Two winter attempts on all the Wainwrights

[Ming the Merciless]

Two guys attempting a full winter round of the Wainwrights.

https://live.opentracking.co.uk/thww21/ - Tom

https://www.theclimbersshopjoebrownblog.co.uk/blog/winter-wainwright-attempt-2021 - James

Quite a couple of attempts. There are 214 Wainwrights / mountain tops from memory.

 

[Accy cyclist]

Two guys attempting a full winter round of the Wainwrights.

I'd like to attempt 10 of these!

 

[Beebo]

How much day light will they get in Cumbria at this time of year?
Why do it in the dark when you can’t enjoy the views.
It’s madness.

 

[Time Waster]

I did them over many years. I wasn't interested until I got a ticklist in a magazine and started ticking. I discovered I was 3/4n complete. I then casually started to plan walks to include the missed or boring ones I'd sidestepped. The trouble with walking the lakes so much before thinking about a ticklish like this is the problem of no big hitter hill left to finish on. My last was a straight up and down of souter fell. A letdown when you think all the great hill routes I could end on if walking the lakes had been new when I started.

My biggest hill day was basically all the wainwrights from Birks to Stybarrow Dodd, Greenside and Glencoyne Head. I think it's almost 20 ticks in one day. I did nearly 30 Wainwrights over two days. If anyone does 214 in one winter or 3 months good on them. If you're doing it over 3 months that's 74 or so per month. If working in the week it's something like 15 to 17 ticks each weekend. Doable but you can't miss targets due to bad weather. There will be bad weather too.

 

[Time Waster]

How much day light will they get in Cumbria at this time of year?
Why do it in the dark when you can’t enjoy the views.
It’s madness.

7 hours 17 minutes or more daylight. By the end of February it's 10+ hours of daylight. 7 hours is a good day's walk for many. Mind you anyone who walks year round will expect to be walking in darkness. Bear in mind darkness creeps up on you on the fells. On the tops it can be light enough to walk without headtorches after sunset. Your eyes cope well when it's a gradual fade to darkness I've found. Even so a challenge like this you've to expect walking in the dark.

BTW there's people who do a continuous, winter round of the Munroes. IIRC it was first done and recorded as done in the 1970s. Possibly early 1980s. The guy did it with ultralightweight kit including a 1kg Karrimor tent! His kit weight was favourable even by today's lightweight hiking kit.

 

[Sea of vapours]

An article about the two attempts of a continuous round in Grough magazine here.
They are independent attempts but started from the Keswick Moot Hall an hour apart at 0600 and 0700 today. it's a spectacularly clear night here; the Milky Way is very clear. It's thus extremely cold up high ! They're both aiming for about a week for completion.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I'd like to attempt 10 of these!
View attachment 620191

Had one of those at weekend

 

[Time Waster]

Aah! They're doing a speed round then? There's been much discussion about the most efficient, continuous round routes. I reckon you can really cut time by good route selection.

 

[Sea of vapours]

They're doing pretty much the route that Steve Birkinshaw designed a few years ago. It's been tweaked since then and Sabrina Verjee's fastest ever route (just under six days, this summer) used the tweaked route. This looks like a slight modification to her route, but it's very close indeed to the same. Rather colder and icier though. A week seems very ambitious in winter conditions.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Good luck to them. Wonderful adventure. If I was a tad younger........

 

[Time Waster]

I met someone who was about to do the Bob Graham round. He was about to turn 67 years old. Just how old do you have to be before you can't have adventures any more?

Get out there if you like the sound of it and above all have the experience, training and kit.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Tom making good progress looking at his tracker

 

[Sea of vapours]

Tom's about 1.5 hours faster to this point, and also 31 minutes ahead of his schedule. James' schedule is not on his tracker page though, so unless its published elsewhere (?) then we don't know how he's doing compared to plan. According to the Met Office forecast right now, they both have an ambient temperature of minus 3C, with a 'feels like' of minus 9C: bracing.

 

[Beebo]

Tom's about 1.5 hours faster to this point, and also 31 minutes ahead of his schedule. James' schedule is not on his tracker page though, so unless its published elsewhere (?) then we don't know how he's doing compared to plan. According to the Met Office forecast right now, they both have an ambient temperature of minus 3C, with a 'feels like' of minus 9C: bracing.

They really couldn’t have hand picked a worse week to attempt this.
I wonder if they considered postponing a week to see if the weather improved?
Good luck to them.

 

[cougie uk]

How much day light will they get in Cumbria at this time of year?
Why do it in the dark when you can’t enjoy the views.
It’s madness.

I guess it doesn't qualify as a winter attempt in June ?

Some people like to make things harder for themselves.