Remembering AW - A Walk up Haystacks

For the Lakeland 214 Challenge, taking place between 9th & 17th May, organised by The Wainwright Society, I had offered to climb Haystacks, the fell above Buttermere and Honister where AW requested that his ashes be scattered after he died in 1991. Originally Derry Brabbs the photographer who worked with Wainwright on seven of his table-top books was going to come on this walk as well but unfortunately a knee injury meant he had to drop out a couple of weeks before. The pictures below are of the walk with sub-titles where appropriate.


Footpath sign to Gable & Haystacks.

Herwick sheep on the mine road.

Dale Head Crags on the opposite side of the valley.

More Herdwicks.

The official mine plaque showing the opening by HRH Duke of Edinburgh.

Views back down to the slate mine with Seathwaite Fell in the background.

A Herdwick Lamb.

A precarious rock above the path on the right.

Summit of Grey Knotts.

First view of Haystacks with Pillar behind.

The ruins of the Old Drum House with a newly renovated Dubs Hut building behind which is going to become an executive camping barn.

Dubs Bottom and the track leading up towards Haystacks.

First view of Buttermere.

The track up to Haystacks.

The Buttermere Valley.

Blackbeck Tarn.

The Buttermere Valley from Green Crag.

Caroline, Society Walks organiser, on the summit.

Myself on the summit.

High Crag from the summit.

The summit tarn.

View to Buttermere & Crummock Water from the summit.

Another view of the summit tarn.

The track down to Innominate Tarn.

Innominate Tarn where AW's ashes were scattered by his widow Betty and Percy Duff his assistant for many years at the Kendal Borough Treasurer's office. Here we paused with other walkers to pay our respects to both AW and Betty who sadly passed away last summer.

'All I ask for, at the end, is a last long resting place by the side of Innominate Tarn on Haystacks, where the water gently laps the gravelly shore and the heather blooms and Pillar and Gable keep unfailing watch. A quiet, place, a lonely place. I shall go to it for the last time, and be carried: someone who knew me in life will take me there and empty me out of a little box and leave me there alone. And if you, dear reader, should get a bit of grit in your boots as you are crossing Haystacks in years to come, please treat it with respect. It might be me'.

The gully down to Warnscale.

The north ridge of Fleetwith Pike.

Fleetwith Pike.

Warnscale and the old quarry road.

Buttermere and Gatescarth.

Dubs Hut in the process of renovation.

Final view across Dubs Bottom back to Haystacks.

Haystacks & High Crag.

Piles of slate at the Drum House.

The final descent to the Honister Quarry and Youth Hostel where the cars were parked.

The weather had not been brilliant but at least we got some views! In fact, a very similar day to the last time AW had been up to Haystacks with Eric Robson using this route.