A bit of grit on Haystacks

Wed 17 Jan 2007

Route: Gatesgarth - Peggy's Bridge - Scarth Gap - Haystacks - Innominate Tarn - Blackbeck Tarn - Warnscale Head bothy - Warnscale Bottom - Gatesgarth

Distance: 5.25 miles

Ascent: 1,650ft

Time: 3 hours 5 minutes

With: A Walker

Notes:

Windy, overcast, a short hail storm with thunder and lightning on the way down.

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

© Crown copyright. All rights reserved. Licence number AL100038401

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) from Haystacks

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 from Haystacks

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

Hail storm, Warnscale Bottom

The hail turns Warnscale Bottom white

Warnscale Bottom

Blue sky above Buttermere

Haystacks from the track to Gatesgarth

Wainwright memorial, St James Church, Buttermere

Haystacks through the window above the Wainwright memorial, St James Church, Buttermere

Previous Walk: Dovedale Horseshoe (Sun 14 Jan 2007)

Next Walk: Branstree and Selside Pike (Sun 21 Jan 2007)

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