Deciding to try and tick off all the Wainwrights before I turn thirty felt like a great idea when I turned twenty six. Nearly two years later, we’ve been ticking them off at a leisurely pace, heading over to the Lakes whenever the sun has been shining to tick off a peak or two on a day trip. While thoroughly enjoyable, this approach has resulted in us bagging fifty four summits in two years: with one hundred and sixty left to do in the same amount of time! We’ve therefore had to accept that nice weather might not always be on the cards when we head over in order to speed up slightly, and we had our first experience of a ‘wash out’ last weekend when we tackled White Side and Raise…
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I should clarify that it wasn’t really a wash out – but it was my first experience of having wet feet from start to finish, which rather tainted my view of the walk. We arrived just as the heavy rain which had poured all night and into the morning finished, and set off along the track which would take us to the summit of White Side. This track led us through sodden, shoulder high bracken, which soaked us sufficiently for the water to start running down our legs into the inside of our shoes. Once we had escaped from the jungle like maze of bracken we picked up a grassy path along a gill – our initial relief and hope of drying out dissipated as we walked into a cloud and the grassy path deteriorated into grassy bog.
By this point I was feeling thoroughly miserable, and sufficiently melodramatic to stop and wring my socks out twice (the amount of water which came out was however immensely satisfying). Lesson learned – ALWAYS carry a spare pair of socks (or two), even if the weather forecast is hot and sunny! We trudged the remainder of the way to the cairn at the summit of White Side, to celebrate our 55th Wainwright with a lunch stop admiring the (non-existent) view.
After lunch, a miraculously clear and defined track took us from White Side over to Raise – which is actually one of the highest Wainwrights at 883m – only eleven are higher. If the path improved my mood, the effect of this was doubled by the cloud lifting and finally offering us a view as we started our ascent of Raise. I have to stay, we picked up the pace a bit to try and make sure we got to the top and saw the view before the cloud came down again!
Luckily we made it, and we got good views out over the surrounding Lakes, although I wouldn’t say it’s the best view we’ve seen from a Wainwright. However, as we made our way back down via Sticks Pass, the sun came out properly and we had a beautiful view looking towards Blencathra to enjoy on the way down. We both said that the route probably would have been better if it had been a linear using Sticks Pass for the ascent as well as descent, even though this track is long and steep in places – at least it’s mostly dry! The route that we did follow was a circular of around five and a half miles from our Walking the Wainwrights book, starting from the village hall in Legburthwaite where there is a reasonable amount of parking (honesty box).
Dog friendly rating – 3/5. While there are sheep scattered throughout the walk, meaning leads or close control are required, the start of the walk spends quite a while walking alongside a stream which is easily accessible for dogs to have a drink or a swim. You also pass a series of pretty waterfalls, but the dogs were less interested in these than we were! There are no stiles or roads to worry about on this walk, and we hardly saw any people – so all in all, not a bad dog walk.
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