A Mountain? Really?

As a Nuttall and a TRAIL 100 mountain, Bleaklow Head had at least a couple of reasons for me to tick it.  As it is just over an hour’s drive from home and with roadside parking available at the top of the Snake Pass, leaving only about 400 feet of ascent to the summit, this was going to be an easy day.  Although I was mostly enclosed by mist, the well-paved path of the Pennine Way wound its way through the groughs of the peat moorland.

The bleak landscape offered little promise of seeing any wildlife but I disturbed a few grouse, battering their way into the air, and watched as a curlew, bigger than I imagined it would be, cruised silently past and onwards into the mist.

The mist thickened as I reached a large cairn with an embedded pole marking the summit; or does it ?  The hills database says that the summit is a “tiny cairn on peat hag” which is “0.75m higher than top of large cairn”.  In the gloom it is not easy to find the true summit amongst the many hags on the summit plateau.

Bleaklow's large cairn

The true summit

If you were to ask a child to draw a mountain, I’m sure that the result would be pointy and nothing like the flat top of Bleaklow.  From the summit you have to walk at least a kilometre in order to descend 250 feet – if you walk just north of west towards Barrow Stones, you have to walk over 4 kilometres to achieve the same descent !  Although the summit of Bleaklow Head lies at an altitude of 2077 feet, a reasonable height above the accepted threshold of 2000 feet, it’s hard for me to accept that it deserves its “mountain” status and even less that it is one of the 100 “Finest UK Mountains” according to TRAIL magazine’s list.

The next landmark of this walk was the Wain Stones which were considerably more interesting than Bleaklow’s summit.

"Give us a kiss !"

I took a bearing towards Higher Shelf Stones and soon reached the trig point and summit rocks, at least two of which lay claim to being the highpoint of the day’s second Nuttall.

Higher Shelf Stones trig point

the stones of Higher Shelf

A couple of hundred metres to the east are the remains of a USAF B-29 Superfortress that crashed in 1948.  Some of the engines and undercarriage are clear to see, within a significant debris field.  It is thought that the plane was descending through low cloud and that the crew never saw the ground before the impact.  A memorial has been erected in memory of the crew and a large cross made of stones has been shaped into a nearby peat hag; poignant reminders of those who died far from home.

Superfortress memorial

B-29 engine

B-29 undercarriage

Leaving the tangled wreckage behind, I headed east across untracked terrain to reach the Pennine Way path by the shortest route.  The cloud had cleared now and I strolled back to the summit of the Snake at a leisurely pace under the early afternoon sun.

Lagangarbh

There is a memorial bench in the Altnafeadh car park…

Despite many years as a member of my climbing club, I had never been to a Lagangarbh meet.  There have been many meets there over the years but circumstances conspired to keep me away but this year, the planets must have aligned and I found myself in the legendary SMC hut for a weekend.

Coire na Tulaich is probably one of the most notorious accident blackspots in Scotland, with a number of fatalities in recent years due to avalanche.  It is also the voie normale to the summit of Buachaille Etive Mor, that great bastion of rock that stands guard over the entrance to Glen Coe.  Recent SAIS reports had rated the avalanche risk as “High” but it had been downgraded to “Considerable” only a few days earlier, particularly for north-facing slopes of which the route up is.

Lagangarbh and Buachaille Etive Mor

I was very keen to avoid the coire and decided on a route to the right, following the broad ridge leading up to Stob Coire na Tulaich (point 902).  Although the ground at Lagangarbh wasn’t frozen despite a dusting of overnight snow, nine of us  set off up the untracked snow which was knee-deep in many places, with an occasional thigh-deep plunge catching us out by surprise.  On one short but steep pitch, I led but got caught out by the almost waist-deep snow, providing much amusement for the others as they bypassed me through shallower snow on the left !  As we moved up the snow started to harden with some hard névé needing steps kicking to reach a small plateau where we put on our crampons and goggles.  From here we moved out of the protection of the ridge and into the gusting wind as we headed towards the minor summit of Stob Coire na Tulaich.

towards Stob Coire na Tulaich

Conditions worsened as we crossed the col with 60+mph gusts of wind causing us to drop to our knees, with occasional whiteout conditions making progress even more arduous.  We got together to make a decision about what to do next in the harsh conditions and I made it clear that I was determined to get to the summit.  The others agreed to come and I stayed at the back of the group to encourage one or two of the others, for whom conditions were tiring them quicker than the main body of the group.  At the top we rested for a short while, had a bite to eat and took some traditional summit photos amongst the poor visibility.

We started back down the ridge in poor visibility and what felt like worsening winds, forcing us to our knees again.  The gusts were now taking longer to ease and keeping us on the ground, at which point I was becoming concerned that we were staying still for too long.  I was about to give the group a serious gee-up about getting down, even if it meant crawling to the col, but the winds lessened and visibility improved allowing us to progress to the col.

It became obvious that the wind was blowing snow into Coire na Tulaich over a big cornice, justifying the day’s route choice.  One of us spotted about five other walkers heading up to Stob na Doire, these being the only other people any of us saw all day.  The conditions were obviously keeping many others off the hills !

We followed our ascent route back down and enjoyed a few bumslides on the way giving some of us the chance to practice our ice axe braking !

Although the day’s conditions were challenging, I enjoyed them a lot and bad as they were, I could imagine myself still enjoying even greater windspeeds.  The day’s mileage and ascent weren’t the most I’d ever done and dropping through the freezing level resulted in a lot of wet gear but bagging a TRAIL 100 mountain and a Munro in full winter conditions was greatly satisfying.

It had rained overnight on Saturday and continued to do so sporadically as I decided whether or not to walk up Beinn a’ Chrulaiste with the group.  I had made up my mind that I didn’t want another soaking as a prelude to a long damp journey home.  But the rain stopped so I changed my mind !

Most of yesterday’s group with a couple of others saw nine of us set off across boggy ground to reach the broad west ridge, soon reaching the snowline before the minor summit of Stob Beinn a’ Chrulaiste.  Walking poles were proving very useful on when crossing the hollows to where snow had drifted.  The windspeed increased and visibility decreased as we made our way up and a correction to the bearing soon had us heading for the summit.

Although visibility was poor, we managed to get some good views of the snow-plastered Buachaille Etive Mor.  Beinn a’ Chrulaiste isn’t the most exciting mountain but the view across the valley is unsurpassed.

Buachaille Etive Mor

We could just make out the trig point from a foresummit and soon the summit photos of my first Corbett were taken after goggles were quickly donned in the cutting wind.  A quick decision was made to reverse the route rather than traverse the mountain which gave us a more leisurely opportunity to enjoy the view over to Buachaille Etive Mor and Coire na Tulaich.

Crowberry Tower on the upper left skyline 

Walking back to Lagangarbh via the Altnafeadh car park, I passed a bench with a memorial plaque to Allan Lang, Richard Lang and Paul Bower.  On 21^st February 1995 they were caught in an avalanche in Coire na Tulaich.  Such were the continued high avalanche risk at the time rescue teams abandoned the search – their bodies were recovered 6 weeks later.  The bench looks towards the coire and serves as a poignant reminder for us all to understand the power of the mountains and how lucky we are to be able to enjoy our days amongst them.

2014 Targets

Lists to tick

Entering 2014, I am doing a lot of work behind the scenes to work out walking routes to tick the remaining summits of the lists I have chosen to pursue in my now post-Wainwright days.

I have decided to aim for completion of the English and Welsh 2000-foot mountains, these being the Nuttalls.  However, there are a couple of historic lists of 2000-footers, particularly the Bridge list and Buxton & Lewis list.  As you would expect, there are a lot of common summits across all three lists, but there are a few summits on the two older lists that are not Nuttalls.  I have chosen Bridge and Buxton & Lewis as opposed to other similar lists for two reasons; these classifications are included in the DoBIH spreadsheet and many of the 2000-foot completions on the LDWA website are for these lists.

Another long-term goal is completion of the TRAIL100 summits.  Most of my remaining TRAIL100s are in Scotland but those left in England and Wales are also Nuttalls and so should be simple to tick.

The WASHIS is a Welsh-specific list of 600-metre mountains.  Most of these are also Nuttalls and the extra 5 that aren’t can be ticked with a little extra effort.

In the long term

If my sums are correct, I have 324 summits to tick to complete all of the above lists.  The summits range from the very far north of Scotland to Dartmoor and I have set myself a goal of 10 years to finish them.  It’s not very ambitious but it does allow a large contingency for whatever life events arrive in the coming years.

Of 444 Nuttalls I have 245 left to tick; of the 100 TRAIL summits, I have 54 unticked.

This year

In simple numbers, 10% of my remaining summits based on my 10-year plan seems reasonable.

Which means I’m aiming for 33 summits, amongst which should be 25 Nuttalls and 6 TRAIL100s.

Looking at a map of my unticked summits, I’d like to mop up the more isolated groups of English mountains this year.  These are :

• the Cheviots                  (6 summits)
• the Peak District           (3 summits)
• the Malverns                 (1 summit)
• Dartmoor                      (3 summits) 

In addition, one English summit that I’d like to climb is Pillar Rock.  Strictly speaking, it is beyond the reach of ordinary hillwalkers but my previous rock-climbing experience gives me the confidence that this otherwise tricky summit shouldn’t pose me too many problems.

Keep an eye on my forthcoming blog entries and I’ll let you know how I’m doing.

A 2013 Summary

The major achievement of the year was the completion of 4 hill lists.  This sounds more impressive than it actually is because 3 of them started and finished on the same summits.

Those lists were :

• The Wainwrights

214 summits listed in Wainwright’s 7 Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells

• The Fellrangers

227 summits listed in Mark Richards’ 8 Fellranger guidebooks

• The FRCC244

244 summits listed in “The Lakeland Fells” published by the Fell & Rock Climbing Club

• The Outlying Fells

116 summits featured (but not all named) in Wainwright’s guide to the Outlying Fells of Lakeland

Overall I :

            went on             18                                walks

            walked              111.9                            miles

            ascended          36,050                          feet

            walked for         76 hrs 46 mins              (including rest stops !)

            reached            45                                 individual summits that I hadn’t been to before

            reached            12                                 individual summits that I had been to before

            drove                2479                             miles on trips to and from walks

I don’t think that I did a lot in 2013 but the completion of the Wainwrights after 30 years makes up for a relatively quiet year.

Happy New Year and be safe on the hills in 2014!

A New Start

Because of my recent Lakeland-centric wanderings to complete the Wainwrights and Outlying Fells, it had been quite a few years since I had stayed at my climbing club’s hut in Llanberis.  The Christmas meet provided an ideal opportunity to bag a couple of Nuttalls – the list that I’ll be mostly concentrating on.

I have always been keen to walk up Mynydd Mawr, having been captivated by this picture by Ginger Cain.  A fellow Scouser, Ginger has produced some magnificent mountain art, and his Llanberis gallery of the same name is well worth a visit.

Six of us set off for Nant-y-Betws near Betws Garmon and a short road walk led to a bridge over Afon Gwyrfai to woodland where the climb started.  We emerged below Cwm Du and followed the path westwards to the base of the north-west ridge.  The path upwards was soon found and we followed it steadily to the mist-covered summit.  The lack of a view, combined with a breeze and rain made this a place not to linger so we headed down, along the top of the Craig y Bera cliffs.  One of our senior members entertained us with past stories of loose rock on the well-known Sentries Ridge as we gazed through the mist down the gullies to the narrow arêtes.

The steep descent led to some shelter at the top of the forest where we stopped for lunch before finding the vegetated path at the bottom of the forest.  A quick road walk past the Snowdon Ranger led back to the cars and a quick refreshment visit to the Cwellyn Arms before driving back to the hut for an epic Christmas Dinner.

Following the previous night’s festivities, no firm plans were being made and nobody expressed any interest in joining me on a foray on to the most northern tops of the Carneddau.  Starting from the parking area below Bwlch y Ddeufaen, a path ran alongside the wall to the west ridge of Foel Lwyd and then followed the north side of the wall, slightly avoiding the true summit of this WASHIS classified hill.  By now the wind had gained quite some speed, making the climbing of the wall a little awkward.  The summit cairn was found easily as well as the alternative summit mound.  Once I’d found the throughstones in the wall, regaining the path was easier than leaving it.

I dropped down to the col and was quickly at the rebuilt trig pillar of the Nuttall summit of Tal y Fan.  The breeze helped with the decision to leave quickly and regaining the col led to the good path down to the road.

Now in my post-Wainwright existence, a couple of simple Nuttalls eased me into a new era.  I’m looking forward to some new mountainous areas to explore.

My Wainwright Round – Facts and Figures

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 1^st 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

I’m not sure there is one really.  There are some obvious outcomes within my round and some less so.  But what I’d like to do is thank every one of the 32 who I stood on the top of a Wainwright or Outlying Fell with, many of whom didn’t realise at the time that they were helping me fulfil my personal 30-year quest.

My Final Wainwrights

30 years after my first Wainwright, the day had arrived to tick the final fell of the famous 214.

With some cunning planning I had engineered my previous walks to ensure that the final Wainwright would also be my final Fellranger and final FRCC 244 summit.  But before the final tick, I wanted to complete the Outlying Fells.

A restless night’s sleep wasn’t the best preparation for an early start.  I felt like a child on Christmas Eve and I think that nerves brought on by the imminent culmination of a life’s ambition got the better of me.  So, before breakfast, I drove to the top of the Eskdale-Wasdale road crossing the southern slopes of Irton Pike and set off for the summit.

I hadn’t expected the dew and after some bushwhacking through bracken my trousers were soaked.  I rethought my route and decided to follow some forest tracks rather than make a beeline for the summit.  I had the top to myself – not surprising before 8’o’clock – and enjoyed the hazy view up to the head of Wasdale and Great Gable.

So the Outlying Fells became the first major hill-list that I had completed.

I drove back to the Bower House Inn for a well-earned breakfast and then set off for Greendale to meet some mountaineering club friends to walk up and help me celebrate my final summit.

An abortive start (but that’s another story !) was followed by a second attempt and we followed the path up to just below Greendale Tarn.  We aimed roughly for the unseen summit and picked our own paths among the crags and bogs that make up Seatallan’s south-east slopes.  This last thousand feet felt hard in the heat of the early afternoon and I was soon left behind, although they waited for me at the start of the summit plateau.

I was given the honour of topping out at the trig point, even though the true summit was 60 yards to the north-east.  So we quickly bagged the true summit at the small cairn before returning to the pillar to set up the bar.

the Bar !

Quite a few bottles of Thwaites Wainwright had been brought up and the contents were soon shared amongst us.  Wainwright is a superb beer but drinking it on a summit on a hot summer’s day makes it taste even better !

the Beer !

As we were packing up, another walker approached saying “2 down, 3 to go” on his day’s walk but I told him I could do better than that – “214 down, none to go”.  He congratulated me and took a group summit photo before he continued on his big day out.

just to prove I was there

We descended a lot quicker than we ascended and reached the cars in about an hour, with my wife waiting for me with open arms.  Boots were taken off and we all drove to the Bower House Inn for a final celebratory pint.

It was a great day !