Walk Information
Walk route: Gatesgarth - Peggy's Bridge - Scarth Gap - Haystacks - Innominate Tarn - Blackbeck Tarn - Warnscale Bottom - Gatesgarth
Distance: 5.25 miles
Ascent: 1,650ft
Time: 3 hours 5 minutes
With: A Walker
Conditions: Windy, overcast, a short hail storm with thunder and lightning on the way down.
Comment:
A walk to mark the centenary of the birth of Alfred Wainwright (AW) on 17 January 1907.
‘...a last long resting place by the side of Innominate Tarn, on Haystacks, where the water gently laps the gravelly shore and the heather blooms and Pillar and Gable keep unfailing watch. A quiet place, a lonely place. I shall go to it, for the last time, and be carried: someone who knew me in life will take me and empty me out of a little box and leave me there alone.
And if you, dear reader, should get a bit of grit in your boot as you are crossing Haystacks in the years to come, please treat it with respect. It might be me.’
A Wainwright (17 Jan 1907 – 20 Jan 1991), Fellwanderer
A 2 minute movie clip from Haystacks summit and Innominate Tarn (7Mb)
Route Map
© Crown copyright. All rights reserved.
Licence number AL100038401
Photos
[view all photos as thumbnails]
Haystacks from Peggy's Bridge
The bothy at the head of Buttermere
Great Gable and Kirk Fell from Scarth Gap Gate
Looking down on Buttermere from the route up Haystacks
Gamlin End (High Crag)
Looking over Haystacks summit tarn to Pillar
The Grasmoor fells and Robinson from Haystacks summit
Innominate Tarn, Green and Great Gable from Haystacks summit
The Helvellyn ridge to the east
A nameless tarn with Innominate Tarn behind
Looking over Innominate Tarn to Great Gable
A small memorial plaque to AW by Innominate Tarn
Haystacks from Innominate Tarn
The Buttermere valley from the outflow of Blackbeck Tarn
Green Gable and Great Gable from Blackbeck Tarn
Some sunshine on High Crag
Warnscale Head bothy, below Green Crag
Warnscale Bottom
Here comes the hail storm...
The hail turns Warnscale Bottom white
Warnscale Bottom
...and then blue sky
Haystacks from the track to Gatesgarth
Wainwright memorial, St James Church, Buttermere
...and Haystacks through the window
previous walk - Sun 14 Jan 2007 - Dovedale Horseshoe
next walk - Sun 21 Jan 2007 - Branstree and Selside Pike