Why Bag the Wainwrights? 214 Reasons to Explore the Lake District

There are 214 Wainwrights.

That number can look faintly ridiculous when you first encounter it. Why would anyone decide that climbing one Lake District fell isn't enough? Why 214? Why spend years filling weekends with early starts, steep climbs, wet boots and journeys to increasingly obscure corners of Cumbria simply to put another tick beside another name?

The answer becomes obvious once you've started. Nobody climbs just one Wainwright.

The irresistible appeal of the list

Alfred Wainwright's 214 fells are different from many of Britain's other great hill lists. They're not defined by an arbitrary height or prominence. They are, essentially, one man's selection of the Lake District fells worth exploring.

That makes completing them less like collecting a set of numbers and more like accepting an invitation to discover an entire landscape.

The famous summits are certainly there: Scafell Pike, Helvellyn, Great Gable, Blencathra, Skiddaw (and yes, Catbells). But completing the Wainwrights also takes you to the places you might otherwise overlook. That's one of the great pleasures of peak bagging.

Without a list, most of us naturally return to our favourite places. Give yourself 214 summits to visit and suddenly there's a reason to explore another valley, follow an unfamiliar ridge or discover the little fell you've driven past twenty times without considering climbing it (Great Mell Fell anybody?). As I wrote previously in Adventure Bagging, nobody climbs just one Wainwright, a hill list gives every weekend a purpose. The ticks accumulate, but so do the experiences.

So, where do you start? 

Preferably with a very good book (you saw that coming right?).

Peak Bagging: Wainwrights, by Karen and Dan Parker, was created around a simple question: what's the best way to climb all 214? Note we say ‘the best’.

Rather than presenting 214 separate there-and-back walks, the book links the fells together into 45 carefully designed routes, creating memorable mountain journeys while completing the Wainwrights efficiently. Each route comes with custom 1:40,000 mapping, elevation profiles, parking and public-transport information, downloadable GPX files and timings for walkers and trail runners.

It's a book I hope we created with the understanding that efficient peak bagging doesn't have to mean rushing. Linking the hills intelligently means spending less time retracing your steps and more time actually exploring the Lake District.

I have to say, of all our books I am rather proud of this one and the inspiration it provides.

Peak Bagging: Wainwrights won the Striding Edge Prize at the 2022 Lakeland Book Awards and was a category finalist in the 2022 Banff Mountain Book Competition. Joss Naylor MBE described it as having 'everything you need to summit all the Wainwrights.' It is also the UK’s bestselling walking guidebook.

Then comes the satisfying bit: ticking them off 

Every peak bagger understands the pleasure of the tick.

Which is why we didn't stop at the guidebook. Our Peak Bagging Wainwrights: The Logbook gives you somewhere to create your own record of the challenge. There is space for all 214 summits, with room to record routes, weather, companions and the things you want to remember about each day.

Complete the Wainwrights over one summer or over twenty years; either way, those scribbled notes gradually become something much more personal than a checklist. They become the story of your time in the fells.

And for people who prefer their progress displayed more prominently, there's the Peak Bagging: Wainwrights Fold-out Poster Map.

The poster shows the 45 routes at a glance on a custom 1:100,000 map, alongside all 214 Wainwrights and their heights.

Stick it on the wall and watch the completed summits spread across the Lake District. It's motivation, planning tool and bragging rights rolled into one.

For inspiration, read about what happens when peak bagging gets serious

Of course, some people look at 214 Wainwrights and don't think, I wonder if I can climb them all? They think, I wonder how quickly I can climb them all?

Steve Birkinshaw was one of them.

In 2014, Steve set out to break the record for a continuous round of all 214 Wainwrights: roughly 300 miles through the Lake District fells.

His book There is No Map in Hell tells the story of the preparation, training, suffering and extraordinary experience of that record-breaking journey – including what such an undertaking does to a human body.

You don't need to have ambitions of racing around all 214 to enjoy it. At its heart it's a book about our peculiar attraction to the mountains, and what happens when curiosity and determination turn into an all-consuming challenge.

Then there's Where There's a Hill by Sabrina Verjee.

Sabrina has become one of Britain's outstanding endurance athletes, but the attraction of her story isn't simply the records. It's the sheer enthusiasm for going into the hills, seeing what's possible and discovering how far determination can take you.

Read the guidebook to work out where you're going.

Read the logbook later to remember where you've been.

And read Steve and Sabrina when you need reminding that there's always another adventure to be had among these hills.

And now we're taking the book onto the fells

There's another way to start ticking them off.

We've teamed up with Big Trail Adventures to turn the Eastern Fells section ofPeak Bagging: Wainwrights into two guided adventures.

This is the book brought to life.

The route covers 102 kilometres and 35 Wainwright summits, travelling from Aira Force above Ullswater to Ambleside and taking in some of the most celebrated mountain country in England along the way.

There are two ways to do it.

Walk 35 Wainwrights in five days

The five-day guided walking trip divides those 102 kilometres and 5,400 metres of ascent into five substantial mountain days.

The journey takes you through the fells above Ullswater, along the Helvellyn range and across the Fairfield massif before finishing above Ambleside.

A licensed fell guide accompanies the group throughout, while accommodation and luggage transfers are taken care of. You carry a daypack; your main bag meets you at the next overnight stop.

It's still a serious mountain journey,  that's part of the point, but the logistics have been removed so you can concentrate on the walking.

Discover the 35 Wainwrights in 5 days guided walk.

Or run them in three

For trail runners, the same 35 summits become an altogether faster proposition.

The three-day guided trail-running trip covers the same 102 kilometres and 5,400 metres of ascent, travelling from Ullswater to Ambleside through the Eastern Fells.

It includes some spectacular Lakeland running, with Helvellyn, Striding Edge, Swirral Edge, St Sunday Crag and the Fairfield range all appearing along the way.

Again, there's a licensed fell guide throughout, accommodation is arranged and luggage is transferred between overnight stops.

Three days. Thirty-five Wainwrights. One very substantial head start on the remaining 179.

Discover the 35 Wainwrights in 3 days trail-running adventure. 

Hope to see you out there.

Jon Barton

Wainwrights Bagged 118/214