Wainwright Challenge: 16/214 Baystones

 

On the 11th of June I was in Ambleside as I had taken part in the Lake District Challenge 10k around Loughrigg:

I decided to make the most of the included car parking to add another Wainwright to my list. This meant finishing what I had started a few years earlier when I had climbed Wansfell Pike and getting to Baystones which is just behind. My eldest joined me for a walk through Ambleside and up through the Stock Ghyll woods:

With Wansfell being one of the most popular fells the initial path way is well trodden and has been stepped. Its quite a slog up and my son's knee wasn't up to finishing it but luckily I fell in with a fellow solo hiker:

As we got closer to Wansfell Pike summit the wind was getting stronger and it felt like my rucksack was being pulled round to spin me off the hillside! The views were still amazing as we reached the first top:

The fun part now came in trying to find the Baystones summit! I was glad I wasn't on my own as 1) it was a boggy slog and 2) as a less well visited top it was hard to decide if we had made it...

In fact I had to rely on proof from SummitBag.com to show that we had made it:

On the way back down I had very tired legs (completing a tough 10 km run and then a steep ascent had worn them out!) so I was a lot more cautious on the slippery bits:

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A post shared by Becky Willoughby (@lakessinglemum)

In the future, as much as possible, I am going to make sure I don't leave out any odd summits that mean repeating myself!