What better way to begin all 214 Wainwrights than with the tallest one?
We had a good reason to start this way. Back in April 2017 Pete and I decided to climb Mt. Snowdon in Wales via the Llanberis Path. It was a long slog up to the top but such a beautiful walk surrounded by the mountains. I would think it is probably the best of the National Three Peaks for the novice to start with because the path is well-defined, there is a cafe at the summit and even the option of taking the train if you collapse in a heap halfway up.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Here’s a picture of Snowdon summit with some leftover snow still clinging to the side. Faced with this rugged scene, we felt like Frodo and Sam at the edge of Mordor (“clever Hobbits, to climb so high”):
A brief introduction to Pete.
If we were Frodo and Sam, he would definitely be Sam: he’s the one that has to put up with Frodo’s moaning about how difficult it is to carry the burden of the Ring and then ends up carrying the tedious sod up Mount Doom at the end. I couldn’t walk these fells without him, partly because I have a fear of walking alone but also because he encourages me the whole way. However, if he were to venture out into the mountains by himself I doubt he would return: he is the most ill-prepared fell walker I know. In a later blog post I’ll tell you about how he hiked up Skiddaw without even a coat. I try to make us look like seasoned climbers in my pictures but, in his backwards cap and Superdry T-shirts he resembles one of those stupid tourists you hear about being plucked off a crag by Mountain Rescue. I have no doubt that this would be his fate if I weren’t there with my map and compass and extra water. I always make him walk behind me on the way up because I’m slower and worry that he wouldn’t notice me plummeting to my death or expiring in a pool of my own blood behind him until he got to the top and realised I wasn’t there. But we are slowly getting better.
It seemed that no other activity in our brief Easter holiday would be able to top climbing the highest mountain in Wales, except perhaps climbing the highest peak in England; Scafell Pike. We had naively developed a taste for the National Three Peaks and headed for the Lake District National Park to check out the Scafell Massif. In the pub that evening I studied the route from Wasdale Head over a pint of local ale and got my compass out for effect:
The next morning, with legs somewhat sorer than the night before, a revised plan was to do a ‘recce’ of Wasdale Head and hike up to the river crossing at Lingmell Gill. We would tackle the Pike another day.
My two walking companions for the day were Pete and his dad, John. John is a 63-year-old human dynamo. In the previous year, he ran the Paris Marathon in less than four hours, overtaking men a third of his age (many of whom were crying). Most people take months, if not years, to train for a marathon. John pretty much left it until the final week to prepare himself. In that week he trained by running from Stoke-on-Trent to Stafford and back, twice. That’s the equivalent of two more marathons. And he did all this before starting work at 8am, leaving the house at 4am and heading along the dual carriageway in the dark. On one of these ‘early morning runs’ he was understandably stopped by a police car. The policeman, wondering why someone would be running down a dual carriageway at 4am, rolled down the window and, recognising the local guitar teacher, exclaimed:
“John, what the f*ck are you doing?”
To which he nonchalantly replied, “Training for a marathon, of course” as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He is a real inspiration and an excellent hiking companion with bags of energy and positivity.
On that sunny morning in April, the three of us filled ourselves with giant breakfasts and headed for the mountains.
Wasdale Head is very beautiful in its own right and the drive along the edge of Wastwater is a real treat until you have to pass someone in a much larger car on the very narrow road. Wastwater is the deepest lake in England (a whopping 258 feet deep) so the drive turns from pleasant to thrilling when a Chelsea Tractor driver won’t get close enough to the wall to let you pass safely. However, there are lots of parking places along the way that provide perfect points for a quick photo or two:
If you research Wasdale Head you will find that not only does it boast the country’s deepest lake, but also its smallest church and, puzzlingly, its biggest liar, a Victorian fellow called Will Ritson.
Ritson was landlord of the Wasdale Head Inn in the second half of the nineteenth century. He proclaimed himself the World’s Greatest Liar because of his penchant for tall tales told to unwitting travellers. A favourite lie involved a wounded eagle he found near the pub that was nursed back to health in his chicken coop. One night his bitch hound raided the coop and five months later gave birth to a litter of winged puppies. He also claimed that his turnips grew so large that local farmers hollowed them out to make cowsheds. There is now an annual World’s Biggest Liar competition held at the Inn in his memory and in 2006 it was won by Sue Perkins of Great British Bake Off and Would I Lie To You? fame. Honestly:
On the approach to Wasdale Head we had our usual futile discussion about which fells were which (I am still unsure looking at this picture). John was born and raised in the Lake District but he didn’t know either. Scafell Pike stands at 978m above sea level but is tucked away in the centre of the Scafell Massif surrounded by Broad Crag, Sca Fell, Ill Crag and others forming the Borrowdale Volcanics. The name is thought to derive from Old Norse skalli fjall, meaning ‘bald summit’ and, apparently, it should be pronounced ‘scaw-fell.’ On a clear day you can see peaks in Wales and Scotland from the summit, though it is rarely a clear day in this part of the world. It is also home to the highest standing water in the country – Broad Crag Tarn, some 820 metres above sea level. The Wasdale Head route is the quickest and most popular way to the top, used by those attempting the National Three Peaks Challenge who usually get there whilst it is still dark, much to the annoyance of the locals.*
At the car park next to the National Trust Campsite there are some truly apocalyptic portaloos. Avoid if possible. We arrived fairly early in the morning and they already resembled the carnage after a hard night at Glastonbury festival. Note to self: add SheWee to the Christmas List.
Here are the boys in their backwards caps. Someone at Wasdale Head was probably calling Mountain Rescue by now to warn them that a group of tourists were heading up to the Pike in their jeans.
The beginning of the walk takes you over Lingmell Gill with gorgeous (if not slightly intimidating) views ahead…
The path follows alongside the gill as it begins to slope upwards towards the crossing. As usual, about ten minutes up the slope I had to stop to catch my breath and ‘take photos’. A top tip for uphill strugglers like myself is to get yourself suddenly interested in landscape photography. Being official expedition photographer allows you to stop every few minutes to exclaim “Wow! What a view! I must get a picture of it from this angle/in this light” – when really you’re avoiding an oncoming coronary.
Luckily I studied photography at art college and so the pretence that I needed to stop for a bit to get the right light for my pictures was very believable: I often come home with 300 photographs from one walk. I’ve still not managed to get a good method for carrying my Canon DSLR camera on long hikes, except to give it to John to look after. It usually stays at home, which really defeats the point of buying it. There must be backpack clips and rain covers you can buy out there but I have yet to find a good one.
Soon, we were almost at the crossing and these two were barely breaking a sweat:
When we got to the crossing point none of us were particularly worn out and we felt we could make it to the half-way point at Hollowstones, so I was encouraged to go a little further as the gill looked fun to cross.
It wasn’t.
It doesn’t look too bad in my pictures but the water was quite fast and deep in places and there had been a lot of people crossing, making the stepping stones slippery underfoot. I am six-feet tall and not very well balanced (in many respects) and I could see myself slipping in slow-motion and cracking my head open on one of the many jagged rocks. I had a small panic as my companions crossed over with ease and I stood on the far side staring into the proverbial abyss.
I watched in envy as small children were thrown across the water from parent to parent and sexagenarians leapt across with the help of their walking poles. Luckily, my companions were not going to let me turn back to the car (and the cesspit portaloos) so easily and they returned to help this giant baby across:
They didn’t throw me across but we did create a sort of human chain with the help of some other similarly tentative crossers. I even managed to take a great picture looking up from the middle of the gill:
At this point I had pretty much relinquished all my bags which were ferried across for me by my personal sherpas. As you can see, they didn’t seem to mind getting their feet and legs completely wet:
After a brief hiatus to collect myself on the other side, we started up the next section of the path; a beautiful set of rough steps that the authorities (the National Trust and Fix the Fells) must spend hours maintaining. I am always in awe of the amazing state of the trails in the Lake District. It must be one hell of a job to maintain them.
On an aborted attempt to climb the Old Man of Coniston last summer Pete and I had the good fortune of meeting some of these magical folk who conserve the paths. It was a very wet day with poor visibility and we were almost at the summit, considering turning back, when we stumbled across two guys digging around the steps. Up until that point I was proud of our slow, sweaty progress and just thankful to still be on the path at all in the circumstances (and not face down at the bottom of a copper mine). But their fresh faces, so high up, stole my thunder completely. They looked as if they’d just materialised out of thin air (in the mist that’s exactly how it seemed as we approached). I took the opportunity to stop for a break to chat to them. They had also hiked up to the spot from their van at Coniston, which was about an hour away, carrying all the tools on their backs as if it were a stroll to the office. We didn’t even make it to the top that day as the weather was bad but certainly couldn’t imagine the walk we were doing as a means to actually getting somewhere – to work. They do a grand job.
Looking back towards Wastwater you get an idea of the little stoney path that continues to run alongside the gill, though I imagine it must be very slippery when wet:
Soon the path opened up and got a little more serious. We were lucky to have such a beautifully clear day but this point (known as Hollowstones) is an easy place to get lost in poor visibility and there are lots of strategically placed cairns along the way. This was our possible stopping place for the day but it felt as though the end was in sight and I suggested we push on a little further after a quick snack.
Now, I have never been able to find a decent spot on the fells to stop for a snack. No matter how sheltered I think we are, the wind somehow finds us (and it is always blowing a gale high up). I often see people sitting on an exposed slope pouring cups of tea and eating their packed lunches but they inevitably look uncomfortable. It must be that same British stubbornness that you see at the beach on a wet July day (“I will eat this ice cream in all my waterproofs thank you very much. We will have a good time, goddammit!”)
So after a very brief pause to shove a granola bar into our mouths and have a sip of water before we started getting cold, we passed through Hollowstones to a well-marked zigzag path going up towards the boulder field.
This section isn’t as fun as the steps, just a bit of a slog up some slippery scree. The views looking back are magnificent though and you feel like you are nearly there as you round the final corner.
This was about the tenth time we’d passed the couple in the picture above. By this point it’s difficult to know what to say to them any more as they overtake – you’ve already exhausted all pleasantries about the view and the weather. It’s a very British form of motivation for summiting quickly: “Look, they’ve nearly caught up with us again and I’ve run out of small talk. Better get moving to spare us all from the awkward social interaction.”
It is also at this point that you begin to encounter those feckless descenders who (with an irritating glow of satisfaction and achievement surrounding them) exclaim to you that you are “nearly there!” One such reveller added as we passed “You’re going to need your coats in about thirty seconds.” He was right, we were approaching the very exposed and windy boulder field.
On researching the route I had read the words ‘boulder field’ with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. In my imagination, a boulder is something that Indiana Jones has to run from. In reality it just means a relatively big rock, of course. Indeed, the path soon turned into a rocky, moonlike landscape and any fool who has not worn proper hiking boots (and there are some) can be seen tentatively stepping across it to avoid breaking their ankles.
There was even some snow left when we reached the boulder field and we all donned our windproof coats:
The views, as you can see, start to get really good now (is that Broad Crag Tarn?):
Once on the boulder field the end is in sight!
That moment of realisation that you are almost there is far more exciting than reaching the summit itself. With a renewed energy I clambered up to the makeshift shelter and struck a suitably triumphant pose as I crowned myself Queen of the Mountain:
We didn’t stay long (we never do). It was too windy. However, we did manage a customary photo of all hands on the trig point.
Just a note: the slightly effeminate hand in red is John’s but there is a good reason for those well-maintained nails. John is not only a human dynamo but also a professional classical guitarist and needs to keep his nails long for such an occupation:
So, we had officially bagged our first Wainwright without really intending to. And it was a biggie!
Looking back in retrospect the walk was actually fairly simple to follow on a good day: the path is well marked, though I imagine it is more challenging in poor visibility. The views at the top are magnificent and the sense of achievement in knowing that you are at the ‘top’ of England is really something. I would recommend it to anyone.
We left the summit with a promise to return via a different route in the future, likely the longer route from Seathwaite. It would take us a third of the time to get back down to Wasdale Head and I didn’t stop to take a single photo. Basking in the glory of climbing two of the National Three Peaks in as many days, I practically skipped back along the boulder field, exclaiming to every ascender I met that they were “nearly there!”
*The National Three Peaks Challenge is a crazy 24 hours spent hiking all three of the highest points in the country. Usually you would start with Ben Nevis, drive to Scafell Pike and then on to Snowdon, all in the space of a day.