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After being on 213 for most of the summer, I finally completed what must be the slowest ever round of the Wainwrights. My first was Causey Pike with my Dad in 1972 when I was 7.
Anyway as I closed in on completion, it seemed that Arnison Crag would be an appropriate finale. Unlike many of the other left-til-lasts, it has a proper rocky peak with an excellent view of Ullswater,
is climbed via a path along a rocky ridge not a land-rover track or boggy rut and fittingly is the first fell in the first book. Yewbarrow, the last fell in the last book is also a very good one.
After weeks of miserable weather and a soggy West Highland Way, the sun finally came out and we set out for Patterdale getting tangled up with a cycling event on the Kirkstone Pass (on the home run, a series of increasingly desperate lycra clad figures wobbled and jerked upwards and into a gusty wind towards the pass).
A pretty path through the woods led to the route up alongside the ridge wall. There are views down into a rich variety of trees and foliage colours in Grisedale.
The path winds up through rocks and bracken and past a succession of small crags before spiraling around the little rocky knoll that makes up the summit.
We then carried on along the ridge to the top of Hag Beck before dropping down through the rather sickly looking trees of Glenamara Park (I wondered whether these were healthy specimens when AW passed this way in 1957).
What next? munro completion looks possible and south of the border, Hewitts, Marilyns and Humps a-plenty. In a way, getting the peak bagging thing out of the way will be liberating and I look forward to revisiting the true glories of the Lakes, Pillar, Gable, Scafell etc.