The Only Genuine Jones

In addition to his impressive Alpine tally, by 1897 Jones had a formidable number of British first ascents under his belt. On 28th of April he climbed what was probably the hardest route of the day, Kern Knotts Crack on Great Gable, which is now given a modern grade of Very Severe 4b. The way in which the crack fell was a thoroughly modern affair. Initially Jones would inspect the route with the aid of a top-rope and following several abortive attempts lead it from ground up; he is perhaps the earliest exponent of headpointing, at least in the British Isles. But his ascent wasn’t entirely clean, as it seems that initially entrance to the crack required "combined tactics" in the form of some judicious use of an ice axe. In fairness to Jones, such tactics were not as unusual then as they are today, for example leaders would often stand on their second’s shoulders as means of reaching far off holds.

Jones’ tactics did not go unnoticed. While rock climbing may still have been a young sport, around the dinner tables and mantelpieces of Wasdale Head and Pen-y-Pass the ethics in which it was to be conducted were already the source of much discussion. Many felt that such methods were contrary to the spirit of climbing, which was borne out of a desire for exploration and self reliance, and that the only ethical way in which a route should be climbed was ground-up and on-sight. Such ethics may seem trivial to some non-climbers, but in a sport that has no real rules, such ethics are paramount, and in Britain at least, are now engrained within its very fabric.

One of his most vocal critics was a young Cambridge student named Aleister Crowley, who will be know to most for other reasons. In his Confessions (1929) Crowley not only attacked Jones’ methods but also his ability:

“Jones had been blowing his trumpet about the first ascent of Kern Knotts Chimney; the top pitch, however, he had failed to do unaided. He had been hoisted on the shoulders of the second man. I went to have a look at it and found that by wedging a stone into a convenient crack, and thus starting a foot higher up, I could get to the top, and did so. I recorded this in the Climbers' Book; and the following day a man named H. V. Reade, possibly in a sceptical mood, followed in my footsteps. He found my wedged stone, contemptuously threw it away, climbed the pitch without it, and recorded the feat. That was a double blow to Mr. Jones. It was no longer a convincing argument that if he couldn't do a thing it couldn't be done.

But this was not all. Scafell is separated from Scafell Pikes by a pass called Mickledoor; and on the Scafell side it is precipitous. The ridge of the pass is well-marked; by going down a little, on one side one can climb the cliffs by the Broad Stand or Mickeldoor Chimney, on the other side by the North Climb; and so on. But it had been the ambition of every climber to start from the exact top of the ridge. This was called the direct climb of Mickledoor; and nobody had done it. That seemed to be a shame, so I did it. This time the fat was in the fire. My good faith was openly challenged in the smoking-room. I shrugged my shoulders, but offered to repeat the climb the following day before witnesses --- which I accordingly did. I suppose I am a very innocent ass, but I could not understand why anyone calling himself human should start a series of malicious intrigues on such a cause of quarrel. I must admit that my methods were sometimes calculated to annoy; but I had no patience with the idiotic vanity of mediocrities. I took the Climbers' Record to be a serious complication and never wrote in it without the fullest sense of responsibility. So when I found a solemn Te Deum being chanted on account of the fifth ascent of the Pillar Rock by a 'lady', I took my dog to the top and recorded, 'First ascent by a St. Bernard bitch.' When Jones, after the usual practice, had climbed Kern Knotts Crack, and three public school masters, who ought to have known better, said they had seen him do it, and it was a marvellous exhibition of skill and so on, I completed their remarks by a colophon: (Advt.) So much fuss was made about Kern Knotts Crack that Eckenstein took a young girl named Miss. Nicholls and asked her to lead up it, which she did."

It should perhaps be noted at this point that Crowley, while lavishing praise and adulation upon his friends, would treat those he did not like with a scorn and contempt that had an almost gleeful ferocity, and he does not seem to have liked Jones. Again, this is more than evident in his writing:

“Jones obtained the reputation of being the most brilliant rock climber of his time by persistent self-advertisement. He was never a first-rate climber, because he was never a safe climber. If a handhold was out of his reach he would jump at it, and he had met with several serious accidents before the final smash. But his reputation is founded principally on climbs which he did not make at all, in the proper sense of the word. He used to go out with a couple of photographers and have himself lowered up and down a climb repeatedly until he had learnt its peculiarities, and then make the "first ascent" before a crowd of admirers. Now the essential difficulty of negotiating a pitch of any length is that one has to waste any amount of time and strength while one is finding out where the holds are. There is no credit at all in repeating a climb.Another trick of Jones' was to get his friends to make dates with other people to try various unclimbed places, and then to postpone the expedition on various pretexts until Jones had managed to negotiate it by the method above described.This conduct seemed to me absolutely unsportsmenlike...”

Great Gable - the scene of many of Jones' triumphs.

Photo: Dan Harris

This animosity is perhaps as much a result of Crowley’s prickly nature as it is a result of the prevailing attitudes towards sport and recreation during the late Victorian era. Practicing regular sport, at least for the masses, would not have been possible if it had not been for the social and technological advances made during the second half of the 19th century. In 1853 Wordsell’s of Birmingham became the first factory to give its workers Saturday afternoon off, a revolutionary practice that quickly spread to the rest of the country, this combined with the growth of the railway network created a mobile population with leisure time to spend. This mobility, to a degree at least, extended into Britain’s social fabric, whereby hard work, a bit of luck and the ownership of some land allowed entry into the upper classes. It was this mobility that probably led to the well known British phenomenon of snobbery, as people attempted to emulate classes above their own; it was inevitable that these conflicting social characteristics were reflected in sport.

As a result, amateurism was held in the highest regard and it is no coincidence that those who were able to peruse its ideals were those wealthy, landed individuals for whom work was an unnecessary sideline. For example, in rowing, the "mechanics clause" excluded manual labourers from amateur competition, and as late as the 1920s, Olympic gold medallist Jack Kelly was banned from rowing at Henley because he had once been a brick layer. These attitudes also filtered down into the small world of climbing.

By the 1890s two distinct, schools of climbers had grown in England and Wales, which perhaps illustrate these characteristics like no other, namely the Lakeland climbers and the Welsh climbers. Since there was a great deal of permeability between the two, the schools can never be seen as being entirely separate, with individuals enjoying the mountains and company of their respective areas and ‘members’. The Welsh climbers, who were in fact mostly English but did most of their climbing in North Wales, were by and large upper-class gentlemen, intellectuals and professionals. They were wealthy, clever and cultured and had among their ranks some of the highest regarded poets, authors, philosophers and scientists of their day; perhaps there has never been a group with a higher combined IQ than that which gathered at the Pen-y-Pass Hotel at Easter and Christmas each year. They saw the mountains, and their sport of climbing them, through romantic eyes and believed that their sport could only be practised and fully enjoyed by individuals such as themselves. It is telling, how in his inaugural speech as President of the newly formed Climbers’ Club (of which Jones had been a founding member), C.M. Matthews gushed with satisfaction over the club's membership:

Wasdale; the spiritual home of English climbing and the seat of many a heated discussion. Great Gable is in the centre, on its left is Yewbarrow and on its right Lingmell

Photo: Charles Kenwright

“It [climbing] is a sport which combines admirable physical exercise with pleasures of a purely intellectual kind. It is a sport which makes us young again... It is a sport which brings us face to face with nature, and puts us in a quest for the unknown... It is a sport which enables us to throw off the cares and troubles of life.. It is a sport that from some mysterious case appeals mainly to the cultivated intellect. 'Arry and 'Arriet would never climb a hill... Above all, it is a sport that makes a man. It teaches boldness, prudence, co-operation, self control.”

Lakeland climbing on the other hand was more of a local affair and its main participants were, in general, Cumbrian professionals and tradesperson’s who while being well educated and cultured, did not quite match the levels at which the Welsh climbers considered themselves. Jones fit in well here, he was not from an affluent background or particularly wealthy himself, he did not attend Eaton, Oxford or Cambridge and while his job as a schoolmaster was a good one, it was not remarkably so. That said, with the exception of Crowley, he seems to have been able to transcend this divide and was apparently liked and well received by all. Most animosity seems to have been directed towards his two companions, the Abraham Brothers, who through their photography business made a living from climbing, thereby offending the fragile ideals of the amateur.

When in 1896 Jones had introduced himself to the Abrahams his motives must have gone further than a simple desire to meet the pair. Ever since his early forays into the hills of Meirionnydd he had been meticulous in documenting his activity and by now had accumulated dossiers of lengthy notes on his Welsh, Lakeland and Alpine climbs. At the time of their meeting, he had been exploring the Lake District’s crags for some six years and must have already had it in his mind to create a guidebook for the area. This was not to be a revolutionary step in itself, in 1894 Haskett Smith had published Climbing in the British Isles Vol 1 – England, Britain’s first proper climbing guidebook, and a year later followed it up with a second volume covering Wales. Haskett Smith’s books were not however, guides in the modern sense; they did not list or provide details for routes, but instead described the appearance and features of certain crags in alphabetical order, much like the entries of an encyclopaedia. Although they included some diagrams, they were deliberately lean on detail, too much after all, would remove any sense of exploration and worse still, might encourage ’arrie and ‘arriet to take to the hills.

Jones’ book was to be quite different. His first innovation came from his partnership with the Abrahams; the brothers’ photographs were used throughout; some were shots of climbers in action, others were of mountain scenes, while others were of crags with routes drawn upon them. The second, and more significant innovation, was the detailed description of routes and the introduction of a grading system, something that had hitherto not been attempted. It was a four tier system with routes graded as either Easy, Moderate, Difficult or Exceptionally Severe; Kern Knotts Crack inevitably falling into the latter category. Rock Climbing in the English Lake District was published in 1897 and was well received by the majority of the climbing community; it became so popular that it remained in print well into the first half of the 20th century, long after Jones had passed away. A glowing review in the Scottish Mountaineering Club’s Journal concluded:

“Altogether, author and illustrator are to be heartily congratulated on a book which should find a place on every climber's shelves. Old frequenters of Wastdale, turning its pages, will live over again days of their own upon the fells, and many to whom Wastdale is only a name will be drawn to come and see for themselves. May newcomers be fit though they be not few, may the best mountain inn in Britain never become a "fashionable hotel," and may Mrs Tyson and her hospitable household still, in the rush of new friends, keep a corner for the old ones.”

Anorther photo from Jones' book, this time showing a party of climbers in Coller's Chimney, Moss Ghyll

Photo: Abraham Bros.

This praise was not however, universal, with many questioning the validity of a grading system. Many felt that it was impossible to grade climbs accurately since “the mountaineer knows that technical “difficulty” is inextricably interwoven with an entirely distinct element of "danger “ and that “the estimate of "difficulty" among climbers varies largely with their physical conformation, just as their capacity to gauge "danger" fluctuates inevitably in accordance with their individual experience”. Both of these quotes come from the Climbers’ Club’s first guidebook, The Climbs on Lliwedd, by J. M. Archer Thompson and A.W. Andrews, which although published in 1909 opted not to grade routes, and demonstrates that even then the climbing community was yet to fully embrace the idea of grading. This was in spite of the fact that a number of guidebooks imitating Jones’ style had been published in the interim and were proving to be very popular with novice and expert alike. It is interesting that these quotes, as well as the review by the SMC, hint at the fear that publishing such guides would open climbing to the ‘lower orders’ who they felt would have a wholly negative impact on the sport and its development.Jones was of no such opinion, climbing had been good for him and he knew it could be good for others too. He felt that the vague descriptions that had previously been available, like those in Haskett Smith’s books, were of limited use to the novice and would discourage new blood from entering the sport:

“For such beginners, the mere statement of the position of a gully and the number and character of its chief obstacles would be quite useless. He requires something more; a suggestion here and here of the manner in which the troubles can be avoided or overcome, and a comparison of these difficulties with others.”

Furthermore, he strongly believed that climbing on the smaller crags of Britain was the best way in which to prepare for more serious expeditions; few could convey this rationale more eloquently than the man himself:

“Our [British] Alpine climbers of the highest rank are born, not made. But most of the others, taking with them some natural aptitude and plenty of money, are made abroad. Why do they not take their preliminary training for a year or two in Wales, or Cumberland, or on the Scottish hills? It would be much wiser and cheaper to support the ' home industry' so far as it goes, before making their debuts on the high Alps. Our British hills can give them no glacier practice, but they can learn a vast deal concerning rock-climbing before they leave the country. To such as these the book is primarily dedicated. There are no professional guides in Cumberland who know anything about the rocks. The amateur must come out and manage for himself. But it is here intended to show that the Cumberland school is a well-graded one; that the novice can start with the easiest and safest of expeditions, and can work his way up to a standard of skill comparing favourably with that of the average Swiss guide. There is nothing so instructive as guideless climbing, be it ever so humble in character. It makes the man wonderfully critical when taken in hand by guides later on, and renders him also much more able to profit by their practical instruction.”

British climbing as preperation for the Alps is a recurrent theme in Jones’ writing, and he published several articles on the matter, the most notable perhaps being English Climbing Considered Mainly from an Alpine Standpoint, in Volume 1 of the Climbers’ Club Journal. It strongly eludes to the way in which he viewed his respective pastimes, namely rock climbing and Alpinism. According to Crooke, Jones was rather inclined to underrate his work on the rocks of Snowdonia and the Lake District and considered his Alpine feats to be his greatest accomplishments. Crooke felt, and with some justification, that while his friend’s Alpine career was highly impressive, it was no match to his home one, and that his greatest influence would always be on his native rock. Time perhaps, was to prove Crooke right.

The summer of 1899 saw Jones back in the Alps. The first part of the season was spent in Zermatt, and then onto Arolla where he met F.W. Hill at the Kurhaus Hotel. They began their climbing with the two Dents de Veisivi and the Dent Perroc, which they completed in twelve hours from the Kurhaus and back. Then followed the Aiguille de la Za, a traverse of all the peaks of the Aiguilles Rouges, Mont Blanc de Seilon and the Pigne d'Arolla in one day, the Dent des Bouquetins, and a traverse of Mont Collon. On the 28th August, Jones and Hill set out on a hot and dusty Sunday morning for the West, or Ferpècle, Arête of the Dent Blanche, a route graded today as D+. In the sort of bizarre coincidence that often seem to occur in mountains both home and abroad, the night before Jones had bumped into his old friend W.M Crooke in the Kurhaus, who now accompanied the party on their stroll. As they slowly walked along the valley the two chatted freely; Jones spoke enthusiastically of all his climbs, of their first meeting nine years before, and of all that had happened since. At around 12.30 Jones and Hill met their three guides Furrer of Stalden, Zurbriggen (Clemens) of Saas-im-Grund, and Vuignier of Evolène at Hauderes, and here, after arranging to meet up in Zermatt on Tuesday afternoon, Crooke bid the two farewell and continued on his way, while Jones et al made their way towards their objective. According to Crooke, the party had intended on spending the night under a rock on the Ferpècle Arête, but for reasons unknown altered their plans and slept at the Bricolla Alp instead.

Dent Blanche from the west – the South Ridge is the right skyline, The North Ridge is on the left and the longer Ferpècle Arête in the centre.

Photo: Mathias Zehring

The following morning the party set out onto the Ferpècle Arête with Furrer leading, followed in order by Zurbriggen, Jones, Vuignier, and Hill. They were a strong team, and according to Hill, found the climb to be “a most interesting and enjoyable one”. The weather was warm and pleasant and spotting the indistinct silhouettes of what were obviously climbers near the mountain’s summit, it became evident that they were not the only party taking advantage of the good conditions. At around 10.00 am, while on a traverse, they reached their first real difficulty in the form of a large obtrusive gendarme. The route around it appeared uninviting and so, with some encouragement from Jones, Furrer was persuaded to climb the rock directly, but feeling insecure and unable to find sufficient holds, he called to Zurbriggen to hold an axe for him to stand on. The axe, with Furrer standing on its head and its shaft planted in the snow, proved unsteady and shook under the old guide’s weight. Jones, ever the enthusiastic client, scrambled up to help, holding the axe close to the head to steady it. The entire party was now at the same level, with Vuignier some ten metres away from the first three and Hill the same distance again. With the axe now steadied Furrer could reach the top of the buttress, and feeling around he grasped what he must have felt were two good handholds in an attempt to pull himself up. Unfortunately, he was mistaken and before his second foot had even left the axe his hands slipped, propelling him backwards into Zurbriggen and Jones, knocking both down. With muted horror, Hill now watched the three tumble down the awful rock face, the rope rapidly uncoiling between them and Vuignier. In a desperate attempt to secure himself, he instinctively turned and clasped the rock behind him; he did not see Vuignier fall, though he heard him, and knew that his turn would soon come. When it did not, he looked around. Beyond the ten meters of severed rope swaying gently from his waist, he watched his four companions slide down the slope below him, tumbling helplessly and silently with arms outstretched. Thus perished Owen Glynne Jones, “…a brave and dashing mountaineer, a cheery and kindly friend, whose presence will be long missed by all who had the privilege of knowing him”.

For reasons unknown, the rope between Vuignier and Hill had failed, but it almost certainly saved his life. Later he would recall the event:

“It is difficult to analyse my sensations at that moment. My main feeling was one of astonishment that I was still there. I can only suppose that Vuignier had belayed my rope securely to protect himself and me during our long wait on the traverse.”

He was now alone and in a difficult position, and what followed was a feat of quite remarkable courage and endurance that would eventually see him safely back in Zermatt. Save for five raisins, he had no food or water, he had no watch and his knowledge of the ground that lay before him was sketchy at best. Due of the technicality of the ascent, it was now impossible for Hill to down-climb via the same course, and naturally he did not wish to attempt the same line that Furrer had failed to complete. The only option he felt left to him was to attempt to turn the gendarme on the right and continue the climb to the summit. With difficulty, this was accomplished and he gained the crest of the ridge; within another hour he gained the summit itself. On reaching the summit he fancied he could hear someone shout a faint ‘cooey’, which he thought must have come from the party he had seen earlier that day; but he could not see them now and when he called back he received no reply. Fortunately, their footprints were still visible, and with reasonable speed he made his way down the mountain’s South Ridge, hoping to catch-up and overtake them. But by the time he had reached the ridge’s lowest gendarme, the fickle Alpine weather intervened and a sudden mist, which was followed by snow, obstructed the view. Thus, at around 2 pm, progress was rendered impossible. The poor weather compelled him to seek shelter and there on the gendarme he wedged himself into a shallow cave, tying into his remaining rope and jamming his ice-axe in two clefts in the rock to prevent himself from falling out. The cave was to be his home for some twenty-two hours.

The South Ridge of the Dente Blanche, as used by Hill on his escape.

Photo: David Holland

Finally, on Tuesday the storm ceased and with increased difficulty, Hill was able to resume his descent. The snow had partially erased the steps of the preceding party and he had to cut his own, progress therefore, was both cautious and slow. Further difficulties were encountered on the Wandfluh, a great ice-clad rockwall that projects to the south of the Dent Blanche. He‘d forgotten his way down and spent two or three hours desperately searching the many couloirs and precipices for a way onto the Schonbiihl Glacier. On one occasion he had the misfortune of dropping his ice-axe, and had to make a difficult hour long climb down the mountain-side to retrieve it. Once through the Wandfluh, he soon found himself on to the Zmutt Glacier, but by the time he had reached its high bank moraine, sun set was rapidly approaching and soon the enveloping darkness made it difficult to keep to the correct path. He wandered on, stumbling, falling and crawling through rock and undergrowth. Sometimes he hallucinated that his friends were beside him still and when he fell asleep he would then awaken, thinking he had been asleep in a chalet, and called to them that it was cold and time to go on. Eventually his fatigue defeated him, and he was forced to spend the remainder of the night beside the torrent from the glacier. It was late in the morning when he finally woke and following a short scramble he found the path to Zermatt, which he reached at half-past eleven. It was now Wednesday.

Later that day a telegram from Zermatt arrived in Arolla bringing news that “A tourist and three guides have fallen from the Dent Blanche”, though it made no mention of names. When news of Hill’s survival reached the town though, it was clear who the casualties had been. Search parties were sent out from Zermatt, Arolla and Evolène, and among the Arolla team was W.M. Crooke. The men searched through the night among the crevasses, ice falls and seracs below of the Dent Blanche and shortly after 10 am on Thursday, in the cool light of an Alpine morning, the indistinct shapes of what looked like bodies were spotted high among the rocks of the Ferpècle. Their bodies were soon recovered and carried down the mountain on wooden poles to Hauderes, where their caskets awaited them.

The following Saturday Jones’ plain black coffin, which was adorned with a simple gilt cross, was bought down from Hauderes and he was buried, along with Vuignier, in the little graveyard of the Roman Catholic Church in Evolène, almost in sight of the glorious but terrible mountain on which they met their fate. The little church was packed with the men, women and children of the village, who save for the acolytes and choir who wore brown, were all dressed in coarse white robes. A small group of Englishmen, tanned from their own mountain exploits, congregated at the rear of the building to witness the solemn service, which took place in a faith not of their own. After the service the two coffins were taken out into the graveyard where an Anglican chaplain performed an English burial service over Jones' grave, which was marked with a modest wooden cross. It is with grim irony that on the day before his death, when asked about the huge amount of climbing he had done, Jones had replied: “You see there are only a few years in which I can do this sort of thing, and I want to get as much into them as possible”. How few he could not have known.

He was just 31 years old on the day of his death; he had not married and was survived by his only sister Margaret Ellen who he had been supporting.