Peak Bagging: Wainwrights: 45 routes designed to complete all 214 of Wainwright's Lake District fells in the most efficient way

By Karen Parker and Dan Parker

Over fifty years ago, renowned British hillwalker and guidebook author Alfred Wainwright described 214 peaks in the English Lake District in his seven-volume illustrated Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells. Like the Munros in Scotland, bagging all the Wainwrights has become a popular and significant challenge for walkers and runners, often taking many years in fits and starts because of the absence of a clear plan for how to link them together.

With this problem in mind, Peak Bagging: Wainwrights by Karen and Dan Parker features forty-five routes designed to link up these iconic fells so you can enjoy the challenge of completing them at your own pace – over years, months or even just a few weeks. It presents not only the most efficient routes for completing the Wainwrights as quickly as possible, but does so in such a way that each route is a fantastic walk or run in its own right. The featured routes include a round of the Scafells, and the Glenridding Horseshoe, taking in Helvellyn and Catstycam.

The routes are split into seven sections, reflecting Wainwright’s seven Pictorial Guides, and to simplify logistics, all of the featured routes are circular with an emphasis on making practical links between the summits. In addition, the book is packed with useful information, including 1:40,000-scale maps, elevation profiles, public transport and parking details, refreshments, downloadable GPX files for each route and custom timings for walkers, trekkers, fastpackers and runners. Also included are overview details of Steve Birkinshaw’s then-record-breaking sub-seven-day Wainwrights run in 2014 – current record holder Sabrina Verjee completed the round in under six days. Whatever your timescale for completing the 214 Wainwrights, Peak Bagging: Wainwrights is the indispensable guide to this British hill challenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vertebrate Publishing
• Release date: Nov 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781839811036

Karen Parker

Karen and Dan Parker have been regularly running and walking in the Lake District fells for the last thirty years and have been keen orienteers for the last forty years. Karen is the current British age-group champion and a former international orienteer, and in his twenties and thirties Dan has ran the elite class in many mountain marathons, winning the LAMM elite course in 1996. They also design mountain marathon courses and had a hand in creating the most efficient Wainwrights route which Steve Birkinshaw used to great effect in 2014 when he broke Joss Naylor’s long-standing record. Karen and Dan have both done the renowned Bob Graham Round, visiting forty-two fells in the Lake District in under twenty-four hours, and they have also completed all of the Munros in Scotland. Karen has also completed the sixty-seven-kilometre Joss Naylor Challenge. They live in the Lowther Valley near Penrith.