The beginning - planning and preparation!

My Husband David and I (and don't forget the dog Sabre!) are planning on “doing the Wainwrights”, in other words climb all 214 fells covered by Wainwright in his seven book series "A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells".  It will be quite a challenge (especially for my husband and dog Sabre, as they are not exactly fit!) however I am determined we will succeed and I would like to add an extra dimension to this challenge by planning to do them in the space of just one year, from the 2nd October 2011 to 1st October 2012. Although there are 214 fells to climb I believe it is possible to complete them all in roughly 50 circular walks...! 

I have decided that we needed to set a monthly walking target to keep us on track, which I have fixed at 20 fells, which would be a fairly manageable 5 fells each weekend, which would also give us a bit of leeway for weekends when we were busy doing other things, on holiday , Christmas, bad weather... or  just hungover!

Today I have started preparations by visiting the library and borrowing the Wainwright books.  I also printed a tick-list of all the fells in height order - the highest is Scafell Pike at 3209 feet and the lowest is Castle Crag at 978 feet!  If you would like to view this checklist a copy can be obtained by clicking on the link "214 Fells Spreadsheet" at http://www.wainwright.org.uk/214_completers.html

I have no idea how we are going to tackle these walks – whether we will select random walks depending on weather and time restraints or plan a precise programme working through each book and area in an orderly fashion.   I suppose we will have to be fairly well organised so as not to repeat fells with different walks and not to miss any out in a particular area.

This challenge is of particular interest to us as Wainwright lived for a large proportion of his life in our home town of Kendal, and we are lucky to live close to these fabulous fells.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wainwright

I will keep you informed with how this challenge progresses!  Now it is in the public domain we really are committed!  Tonight’s challenge will be looking through the books and finding the perfect "first" walk for this weekend which will have to be relatively easy so as not to put David off before we really get going ...