Winter Steve Parr Round (125 miles and 13,150 meters of ascent with 61 peaks)
So after planning to have an attempt at the Winter Wainwright round this year and having to postpone it due to the C-word, I still wanted something that would be a great challenge, close to home, far less support needed and something that would importantly stay within the guidelines of the government restrictions.
I always had a plan B, just in case the Wainwright round couldn’t go ahead and this was it. As far as I’m aware no one had completed the round in winter and only a small number of people have actually completed this monstrous round outside of winter (6 in fact).
I’m very fortunate to live in Rydal, therefore making it possible to also use my home as a place to have some rest almost half way around too. I then wanted to use one local experienced person on each leg as a mean of support, but also as a means of safely if anything was to go wrong at all and a huge thank to all those legends that helped me complete this massive feat
In the summer of 1984, Steve devised a round, which he initially called “Beyond the Bob Graham Round”, but has more recently been named the “Steve Parr Round” in his honour after he tragically disappeared in the Himalayas in 1990, also making this winter the 30th anniversary of his disappearance.
The round allows you to visit any tops in any order, so I chose to start and finish at Moot Hall in Keswick, visiting Rydal (56 miles in). The challenge is basically to link every peak above 2,500ft (57 Wainwright’s and 4 tops) in the Lake District
At 3am on Thursday 25th February I set off with an improving forecast and on the first day everything went as planned perfectly! My support team were heroic and I was moving much quicker than planned, which meant I essentially could sleep for longer when I got home, winner! I arrived in Rydal in a time of 16 hours 50 minutes, an hour and a half quicker than planned
The final day was also amazing, but much bigger than the first, but with 69 miles to go and close to 9,000 meters of ascent left. I managed to finish on Saturday 27th with a total time of 53 hours and 48 minutes
More to follow...
The second day was much harder terrain to move quickly over and that took its toll when combined with damp rock from low cloud at times, especially during the night section, which was completely covered in low cloud with zero visibility.
Leaving Wrynose at 7am the day started off cloudy, but improved to show some amazing cloud inversions and amazing winter sunshine. There were some memorable moments, including the brutal height loss/ gain from High Raise to Glaramara, the Scafell’s and reaching Wasdale
Leaving Wasdale in the late afternoon, the light was incredible, but unfortunately as soon as the sun set, the cloud came in and made everything damp and again harder to move over. About 12 hours and 13 hills again there were some memorable moments, some of them tough. The stand out would be moving over the gables with wet rock, rain and about 9pm, not a great feeling with 9 hours of darkness left. Others would be the long section over to High Stile and the horrid decent down into Buttermere slipping all over the place.
After some food and a sit down, the psyche was high to get the final leg back to Keswick finished. We left Buttermere at 4.15am and shortly after the sleep deprivation was kicking in. I literally stopped, laid on some heather and power napped for like 15 minutes before setting off again, it’s amazing how much difference a short amount of sleep can make.
Cracking on with the north western hills in the dark and another short power nap before Hopegill head, we reached Grizedale Pike for sunrise. The views were amazing and a real treat to finish with. The sun was nice and warm with only Keswick to go. It wasn’t quite like normal times when finishing something big, but finishing was an amazing feeling!!
A few friends on their coffee run waved as we chilled next to moot hall in the morning, the sun was lovely and warm and soaking it up with a coffee and a bacon butty was incredible.
What a round and something that will remain in my memory forever. Thanks again to everyone involved, really couldn’t of done it without you all, absolute heroes!