- Total hills climbed: 17 (I think) one of which was a repeat
- Wainwrights: 13
- Wainwrights now done: 147
- Wainwrights left to do: 67
- Marilyns (outside the Lakes): 4 (including one repeat)
- Number of ascents of Orrest Head: 2
- Beer festivals attended in the Lake District: None
- Beer festivals attended elsewhere: None
- Trips cancelled due to COVID-19: Don’t ask.
Well where do I start with this one?!
Let’s start with the positives I guess. Despite a global pandemic, this wasn’t actually my worst year of hill bagging – it also wasn’t even my worst year for Wainwright bagging since I started making more of an effort to do them; that was back in 2016 where I did 13 hills in total, 11 of which were Wainwrights. Included in the 13 Wainwrights I managed to do this year were a couple of really good days on the hill, although for the most part I was picking off hills as singles or pairs. I’m getting to the point where I’ve already done a lot of the walks where you can pick off four or five in one go, and those that I have left to do are in the more obscure/ inaccessible parts of the Lakes, mostly in the far West. This is a direct consequence of me having tried to do a lot of my Lakes walking via public transport with the far West being pretty much impossible to do that way – the far East still has its areas where public transport is a pain but is generally more accessible thanks to things like bus links around Glenridding, Pooley Bridge and Penrith.
It would be impossible for me to carry on with this post without getting diverted into a rant and I’m not even going to try. As of the date of writing, and in spite of the fact the vaccine roll out seems – rather surprisingly – to be going pretty well, there is no suggestion of the easing off of lockdown measures any time soon. Schools in March, non-essential shops in April and pubs/ restaurants/ accommodation in May seems to be what everyone is saying despite there being no real evidence pubs are a vector for transmission in any real way. Whilst COVID is clearly a very nasty bug indeed, the repeated lockdowns, and particularly this one, are starting to get to people and this one in particular is hard; during the first one I spent some time discovering things closer to home, such as that we had a bluebell wood near us and some rather nice artificial lakes, all of which helped. But now everywhere is under a sea of mud, a lot of the paths are impassable and it’s too cold to sit drinking wine in the garden in the evening and feel like you have been somewhere. The days all blend into one; get up, have breakfast, do some work, have lunch, do some work, have dinner, drink some Malbec/ Shiraz/ Merlot/ Pinot Grigio/ gin and tonic (strike out drink which does not apply) go to sleep, and repeat… I’ve no idea when I’ll be able to get back into the hills and even the South Downs (which is actually quite nice) is probably too far to really be justifiable for a walk during the current restrictions. Let’s just hope that the end of all this is in sight.