An Early Mountain Rescue

by John Ruskin

(from England's Lakeland - a tour therein)

The famous rainbow-tinted Screes are on our right hand; next is Lingmell; then the Pikes of Scafell, (3,166 feet), and then Scafell itself.  These Pikes are the highest land in England, and much sought after by the ambitious pedestrian, although not always found.  It was in the summer of 1859 that, coming over from Borrowdale to Wastdale, over Sty Head, in our walking costume, we overtook a young gentleman attired as though for a lounge in Bond Street; shirt-collar had he, an umbrella-parasol, and (if we do not exaggerate) straps! yes, he was bent upon ascending Scafell Pike in straps!!  After that little walk, he said, he hoped to have the pleasure of meeting us that evening at William Ritson's, one of the excellent farm houses at Wastdale; whereto we replied something civil, but very much doubted in our inmost heart of the events coming off.   

                      John Ruskin
When we told one of the dalesmen what this superlatively dressed person was about to attempt, he pulled his pipe out of his contemptuous lips, and said 't' lad el dee', - meaning that it would be the death of him. 

When mist came on that evening, in such thick folds that Wastdale might have been Salisbury Plain for all that we could see of the mountains, the good dalesman and some friends of his started to feel their way up those pikes.  They found poor Straps, dead beat, but upon the very summit of the hill, lying down breathless upon his back, and watching the awful curtain of night and death descending upon him.  It was so dark that even the dalesmen themselves lost their way in coming down, and carried the poor young gentleman into Eskdale.  The Wastdale folk will do any kind thing for any body.

Also see first ascent of Napes Needle by WP Haskett Smith