THE PERILS OF MOUNTAINEERING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 38, 13 February 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE PERILS OF MOUNTAINEERING.

Though Christmastide in the Old Country brought with it a goodly crop of the minor tragedies of life in the shape of murders, suicides and accidental deaths, the general public's feelings were not harrowed by any railway disaster of magnitude such as the season of Peace and Goodwill has brought in too many of the years gone by. Perhaps the most distressing of the Christmas calamities this year was the fatal accident which occurred to Mr Goodall, a well-known North Country journalist and climber, who was killed on Sea Fell on Saturday afternoon whilst descending Deep Ghyll. Sea Fell was in September last the scene of two mountaineering fatalities resulting In five deaths, but the present accident differed from its predecessors in that there was no hazardous attempt by untrained amateurs to scale impossible rocks; it was simply the result of a slip on a snow slide. The yearly gatherings of climbingmen at Wasdale Head have become a well-established institution, and Christmas and the New Year time never pass without an assembly there of poetised climbers. Christmas Day saw such an assembly, and on Saturday morning a party, consisting of Messrs Goodaill. Botterill. Williamson and Benbow. were climbing in the Sea Fell groups. Shortly after mid-day Mr Botterill and Mr Goodall, who were both experienced rock-climbers, left the other near Lord's Rake to climb the Sea Fell pinnacle. They did not attempt the hazardous route which proved fatal in September, but climbed by the ascent from Steep Ghyll- There was a very fine sunset, and the climbers went to the cairn on the summit of Sea Fell to view it. and were so charmed with the glories of the radiant afterglow that they simultaneously turned to each other, shook hands, and congratulated themselves on having lived to see such a sight. They then returned to make the descent by Deep Ghyll. Ordinarily this is a rockclimb, but on Saturday the ghyll was filled with snow, and presented the appearance of a safe snow slope. After Botterill and Goodall had unroped after the climb Botterill proposed to lead, but Mr Goodall said he would like to go first, as he wished a little more experience of glissading. They had only one ice axe, and Mr Goodall took it, and, starting, went down to the lower edge where he stopped. Immediately afterwards he lost his balance, fell on his

back, lost his hold of the axe, and before the horrified gaze of his companion, continued sliding down the slope, first on his ba-ck and side and then on his face, head, foremost, until he disappeared from view some 250 ft from the top- From this point his* course was over an unbroken icefalf some 200 ft further to the base of Deep G-hyll, debouching on Lord's Rake, on the rocks of which he struck and was instantaneously killed. Mr Botterill, though utterly unnerved by the hideous fate of his comrade set himself the task of attempting the descent which had just proved fatal to his companion. Fortunately for him. he found the ice axe, and with this cut his laborious way down the ice to the foot of the ghyll, where he arrived safelyafter three hours' exertion. Poor Goodall was a newspaper reporter and correspondent at Keswick for daily newspapers, and it was he who forwarded many of the particulars connected with the victims of the September catastrophe.