More Wainwright Hiking? Go On Then!

I have just spent another two weeks in one of my absolutely favourite places, The Lake District.

This was a continuation of our trips to tick off the Wainwrights and I must say I found this trip harder than previous ones. I am not sure if this is because of lack of fitness, perimenopause symptoms or the weather as we had some very hot days, but there was a lot of tough hikes that felt like a struggle for me!

New Kit

Hiking is definitely not a cheap hobby and whilst I could have used what I had I genuinely needed some of the items and they will get used. This time round I added some more items to my kit list:

• Rab Women’s Phantom Waterproof Jacket. I am a big fan of Rab products and wanted a more lightweight jacket and had my eye on this for a while and it kept selling out. When I got the notification it was back in stock I jumped on it and pleased I did! It is super lightweight and perfect for the wind and rain.
• Osprey Sportlite 15 backpack. Between my husband and I we have four different sized Osprey backpacks and they are my go to for sure. I found on the last trip I had a fair bit of space in the bag so when scrambling there was movement in the bags as the items I was carrying were bouncing around. I am not a fan of scrambling at the best of times so thought a slightly smaller bag might be useful. I was not sure if this would be too small but it was perfect.
• Osprey backpack rain cover (small). Some of the larger backpacks from Osprey come with the rain cover but the smaller ones do not and I find this useful if I have one bag and two weeks of hiking so I can keep the bag as dry as possible if we get caught in bad weather.
• Keen Women’s Targhee III Waterproof Mid hiking boots. On the last trip I got some new Merrell boots but on rainy days I found I had very wet feet. Travelling from Sweden to the UK I only pack one pair of boots and would rather dry feet! Keen came highly recommended and my husband also has a pair of their men’s boots, plus they are forgiving for a wider foot! I would say these took some wearing in and getting used to – the wider toe box felt too big to start and I got a blister on the first day and on the steep descents it was not comfortable. After lacing tighter they were fine.
• Columbia Helvetia Aztec Fleece. I am a sucker for a fleece and my hiking buddy and I figured we would matchy matchy again as we have done before. It is super pretty and was in the sale and you can never have too many fleeces!
• Revolution Race tops – I bought a couple in the sale and kept them to one side. Unfortunately when I opened them (both the same size) they were totally different sizes so only one was ok and I gave the other to my friend.
• Patagonia cap. Can never have too many caps for hiking after a full days in the hills and a lot of sweat! Unfortunately this hat did not suit me at all.
• LifeStraw Go Series water bottle. I have a life straw already and they are great especially if you are out for a while in an area where you rely on refilling bottles from streams etc to make sure it is ok to drink. When we were hiking 10 miles and upwards per hike it is always my preference not to take multiple bottles of water and instead fill up where possible (and the lakes often provide many places for this).

Accommodation

This time round I think it must have been a more popular time as we struggled a bit finding somewhere, usually there have been loads of availability.

This time we booked with Holiday Cottages and stayed at a property called Keswick House, which was a little further out of town. It was about a mile walk to town and going was fine as it was downhill but after a day hiking, then eating and then walking back uphill for a mile was not always the one!

It was a good sized property with a driveway, which is not always available in this area. It was close to walking trails and had lovely views. I would say that it is dog friendly but the garden and driveway is not gated at all so very open and this property is on a main(ish) road.

Wainwrights Completed

This time round we both wanted to tick off specific summits, including Helvellyn and Blencathra (minus the ridge routes – I watched too many videos about Striding Edge and Sharp Edge and they are not for me!) and both were completed so super happy about that.

As it turned out my favourite summits were:

• Helvellyn – it had been on my list for a while and we were doing a route that did not include this one but you could see it so there was no way we were not going to tick that off also.
• Blencathra – I was scared of this one as it looks like a beast when driving past but it was a really enjoyable hike up.
• Dollywagon Pike – for no other reason than the name!

My least favourite was:

• Grisedale Pike – the first attempt, which was from Braithewaite in some serious wind and I had a complete panic close to the top and we decided the wind was too much to continue. We later tagged this on to a loop with Grasmoor so did end up ticking this off and from a different side was not nearly as scary.

Before this trip we were at 57 out of the 214 summits and we have finished this time round completing a further 31 taking our new total to 88. Unfortunately the first week was a bit of a wash out and we had some very wet days and not all of the routes are recommended in wet weather, then the second was scorching.