The Wainwrights | 214 Summits in England’s Lake District National Park

by Chase Parnell — May 6, 2020

***8/10/20 Update: This trip has been cancelled due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. We are dreaming of replicating it in 2021. We shall see!***

I’ll start with a bit of an update: we are still fully planning on going to Europe this summer despite the havoc Covid-19 is wreaking on humanity. Unless there are still stringent international travel restrictions, we intend on flying in to Munich, Germany on July 20th to start our three month stay abroad. We will do our absolute best to travel safely, responsibly, and with all applicable precautions to keep our family and those we come in contact with safe.

A Basic Outline of Our Trip

Today I want to write mostly about my goal (subject to change) of summiting all 214 Wainwrights in the fell country of the UK, but I’ll first provide a basic outline of the locations and durations of our stops before England to give you some context.

July 20 – July 27 —> Kaprun, Austria (site of the Grossglockner 100k)
July 28 – August 2 —> Cortina d’Ampezzo region, Italy (in the Dolomites, where Lavaredo 120k takes place)
August 3 – August 31 —> Chamonix valley, France (location of UTMB races, which haven’t been cancelled…yet)
September 1 – October 20 —> Lake District, England (site of the Wainwrights)

If things aren’t looking good in July, then we might cancel our mainland Europe portion of the trip and just do the Lake District.

The Grossglockner 100k that I was registered for in Austria was cancelled but the Swiss Alps 100k that Nikki is supposed to run is still green-lighted, but that could change at any time. I have a feeling that if UTMB cancels, many other races in the region will follow suit. We shall see.

What Are the Wainwrights?

📸: Nikki Parnell

The Wainwrights are a collection of 214 mountains (known locally as fells) selected by Alfred Wainwright, all within the boundaries of the Lake District National Park. Mr. Wainwright created a collection of “pictorial guides”, seven illustrated books that describe with intricate detail all the routes, features, and information you’d want as you make your way up these beautiful slopes.

When we were in the Lake District in 2017, we ran up a few of these fells and snagged volume four, The Southern Fells, from a small village bookshop. We instantly fell for the magic and charm of Alfred Wainwright and his writing. In my mind, he’s the quintessential British man, although I know he was a bit of an odd duck in his own circles. Alfred is a master wordsmith, a phenomenal illustrator, and his familiarity with this region was unparalleled. He wrote these books in the 50s and 60s with Kendal, England as his home base from which he did his exploring.

Here’s a quick taste of his prose:

“The highest (by a few feet) and best-known of the Coniston fells is the Old Man, a benevolent giant revered by generations of walkers and of particular esteem in the eyes of the inhabitants of the village he shelters, for he has contributed much to their prosperity. The Old Man is no Matterhorn, nor is Coniston a Zermatt, but an affinity is there in the same close links between mountain and village, and the history of the one is the history of the other. Coniston without Old Man is unthinkable.”
Alfred Wainwright

The Barnacle Cottage

We will be staying at The Barnacle Cottage, which is 21.7 miles southwest of Kendal (where Wainwright lived), in a small coastal village named Flookburgh. While originally we would have preferred to stay in the National Park in towns such as Keswick or Windermere, the real hubs of the Lakes, the only reason this trip is possible is because we searched out bargain buys and we were willing to stay in one place long enough to take advantage of longterm stay discounts. Many AirBnBs such as this offer 40-50% discounts if you stay over a month.

But now that we’ve booked a coastal town, I’m really looking forward to being close to both the ocean and the mountains. That’s what we really loved about the Isle of Skye up north in Scotland; the fact that you could have the beauty of steep rocky green mountains and the vastness of the blue ocean in the same vista. I’m looking forward to vigorous hikes and runs in the fells in the morning, with sea spray, ocean birds, and leisurely beach strolls in the evenings. We’re disgustingly spoiled I know.

Make sure to subscribe to our email newsletter and also to our YouTube channel, where we’ll be posting regular updates on our trip. We’ll definitely do a video tour of The Barnacle Cottage and highlight all its quirks and charms.

Strategy for Tackling All 214

With 214 summits and essentially only 45 days to do them all, I’ll have to be strategic. The difficulty will not be the physical challenge (I don’t think). The speed record for all the Wainwrights is 6 days, 6 hours, and 5 minutes. So if they can be done that quickly, I would think I could do them in 45 days at a more leisurely pace and with adequate recovery. The problem will be managing how much time I’m away from Nikki and the kids to achieve this.

📸: Nikki Parnell

First off, we are going to hike most days as a family. I’m envisioning that Nikki and I will wake up early, work a bit on Treeline Journal, then once the kids are up, we’ll head out the door to a new trailhead each day and try to tag a couple summits together. Then, on their rest days, I’ll go out on maybe 10-15 epic solo runs where I’ll be out all day and tagging as many peaks as possible. We’re going to have a rental car and we made sure to get an automatic this time! Lots of scary memories of me driving a stick on those narrow roads from our 2017 trip. But Nikki should be able to drop me off somewhere, hike a bit with the kids, and then meet me in some distant valley for lunch, then go put the kids down for a nap and return to the park and some other distant valley to retrieve me in the evening.

It’s a little daunting when I do the math: (214/45) = 4.75 summits per day. But as you can see from some of the photos, much of the Lake District fells are made up of long ridge lines of fairly clustered summits so topping out on 5-10 in a row, within a handful of miles, is not unrealistic. I’ll also note that these peaks are not technical; most of them are simple hikes with no need for scrambling or ropes of any kind.

One of the reasons we loved the Lake District so much is because of its accessibility. These clusters of fells are separated by long beautiful valley floors with little villages speckled here and there. It seemed to us that even if you found yourself in a scary place up on the mountain, you could almost always just head down to the valley and you’d never be more than a few miles from a warm pub or inn.

📸: Nikki Parnell

That said, I’ll definitely still want to be prepared for the navigational aspect: maps, GPS, and Wainwright’s guides. Weather will be a big factor. In the guides, Wainwright specifically outlines which routes should and shouldn’t be done “in mist”, which I take to mean as rain, drizzle, foggy weather where it’d be easy to get socked in on a summit and lose your way. Britain, and the Lakes specifically, can have a lot of this, and with our trip dipping into the fall season, it’s possible we could get a lot of it.

Lastly, I’m going to need to be healthy because no matter how you slice it, I need to be able to run in the mountains. So all my little tweaks and injuries need to be taken care of by then. That means I can’t get too too carried away in the Alps beforehand. Easier said than done!

Conclusion

It still feels a bit risky to get too emotionally invested in this trip with the pandemic happening and all, but keeping this dream alive is also the source of a lot of inspiration and excitement, so I’m starting to let myself be taken by the spell of impending travel. Here in the Parnell household, we are starting to talk more diligently about gear, itineraries, plans, training, etc. I’ve started reading a few pages of the Wainwright book each night to familiarize myself with what’s to come.

Treeline Journal will always be centered mostly around running, but it might feel more like a travel blog for the months of July-October. We hope that’s okay with you all! If you enjoy our work, and want to help us with a couple cups of tea while abroad, consider supporting us on Patreon for as little as $2 per month. Every little bit goes a long way and, in exchange, we’ll do our best to create entertaining and impactful content for you to consume. Thank you so much!