Wainwrights in 21 Days

Climb every Wainwright summit

in 21 days of

walking, jogging or running.

21 circular Wainwright routes, sketch maps and gpx files.

Average day of

29km and 2012m climb

(18miles and 6600ft)

Why 21 Routes?

Why 21 Wainwright Routes?

Complete all of the Wainwrights in 21 circular walks. It's perfectly possible for the average runner or fast walker. Distances vary from 11 to 23 miles with elevations from 3644 to 8203 ft.

Fell-running legend Joss Naylor held the record for a single round of all 214 Wainwright summits from 1987 until 2014.

He took just over 7 days (or 168 hours). Most of us have no hope of getting anywhere near that time. But it is possible to do all of them in the same aggregate time. Following these routes the average runner (and fast walkers) can complete all of the Wainwrights by splitting the 168 hours into 21 8-hour days.

Naylor also built this pillar in 2002, to celebrate the life of the Queen Mother. Follow these routes and you'll find it as a useful waymark in the middle of a bog.

A note for the pedants.
Since 2014 a succession of men and women have created a series of new records. At the time of writing, it is held by John Kelly with a time of 5 days and 12 hours! But we'll ignore all of them for now.

Joss Naylor's Pillar in the Lake District

Did I beat Joss Naylor?

Impossible to answer as I thought of my trips as reccies and tweaked many of the Wainwright walks afterwards.

For example Sergeant's Crag and Eagle Crag started life as part of the Shoulthwaite route, but that turned out to be too long, so they were shunted to become a detour from High Raise.

Overall, my times were typically 85% of the Predicted Walk Times. That would add up to less than Naylor's time, which seems OK for someone celebrating his 75th Birthday.

A summary of the routes

The chart shows the distances, elevations and predicted times for the various Wainwright walks.

Under each heading the red text highlights the two routes with the greatest distance, or elevation, or predicted time. Green is used to highlight the two routes with the smallest values.

Using the Routes

The Wainwright routes are grouped as North, East, South and West. Many of the routes contain summits from more than one of Alfred Wainwright's seven books.

I planned these routes using Memory Map. They're not Strava or gps records of exact routes that I followed.

The descriptions give my impressions and highlight some navigational issues but don't expect detailed "Route Descriptions". You will, of course, need the usual map and compass (or gps with map and compass backup) and will need to make your own on-the-ground decisions about details of route choice

The Predicted Walking Times use Naismith's Rule with constants 5.6km/hr (3.5miles/hr) and 10min/100m (10min/300ft). We all have different speeds, but the predicted times help when comparing routes.

Four of the routes have "adventurous" sections: coming down vague paths on the side of Middle Fell and down to Ennerdale, scrabbling through a sheep access hole near The Tongue, and negotiating bracken on a Fairfield Horseshoe short-cut. For all of these I've described alternative routes, but they are less fun.

Good luck!

Owen Davies

North