2-913-878 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Swirrel Edge, Mount Helvellyn, 1854. Mountains in the Lake District. '...toward Ulswater, Helvellyn presents a fine precipice, with Red Tarn lying below it; and, on either side of Red Tarn, the two great buttresses of Swirrel Edge and Striding Edge...It is perhaps, not very dangerous to any one with good nerves and sure feet; but certainly it is very steep and rugged, and the path narrow - in one part so narrow, that you look down a precipice of some hundreds of feet on each side of you, and could drop a stone down from each hand at once. When the clouds are rolling over the Edge, the place looks sufficiently awful; and the traveller might almost think he had but to climb the sharp edge to some high point, standing up like a needle in the mist. Very little mist will hide the mountain. On the morning we last went along the Edge we saw nothing of Helvellyn till we stood upon it'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.