The Wainwright Fells
The “Journey” began in between leaving primary school and starting secondary school. The (primary) school had organised a five day walk through the Lakes. Most of the walking was low level, taking the passes between valleys then staying in Youth Hostels. The first day’s walk however was over Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, better known as “The Wasdale Screes”. From memory I think we walked along the lake shore beneath the screes, very rough, then ascended and walked back along the tops.
That was in 1970.
That “Journey” - to complete all 214 tops from Wainwright’s seven volume series of guidebooks to the Lakeland fells took a little longer than expected. From memory I think it was another couple of years before I knew of those books and bought my first, The Southern Fells. I've the 45th impression, Googling doesn’t give much clue as to when that was printed, the AI overview suggests 1990 but the gold blocking on the cover of my edition was discontinued in 1980 so what does it know?
The “little longer” turned out to be 55 years. Let’s say I wasn’t in a rush.
I certainly wasn’t logical or strategic in visiting the tops: I hadn’t done any of the fells in the Northern Fells book until I began training for my Bob Graham Round; Others, like Bowfell, I did many, many times over the years. By the time I moved away from the Lakes I’d done around 160.
If truth be told, that 160 probably contained most of the best tops in the district. The remainder, while not being “unworthy” do feel like “book fillers” at times, Hartsop Above Howe being a case in point. From the valley it looks a worthy objective but the reality is somewhat disappointing as it’s little more than a rise on a long ridge. Watson’s Dodd or Mungrisdale Common? Come on!
Conversely, tops such as Rannerdale Knotts are cracking viewpoints.
This range of perceived quality is partly down to there being no empirical measurement such as “X metres (or feet) ascent from all directions” that helps define the Munros though even that doesn’t guarantee quality - two of the most widely regarded “best” mountains in Scotland are Suilven and Stac Pollaid, neither of which are even a Corbett (the next lower elevation listing) but are in the list of Grahams. Geology, glaciation and erosion have little regard for the transient vagaries of human aesthetics.
Given my generally haphazard approach to those early summits I’ve little recollection of when I did many of them: the central ridge lying between Borrowdale and Thirlmere I remember doing one day when my mother intended going shopping in Keswick so she dropped me off in Langdale and I squelched my way northwards - suffice to say I’ve not been back to those fells! Quite often I’d nip out on a summer’s evening after work and run one of the various horseshoes, sometimes they were new to me, other times they weren’t, things just become a blur after time.
One thing I was consistent with though was marking off those tops I‘d done in the guidebooks. That meant when I came to systematically bagging the remainder I at least had a starting point.
The tales, such as they are, are organised by volume rather than chronologically. Peak names in a cartouche like Bowfell when clicked will display an info dialog about the peak.