SCALING COLLEGES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 1 September 1924, Page 8

SCALING COLLEGES.

ALPINE CLIMBING AT CAM-

BRIDGE

Climbing feats are by no means rare at Cambridge, although it is unusual lor the climbers to court notoriety, and perhaps trouble, by leaving evidences of their prowess behind them. This sort of tiling happens on “rag” nights sometimes ‘ (writes “Old Alpinist” in the Daily Chronicle), and a college may awake one morning to find some lofty and. inaccessible pinnacle crowned with unsuitable adornment, hut as a rule the -climbers scorn to advertise themselves in this way. They do their climbing at night, when the University is asleep, and by tile time dawn breaks they have crept happily to bed, true to their ideal of “art for art’s sake.” There are several climbing clubs, chief of which is the Alpine Club, which draws its members from different colleges. No one knows the origin of these clubs. Probably, like most ininventions, necessity was their mother. If for any reason a graduate found he could not get back to his college by midnight, when the gates are locked, it was convenient to know of a way of getting in without- ringing up the porter and so letting himself in for a troublesome interview with the Dean. Gradually, one may suppose, college authorities made their fortresses more and more inaccessible, and to a spirit of competition arose which has nowadays no ulterior motive. The members of the climbing clubs know the walls and battlements qf every college in Cambridge as intimately" as a Swiss guide knows the rocks and crevasses of the Matterhorn. Some colleges a;re so- easy to get into that they tempt only the beginner. You can almost ualk into Downing, for example, and “Cat’s” and King’s are almost as easy. Others, however, call for strength, agility, and “nerve” of the highest order if they are to be conquered. Corpus is the hardest nut of all to crack, and there are very few climbers who have ever got into it without help from someone inside; which is, of course, against the strict rules of the clubs. One of the most daring “Alpinists” of recent years was a certain famous oarsman, who scaled every college in Cambridge, including Corpus, and then sought new worlds to conquer inside the colleges themselves. His greatest feat, which has never been done by anyone else, before or since, was climbing into Trinity b.y means .of the main gateway. It looks impossible. I am sure a monkey could not do it, and I certainly should not advise any man to try it again. To drop from its sheer wall from a height of 100 ft or so on to the cobble-stones below would he most unpleasant. This man wrote a hook on the most difficult climbs he had negotiated, with diagrams of his itineraries. I saw it in proof form, but I do not knew if it was actually published. He was doubtful about the wisdom of it!