So I’d completed the Wainwrights and you might think that would be that. However, despite a final tick in the 214th box, it didn’t really feel like a completion. I didn’t have a complete photographic record of all the summits, and since this challenge had become mildly obsessive, that bugged me. During my early walks I wasn’t particularly focussed on photographing summits because I didn’t even know that I might be attempting a completion. And then there was the time I lost two days worth of photographs when the SD card in my camera failed. In short, I needed to return to the Lakes to complete the set.
Earlier this year, over supper at YHA Eskdale, I was asked whether I was an incrementalist or a completist. At the time, I answered that I was a completist – completing “the set” has been a big motivator for me. However, the more I think about this question, the more I realise that it’s a false dichotomy. In truth, everyone is an incrementalist until the set is completed. Furthermore, the joy of completion is sometimes exceeded by the attainment of a particularly hard-won incremental step. Nonetheless, I still wanted (needed?) a full set of summit photographs.
I’d revisited some of the missing tops in July but I was still short of 16 summit photos, mostly from the Eastern Fells, and on this visit, I was determined to fill those gaps as this would most likely be my last visit to the Lakes this year. The only problem was that the weather forecast was not good and it looked pretty wet for the week ahead.
This visit was also late in the planning. In truth, I hadn’t planned for it at all and when it came to booking the stay, it became clear that I’d missed my chance of finding a suitable room at a convenient YHA hostel. I toyed with the idea of camping but the weather forecast put paid to that notion.
I wasn’t sure what to do until Hannah, using her deep-search skills, found a perfectly located B&B in Patterdale that turned out to be even cheaper than a hostel – so I booked it and a week later, on Saturday, 17th August, I was driving up to Southport in the rain.
