Wainwrights and other lists

I’ve been bagging Wainwrights for almost 30 years and for most of that time I’ve been aware of the existence of “book 8” – the Outlying Fells.  Most Wainwright baggers are satisfied to complete all of the 214 fells listed in the classic seven books, but I’ve always felt that by including the Outlying Fells, the round is “more” complete.

So for the last few years I’ve been working my way through book 8 and am now at a point where I only have one “regular” Wainwright and one Outlying Fell to tick.  I’ll be completing both lists on the same day later in the year; the Outlying Fells in the morning and the Wainwrights in the afternoon.

There are also a couple of lesser known lists that have a lot of summits in common with the Wainwrights.

The FRCC 244 are the fells contained in the Fell & Rock Climbing Club’s “The Lakeland Fells”, published in 1996.  It’s not a surprise that there are 244 of them !

Another list is the “Fellrangers”.  I’ve attributed this name to the fells listed in Mark Richards’ 8 volumes of Lakeland Fellranger guidebooks published by Cicerone.  There are 227 of these, 228 if The Nab is included as a separate fell.

Because of the overlap across the lists, anybody who is close to the end of their Wainwright round will be close to the end of the FRCC 244 and the Fellrangers – particularly if the Outlying Fells have been getting ticked along the way.  My final Wainwright is also a FRCC 244 and a Fellranger, so, with a bit of judicious planning I can complete three lists on one fell.  Which is exactly what I will do.

There are a couple of non-Wainwright summits that I need to tick this summer to enable this and I’m looking forward to walking over some new terrain and some areas I haven’t been to in a long time.

Focussed bagging doesn’t really allow for time to revisit old favourites !  I’m looking forward to completing so that I can try some new routes on some old favourites like the Scafell, Great Gable and the Dodds.