This time last year, CUHWC was just beginning its Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Year. As part of the celebrations, a challenge was set (I forget the details, but I strongly suspect Michael was involved) for the club to put a present or past member on top of every Wainwright within the twelve-month academic year. Valiant efforts were made, but as the deadline approached, Phil and Joe decided that concerted action was needed to ensure success and set about calculating how two people could possibly bag the remaining scattered fells in a weekend.
Fortunately, this unlikely scenario was in the end unnecessary. There was plenty of enthusiasm from within the ranks and, a couple of weekends ago, nine of us headed to the Lakes to finish the job. We convened at Syke Farm in Buttermere on Friday night, before splitting into crack bagging teams and, having been given our marching orders, heading our separate ways the next morning.
Since Dave has banned himself from weekends away for a while, I was paired with Eleri. Our rather ambitious tick list took us on a traverse of four of the remotest valleys in the Lakes: Buttermere Valley, Ennerdale, Wasdale, and Eskdale. We set off from Buttermere amid a throng of assembling triathletes – so warm and calm was the day that I almost envied them their swim!
Our first objective was Pillar, and the quickest route there – over Scarth Gap Pass, across Ennerdale and back up to Black Sail Pass – was not particularly quick. It was 1 o’clock and definitely lunchtime when we made it, dripping with sweat in the windless air, to the summit. But once we were up high, further summits toppled relatively easily as we ticked Scoat Fell, Steeple and Haycock in about an hour. The next challenge was Caw Fell – we had trouble locating the top not (for once) because of poor visibility or even a featureless summit plateau, but because of Wainwright’s idiosyncratic choice of hills and the failure of our maps to make clear what he was thinking. Eventually deciding he meant the lower ring contour, we made an out-and-back to bag it. Eleri promptly declared – quite possibly uniquely – that Caw Fell was her favourite Wainwright (so far).
On Caw Fell we also briefly met Joe and Phil, who had gamely volunteered for the Lank Rigg group and were now in search of something more interesting. Leaving them to run over Haycock, we traversed around the side to meet up with them again en route to Seatallan. We were also glad to find the first water since Ennerdale – it was one of those rare days in the British hills when two litres is barely enough.
Seatallan was a bit of a sting in the tail, but the hazy views from the top were fabulous. A short hop down Nether Wasdale Common later, we had set up camp near the “summit” of Buckbarrow and enjoyed a quite passable four-course meal of various rehydrated substances plus a large golden syrup cake. Bed soon beckoned, and from the green ledge on which my bivvy bag nestled, I had a glorious view of the lights of Sellafield as the sun set…so much for getting away from work.
Sunday dawned greyer and cooler than the previous day, but rays of sunlight parted the clouds to land in Wasdale as we descended towards it – the boys having run ahead on a heroic mission to Green Crag. The woods and fields at the western end of Wast Water, just on the cusp of autumn, provided a pleasant low-level interlude during which I nearly lost Eleri to a couple of very tiny piglets. I managed to drag her away eventually, and we soon reached the summit of Whin Rigg via Greathall Gill. A short stroll to Illgill Head followed, then a descent to Burnmoor Tarn. No one else was around and the expansive col felt surprisingly wild, with rocky cascades tumbling off the slopes that led up to Scafell, and sun dancing on the water.
And then we were just about done; all that remained was to coerce our sore feet (I really must do something about those boots) down the track to the relative civilisation of Eskdale. Due to meet the rest of the group shortly at Hardknott Pass, we didn’t really have time for a well-deserved celebratory pint of “Rosie’s Pig” at the Boot Inn – but we had one anyway!
Yellow Van Mountaineering 