Why Walk Wainwrights?
When I first returned to Cumbria I just walked. Anywhere. I had a dog, Rosie, and she needed to go out anyway. After living in Warwickshire for quite a while it didn’t matter which hill it was. Then I was introduced to the concept of ‘bagging’. Wainwrights, Birketts, Nuttalls and when they are finished you do the tarns or head off to Scotland for the Munros. All a bit crazy I quietly thought. But I did realise I was heading up hills I would not have, had they not been on a list.
Then tragically for me, Rosie died last June. I counted up how many Wainwrights she had done. It was over the hundred mark. Not bad for a little dog with legs not even 10 inches long. And so began my obsession to reach the magic 214. I joined that peculiar club of hill baggers.
I had inadvertently ticked most in South Cumbria. Then I haphazardly ticked off others on friends’ lists.
Binsey from Whitewater Dash
When winter approached I thought I would ease off a bit. Not bother till the spring. But as the list became shorter my ‘need’ to complete became more frenetic.
Resulting in wet walks, foggy walks, walks with no views. On the face of it little to offer.
On the way to Great Calva
But then sun will break through the cloud. A distant hill will have a natural spotlight. Droplets of water will hang from plants. Fence posts stretch away into the mist.
Great view from Great Calva
Enhanced by walking and talking.
Better from Knott
Natural therapy.
Over Bakestall towards Skiddaw
All this is a roundabout way of getting to numbers 187 and 188: Great Calva and 188 Knott from Dash.
Binsey from Frozen Fell
Great Calva was shrouded in mist – but then it moved away!
So remain an odd 26 in the far flung north and west of the Lakes.
Do you, did you, walk the Wainwrights or any other list? Why?
The route.
