Sun 21 Sep 2014
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| Buttermere from route to Haystacks |
I had been reserving our visit to Haystacks for a fine and sunny day so, one having arrived, we got off to a good start from Gatescarth via Wharnscale Bottom. AW mentions this route as 'little used but is still well-defined'. That was in 1965 when he was writing his seventh and last book of the Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells. Now this path is much used, and the small building near the old quarry serves as a mountain bothy.
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| Haystacks and High Crag |
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| The mountain refuge hut |
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| Buttermere valley from the top of the path |
The views from along the edge of the crags are so superb it's difficult to stop taking photos. The one below was taken from the 'parallel alternative...above the rim of the north face'.
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| Yes, well... |
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| Fleetwith Pike from the slopes of Green Crag |
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| The north crags, with Big Stack at the far end |
The path from Dubs to the summit is around a mile, and Wainwright recommends a full traverse of the fell by it and then to make various excursions around the hummocky fell top.
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| Innominate Tarn, AW's resting place |
We stopped by Innominate Tarn, where AW's ashes were scattered in 1991. Numerous other walkers who passed by quite quickly were probably unaware of this; but the practice of leaving ashes here has become common after Wainwright's example. Concern has been expressed by some nature authorities that there is a danger that the nature of the soil in the area could change if this continues.
After lunch we went in search of the infamous perched boulder.
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| Perched boulder on a rock platform |
AW sprinkled various comments in his writings which today would probably not be allowed by a publisher. He certainly wasn't a misogynist by any means, but his remarks about women were sometimes rather sexist to say the least! The text quoted below about the perched boulder on Haysatcks furnishes a typical example. When Eric Robson visited the spot some years after AW's death he showed rather a lack of appreciation for his humour when he made the politically correct assessment that he just couldn't see what Wainwright was getting at. It was clear on the TV programme that he was viewing it from the wrong angle!
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| "Some women have faces like that" |
After visiting the perched boulder we made our way directly to the summit rocks at the west end of the fell. The two posts Wainwright drew in his sketch disappeared long ago. The glorious afternoon was drawing to a close, and there was a long walk back to Gatsecarth so we spent little time there - just enough for the obligatory declaration of achievement by my companion.
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| The summit cairn and tarn |
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| Which way? |
It's so long since I last went down to Scarth Gap (25 August 1991) from Haystacks I had forgotten how steep and rocky it is. It took some time to reach the pass, and then there was a long trail down to the valley. But we had had a wonderful, warm, sunny day, one to long remember.
"All I ask for, at the end, is 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."
~ Alfred Wainwright - from "Memoirs of a Fellwalker" (1990)
