It’s all Wainwright’s fault

All of this Lake District peak-bagging is Wainwright’s fault, more so than Bob Graham’s. His seven masterpieces have been staple reading for millions of walkers, runners, climbers and lovers of the Lake District fells in general since they were pulished between 1955 and 1966. I stumbled upon them aged 13 and they’ve been my bibles ever since. If it wasn’t for the little handwritten and hand-drawn obsessions of a Lancashire cum Lakeland accountant, I’d probably be four stone heavier and hanging around train platforms or something. As it is, another midwinter round beckons, as does all that training :-)


I first read these little marvels at my Venture Scout leader’s house, having never even set foot in the Lakes, although hillwalking was finding its way past football thanks to Scout camps in the Yorkshire Dales. I was hooked at once. I’d never read or seen anything like them (and still haven’t). I was suddenly crying out to see these fells just from reading these books. I finally went there aged 14 on another Scout camp and was mesmerised, a bit like AW must have been on Orrest Head. For me it was a wintry climb up Skiddaw. Since then, the fells of the Lakes have been my Mecca, despite seeing and climbing bigger, harder, more spectacular mountains in the UK and the Alps. It’s the Lakes I’m missing even now, sat on a beach in the Maldives.


Readers will probably know that the gruff, Blackburn born accountant Alfred Wainwright handwrote and drew seven exquisite guides detailing the natural features, ascents, views, ridge routes and much else besides of 214 fells in the Lakes which he considered to be worthy of a separate chapter, because they were, by his arbitrary and shamelessly inconsistent logic, fells in their own right. Despite what you might think about his choice and definition of what makes a separate fell rather than a ‘top’ (for example, I am staggered that Mungrisedale Common, Watson’s Dodd and Armboth Fell get chapters but Ill Crag, Broad Crag and Little Stand do not. There are many other bones of contention...) his guides are pre-eminent. They are immensely popular and loved as artworks and love letters to the Lakes as least as much as they are as sources of information. They are in my view quite simply the best guidebooks ever written. They are dating now, and yet remain strangely timeless. They will probably never be out of print (they are being updated but you can still purchase the now increasingly inaccurate but no less terrific originals). As you can tell, I love these little books. I also adore some of his many other works (his Pennine Way Companion is superb). They are the reason that I got to know the lakes so well and wanted to see every nook, cranny and especially, every summit.


Whilst peak bagging in the lakes is down to AW, doing so at any kind of pace is down to Bob Graham. What Bob Graham has done is provide a challenge that knits together some great places that Wainwright has introduced me to. It’s like a natural progression from “Wainwright-bagger” to “Bob Grahamer” I suppose.


So these two men therefore have had a major part in influencing this whole episode. I sometimes wonder if the two ever met or were even aware of each other’s exploits. Does anyone know? The timings suggest that they might – Bob died in 1966 just as AW was penning has 7th and last in the series which was by then very much awaited by an eager public. I’d be fascinated to know. I can imagine that Bob Graham would have enjoyed AW’s guides, but I’m not sure any appreciation would have been fully reciprocated.


I suspect AW would have admired the effort required to do the BGR. Sometimes he’d suggest routes much shorter than the BGR as being major undertakings for “supermen” or on one occasion “for those specimens with strength enough to tackle Everest”. Despite this, I suspect he would have been uncomfortable with the principle (he didn’t think the mountains were for racing amongst) and the prospect of doing a round (he was, by his own admission, “14 stones and getting as fat as a pig” when he wrote The Western Fells, the seventh book, despite all the fellwalking he was doing).


The detail and comprehensiveness of AW’s guides show that they are the very essence of what all consuming obsession is about, something Bob Graham and all subsequent BGR-ers know all about. As a tribute to his guides, and a challenge to me, I’m going to ensure all 214 of the “Wainwrights” feature in my preparation for my second tilt at a midwinter BGR.


I’d already bagged them all at least once before I started fellrunning in 2003, collecting summits in a trainspotter fashion over many years, ticking them off my list. My final ‘first ascent’ that ensured a fully ticked list was Harter Fell in Eskdale, a great peak to end on. I’ve done many of them many times since. Now I’ll do them all again between July and December 2010, probably a book at a time over the course of seven huge days out. We’ll see...


To keep track of which ones are done and remain – I need to list them, but am on holiday and they aren’t to hand. To see if I could, and to prove what a saddo I really am, I decided to try and remember them all and type them all out without looking at the books or internet just to see how many I could recall from memory. Well, they’re all there, all 214. It’s more than a little worrying that I can just type them out, and it’s no good saying I should get out more – that’s kind of the plan... Troutbeck Tongue took me ages to recall, ages after getting all the others, but I got there!


Interestingly (well to me anyway), Bob Graham counts three summits Wainwright doesn’t, namely Helvellyn Lower Man, Broad Crag and Ill Crag. Meanwhile Bob didn’t list two fells as summits on his round that get full chapters in AW’s books. These are Scoat Fell (depending on how precisely you hit the spur to Steeple from Red Pike, it’s entirely conceivable you pass over this summit twice on the BGR but you will almost certainly pass over it once on the way to Pillar and yes I’m aware of my clockwise bias here) and Mungrisedale Common (many people, including me, pass within 200 yards of this but don’t touch the cairn, but it’s easy to include it. In fact I recently, and a little inadvertently, took Dave Hindley right over the cairn on leg one of his successful round). This means that you could claim a 44 peak round if you added AW’s extra summits in, but then you’d have to take his three chapterless summits out, leaving 41...


To further complicate matters, I can think of three summits that neither Bob or AW count that are both on the round and are reasonably significant eminences (certainly more so that Mungrisedale Common, which is a slight swell in the northern flank of Blencathra – my skinny backside is more pronounced!). They are Calfhow Pike (which is bypassed, but by yards only), Black Crag on Pillar (again, now missed by yards via a neat trod cutting across the Mosedale flank) and High Crag between Dollywaggon and Nethermost Pike. Why these aren’t recognised as summits by either man is unclear.


Whatever the inconsistencies, I think the best thing about Bob’s and AW’s lists is that they are cast in stone. There’s no need to nervously await the results of a resurveying mission like Munro-baggers have had to in the past. It’s what these two great men decided felt and looked right. They decided and we observe – and that’s it. I wouldn’t change it one bit.


Mark

-oOo-


The 214 Wainwright Peaks


Eastern Fells


1 Great Mell Fell
2 Little Mell Fell
3 Gowbarrow Fell
4 Clough Head
5 Great Dodd
6 Watsons Dodd
7 Stybarrow Dodd
8 Raise
9 White Side
10 Helvellyn
11 Nethermost Pike
12 Dollywaggon Pike
13 Hart Side
14 Sheffield Pike
15 Glenridding Dodd
16 Birkhouse Moor
17 Catstycam
18 Arnison Crag
19 Birks
20 St Sunday Crag
21 Fairfield
22 Hart Crag
23 Dove Crag
24 Low Pike
25 High Pike
26 Heron Pike
27 Nab Scar
28 Great Rigg
29 Stone Arthur
30 Hartsop Above How
31 High Hartsop Dodd
32 Little Hart Crag
33 Middle Dodd
34 Red Screes
35 Seat Sandal

Far Eastern Fells


36 Sour Howes
37 Sallows
38 Shipman Knotts
39 Kentmere Pike
40 Harter Fell
41 Mardale Ill Bell
42 High Street
43 Thornthwaite Crag
44 Froswick
45 Ill Bell
46 Yoke
47 Caudale Moor
48 Wansfell
49 Troutbeck Tongue
50 Gray Crag
51 Grey Crag
52 Tarn Crag
53 Hartsop Dodd
54 Branstree
55 Selside Pike
56 Kidsty Pike
57 Brock Crag
58 Angletarn Pikes
59 Beda Fell
60 Rampsgill Head
61 High Raise
62 Wether Hill
63 Loadpot Hill
64 Steel Knotts
65 Hallin Fell
66 Arthurs Pike
67 Bonscale Pike
68 Place Fell
69 Rest Dodd
70 The Nab
71 The Knott

Central Fells


72 High Rigg
73 Raven Crag
74 Walla Crag
75 Bleaberry Fell
76 High Seat
77 High Tove
78 Armboth Fell
79 Grange Fell
80 Great Crag
81 Ullscarf
82 High Raise
83 Seargeant Man
84 Eagle Crag
85 Seargeants Crag
86 Thunacar Knott
87 Harrison Stickle
88 Pavey Ark
89 Loft Crag
90 Pike o Stickle
91 Blea Rigg
92 Loughrigg Fell
93 Silver How
94 Helm Crag
95 Gibson Knott
96 Tarn Crag
97 Steel Fell
98 Calf Crag

Southern Fells


99 Black Crag
100 Holme Fell
101 Harter Fell
102 Green Crag
103 Hard Knott
104 Dow Crag
105 Coniston Old Man
106 Brim Fell
107 Swirl How
108 Wetherlam
109 Great Carrs
110 Grey Friar
111 Cold Pike
112 Pike o Blisco
113 Lingmoor Fell
114 Crinkle Crags
115 Bowfell
116 Rossett Pike
117 Esk Pike
118 Great End
119 Seathwaite Fell
120 Rosthwaite Fell
121 Glaramara
122 Scafell Pike
123 Scafell
124 Slight Side
125 Lingmell
126 Illgill Head
127 Whin Rigg
128 Allen Crags

Northern Fells

129 Binsey
130 Longlands Fell
131 Brae Fell
132 Great Sca Fell
133 Meal Fell
134 Great Cockup
135 Knott
136 Great Calva
137 High Pike
138 Carrock Fell
139 Bannerdale Crags
140 Bowscale Fell
141 Mungrisedale Common
142 Souther Fell
143 Blencathra
144 Latrigg
145 Dodd
146 Lonscale Fell
147 Skiddaw
148 Skiddaw Little Man
149 Bakestall
150 Carl Side
151 Long Side
152 Ullock Pike

Northwestern Fells

153 Sale Fell
154 Ling Fell
155 Barf
156 Lords Seat
157 Broom Fell
158 Greystones
159 Whinlatter
160 Grisedale Pike
161 Hopegill Head
162 Whiteside
163 Grasmoor
164 Barrow
165 Outerside
166 Causey Pike
167 Scar Crags
168 Sail
169 Eel Crag
170 Wandope
171 Whiteless Pike
172 Rannerdale Knotts
173 Ard Crags
174 Knott Rigg
175 Robinson
176 Hindscarth
177 Dale Head
178 High Spy
179 Catbells
180 Castle Crag
181 Maiden Moor

Western Fells

182 Blake Fell
183 Gavel Fell
184 Hen Comb
185 Melbreak
186 Burnbank Fell
187 Low Fell
188 Fellbarrow
189 Great Bourne
190 Starling Dodd
191 Red Pike (B)
192 High Stile
193 High Crag
194 Haystacks
195 Fleetwith Pike
196 Grey Knotts
197 Brandreth
198 Base Brown
199 Green Gable
200 Great Gable
201 Kirk Fell
202 Pillar
203 Scoat Fell
204 Steeple
205 Haycock
206 Caw Fell
207 Crag Hill
208 Lank Rigg
209 Grike
210 Seatallan
211 Middle Fell
212 Buckbarrow
213 Red Pike (W)
214 Yewbarrow