford, Climb, April 2005