It’s
almost two months since I completed my rounds of the Wainwrights and Outlying
Fells and my thoughts are turning to what next – but that’s for a future blog
entry.
To
put a seal on my Wainwright completions, I thought that compiling a few facts
and figures wouldn’t go amiss. This blog
entry is mostly for my own enjoyment and while I recognise that there are some
of you who love this type of stuff, I appreciate that many will find it too dry
and ultimately, boring. If that’s the
case, it’s time to look at my blog index for something more appropriate.
A cautionary note !
All
of the figures quoted relate to my first ascent of each of the Wainwrights and
Outlying Fells. Subsequent ascents play on
a tiny part in what you are about to read.
Which is a shame because I had some good days out on my 4 extra trips to
the summit of Pavey Ark !
How long did I take ?
For
the Wainwrights, 10958 days which equates to 30 years. Exactly !
That means, on average, I bagged a new Wainwright every 51 (-ish) days.
For
the Outlying Fells, 8509 days which is 23 years and 108 days. That means a new OF was bagged about every 74
days.
Direct ascents
For
many Wainwright baggers, once they have completed the 214, their aim is to ascend
the fells by a “direct ascent”, that is by a route that doesn’t pass over any
other Wainwright summit on the way. I’ve
not seen any mention of this philosophy for the OFs but there are probably 1 or
2 odd souls out there who will be doing this.
Completion of 214 DAs is not a goal for me but I decided to look at my
log, out of curiosity only you understand, to find out how many of my 214 had
been reached by a DA. It turned out to
be 74. (The actual total of DAs is 87
because of 13 repeated fells.)
Miles walked and height
gained
Although
reasonably comprehensive in the latter years of the round, my log does not have
enough information about my early walks.
So to give these figures I would have to make some fairly big guesses. And as I’m a fan of accurate data (it’s part
of my job), guessing data goes against the grain !
The productivity of
years
My
round took exactly 30 years, but as I didn’t start it on 1st
January, it was spread over 29 full years and 2 part years.
In
11 of those years I bagged no Wainwrights. Of those 11 years I had a continuous gap of 7
years that were barren, being distracted by a combination of beer, women,
snowboarding and rock-climbing. In 8 of
the active years I bagged 3 or fewer summits – not very active at all really. I bagged double-figures in 7 of the years
with my best year resulting in 41 new summits.
My
round of the Outlying Fells had similar gaps.
Spread over 22 full years and 2 part years, there was a gap of 4 years
and then another of 7 years with occasional bagging occurring before the list
got the better of me and I bagged 81 summits over the last 5 years. My best year resulted in 25 new summits.
Popular days
Wainwright
bagging is a leisure activity and we all need time off work to pursue our
hobbies. So it comes a s no surprise
that Saturday was the most popular day for bagging (72 summits) followed by
Sunday (49 summits). Oddly though, the
next most popular day was Thursday (30 summits). The least popular days were Monday and
Tuesday (12 summits each). Tuesday isn’t
such a surprise but it’s now obvious that I didn’t take full advantage of bank holiday
weekends !
On
the Outlying Fells Sunday was the most popular day (38 summits) followed by
Friday and Thursday (26 and 25 summits respectively) with no OFs being bagged
on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Maybe they
were just not attractive enough for me to make a midweek trip.
Popular months
The
most popular months for Wainwright bagging turned out to be May, August, April
and December (37, 32, 30 and 21 summits respectively). It should come as no surprise that these are
the months with the most bank holidays, allowing me to snatch at least one day
out on a 3-day weekend. June was the
least popular month, probably because there was no itch to scratch following
all of the activity in May !
March
was the most popular month for bagging Outlying Fells (26 summits) which can be
explained by taking advantage of lengthening hours of daylight but on some less
challenging fells when the higher fells might still be under snow. July (!) and December were the least popular
months – if I was out on the hills I was taking advantage of long sunny days or
playing out in the snow and ice !
Walks per book
Some
of the books are bigger than others – in size, area covered and numbers of
fells listed. I’ve always thought that
the Central Fells (book 3) was the smallest with either the Southern fells
(book 4) or the Western Fells (book 7) being the biggest. So I wondered how long it took me to complete
each volume.
I
was a bit surprised that the North-Western Fells (book 6) was completed in just
8 walks, but the many ridges allow a lot of fells to be quickly bagged on many
horseshoe walks. The Central Fells were
completed in 9 walks.
Three
volumes tied for the most walks – the Eastern Fells (book 1), the Far-Eastern
Fells (book 2) and the Western Fells – all taking 13 walks to complete
them. The Southern Fells needed 12
walks.
The
Outlying Fells volume is a bit different as the 116 summits aren’t listed
individually but as 56 walks – possibly 57 if Newton Fell is split into two
! These were completed in 49 walks as
there is opportunity to link neighbouring walks.
Overall,
I completed the Wainwrights and Outlying Fells in 127 separate walks.
Days per book
Following
on from the number of walks per book, how many days were needed to complete
each book ? As most walks lasted a full
day, there was only one difference – the Eastern Fells – the explanation being
that 3 walks were needed to tick Gowbarrow and the Mell Fells were tagged onto
days containing other walks.
As
many of the Outlying Fells are shorter walks, 2 or more can completed on the
same day. I took 33 days to complete
these.
Overall,
I completed the Wainwrights and Outlying Fells on 105 hill days.
Number of fells per
walk
Obviously,
with the number of walks taken to complete being less than 214, there must have
been walks with more than 1 Wainwright being ticked. Walks that I did varied from ticking 1
Wainwright (23 walks) up to 7 Wainwrights (1 walk). A common tally was 5 Wainwrights, this
occurring on 11 walks.
The
majority of Outlying Fells walks ticked just 1 summit, but such is the nature
of these fells. But the OFs did give me
my biggest tally for any walk – 9, on the Bannisdale Horseshoe.
Companions
Wainwright-bagging
is ultimately a selfish pastime, with a lot of summits that are not usually
popular, so it comes as no surprise that 158 of the 214 Wainwrights and 95 of
the 116 Outlying Fells were done on my own.
But
I did have some companions. 24
individuals accompanied me up the remaining 56 Wainwrights and 12 on the other
21 OFs. As 2 people had been to the top
of both Wainwrights and OFs, the actual number of people who bagged some
summits with me were 32.
It’s
interesting to note that of the 32, 23 of them were members of the
mountaineering club l joined 13 years ago, showing that there is some value to
being in a club when looking for like-minded souls.
Conclusion
