England - Lake District - Bagging Binsey

Walk Summary

Bag the most northerly Wainwright in 1 hour! Super view of the northern fells from the summit (says Wainwright), assuming it isn't misty. A straight up and down...but watch out for that dog crap.

Date: 12/09/2022

Length: 1.39 miles

Height Gain: 173 m

Terrain: Boggy paths, grass paths

Navigation: Easy. There is an obvious path straight up to the top.

Start: Roadside parking near Binsey Cottage

Route: Roadside parking near Binsey Cottage, Binsey

Map: OL4 The English Lakes North Western Area

Weather: Misty

Walkers: Nun, Calse and Mo

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Dog Crap Alley

Captain's Log

Boot Bags And Dog Crap Alley

It was a rainy weather forecast for the day, but it indicated a 3 hour window in the morning that might be less moist. Mist clung to the surrounding hills, and it didn't look that promising, but we made our way to the foot of the lowly Binsey, the most northern of the Wainwrights. There was one other car at the parking spot. As we put on our boots, the owner of the car emerged out of the Binsey mist and walked towards us. We started chatting and the woman said that she was doing the Wainwrights and had just summited Binsey. She asked how many Wainwrights we had done and before she'd even finished the question Calse had jumped in with a 155. The woman was just about to compliment us, when I just had to Tommy Top Calse by saying that I'd done 170. The woman congratulated us (and especially me) on our progress and then Tommy Topped us all by saying that she'd done 177.

The woman went to her car and we continued to get kitted up. Calse and Mo had recently bought a rather expensive Scarpa walking boot bag each. My own boots reside in a free Matalan carrier bag between walks, and I think they are no worse for that. What puzzles me is that they put their boots in a plastic bag before putting it in their Scarpa boot bag. 'Oh, we don't want to get our new Scarpa boot bags dirty', they told me. 'But it's a boot bag.', I protested, 'they are designed to get dirty'. They looked at me as if I was from another world.

Mist meant there were no views to be had on our ascent and our gaze was focussed on the path ahead. This turned out to be fortuitous since the path seemed liberally littered with dog crap. I'd never seen so much. It was a case of watching every footstep and treading very carefully. Halfway up Binsey there is a notice board that says that any dog found off a lead will be shot. I can only assume that the landowner has had the misfortune of treading in a dollop of the stuff and wanted an excuse for revenge.

Binsey

Our gradual misty ascent finished 30 minutes after starting. There was a trig at the top and a cairn. There were also 3 stone shelters which seemed a little excessive given Binsey's meagre height. Wainwright says that there are magnificent views of the northern fells from here, but all we could do was look into the grey mist and imagine. After a respectful 2 minutes at the top, we started retracing our steps back down. Halfway down, not far from the notice board we'd seen earlier, we could see a man crouched down with a large German Shepherd, about 100 metres or so off the path. They both might have been having a dump, but it was too misty to be sure. After we passed them, I half expected to hear a shot ring out from a disgruntled landowner. We tiptoed carefully back through the dog crap.

Binsey

There Is A Crouching Man And A German Shepherd Somewhere In This Photo

Bags Within Bags

I made a close inspection of my boots back at the car and I wasn't sure whether the deposit on one of them was mud or dog crap. Despite my criticism of Calse and Mo earlier, I wondered whether I might benefit from putting my boots in an additional plastic bag so that I didn't get dog crap on my Matalan bag. It now seemed sensible. I mooted the idea to Mo and Calse, that given our recent dog crap experience, they might want to consider putting their boots into an additional plastic bag, to prevent dog crap transfer to their other plastic bag that then goes in their Scarpa boot bag. I could see them whispering to each other, and some head nodding, and I think it highly likely they'll adopt the idea.

A Wainwright bagged in an hour! The most northerly one too. The day was not yet done though; we still had another 2 hours in our 3 hour weather window and we intended climbing another Wainwright (See Great Mell Fell Hell). We would have to drive there first though.

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