Ten Wainwrights, One Haunted Pub, and a Very Kind Stranger

bootsandbanter
Dec 17, 2025
7 min read

An endurance round in Buttermere, 10 Wainwrights, 17 summits, and a missed bus

Date: 05 April 2025

📍Route: Crummock Water → Burnbank Fell → Blake Fell → High Pen → Gavel Fell → Floutern Cop → Great Borne → Starling Dodd → Little Dodd (Ennerdale) → Red Pike (Buttermere) → High Stile → High Crag → Seat → Scarth Gap→ Haystacks → Green Crag → Fleetwith Pike → Gatesgarth

📏 Distance: 30 km

⬆️ Ascent: 1983 m

Weather: Bitter wind on the early tops, easing into stillness by High Stile.

Mood: Focused, stubborn, haunted by ghosts, fully feral

Arrival Day

I arrived in Buttermere on 4 April and went straight from the car into the hills. No easing in, no hesitation. Just boots on and five Wainwrights in six hours of pure loveliness. One of those days where everything flows, legs feel light, and the landscape does all the talking.

Only after that did I head to Low Lorton to check in at the pub I’d booked months earlier. That was when things took a slightly unexpected turn.

The Booking I Definitely Did Not Read

Six months earlier, I’d booked a place to stay in Low Lorton, right above the Wheatsheaf Inn. Straightforward, I thought. Booked it, filed it away, and very obviously never looked at it again.

When I arrived after the long day of hiking, the woman showed me upstairs to my room. Then she kept going:

“And this is the living room.”- a huge, open-beam space.

“And this is the kitchen.” - massive. Fully separate.

“And the bathroom…”

At this point, I was quietly confused. I asked, “So… the other rooms are for other guests?”

She looked at me and said, “No.”

I didn’t fully register that, because then she carried on, very calmly,

“And this is the external lock. It’s for your safety. In case of fire, do this. And don’t go downstairs into the pub at night because it will trigger the burglar alarm.”

I blinked.

“What do you mean…?”

“Well,” she said, “you have the whole place.”

Reader, I had somehow booked the entire second floor of the pub. Three bedrooms. A huge living area. A full kitchen. The lot. At that point I made a mental note to check later what on earth I’d paid for this 😂.

Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “We close the pub at 11, and we’ll be back around 8 or 9 in the morning.”

Right.

So there I was.

Alone.

In a 17th-century pub.

In the middle of nowhere.

All night.

When she left I immediately checked the booking.

£60 a night.

Sixty.

For the entire second floor of a 17th-century pub.

A dingy Travelodge costs more.

Alone in a 17th-Century Pub

While the pub was open, I could hear chatter downstairs, glasses clinking, life happening. I was oddly grateful for it. Then 11 o’clock came, the door shut… and everything went silent.

I became convinced I could hear things.

Little sounds. Creaks. Settling beams. Definitely footsteps. Obviously ghosts.

Grumpy ones.

Ghosts from 1654, no doubt, deeply unimpressed that it was now 2025 and someone had booked their pub for £60 a night.

I lay there thinking, For F*** sake, I have to climb ten Wainwrights tomorrow. I do not need this drama.

Every sound became suspicious. Every silence worse. I stared at the ceiling, wide awake, negotiating with myself. If I made it through the night without being haunted, I promised I would read Airbnb descriptions…always.

I did not sleep much.

And the real kicker?

I knew I had two nights of this.

By morning, when it was time to gear up at 06:45, I was tired, slightly unhinged, and very ready to put boots on and walk myself into daylight. What followed turned into one of the most epic days of the year.

The Endurance Round Begins

I drove to the carpark at Crummock water just down the road from the pub and started my Garmin at 7:20! I’d never started a hike this early before, but I needed to be finished by 19:00 or I’d be in real trouble, as that was when the last bus was meant to be.

Crummock Water was still and calm, the walk toward Loweswater gentle and deceptive. Vest on. Optimism high. That optimism lasted exactly until the first peak.

By the time I hit the early summits, the wind had teeth. Hoodie on, jacket on. Hands cold. Face cold. The first three peaks were properly hostile, the kind that make you question your life choices while pretending you’re totally fine 😵.

To make things even more sensible, I kept diverging from the main path to bag Birketts!? At the time, it felt logical. In hindsight, it was completely unhinged 😂.

Great Borne, High Stile & High Crag

Then came Great Borne.

The south face is not steep. It is ridiculous. A straight-up, lungs-on-fire kind of climb that demands respect and probably a quiet apology on the way up.

Somewhere around High Stile, the wind finally backed off. And just like that, the day transformed. The ridge walk between High Stile and High Crag became my favourite section of the entire round. Vast, dramatic, layered views rolling out in front of me. One of those moments where words genuinely fall short and you just keep walking, grinning like an idiot 😍.

A Path Designed by Someone Who Hates People

The descent from High Crag though…Who designed that path? And why do they hate people? Straight down, loose gravel, chaos everywhere. I abandoned it early, escaped onto grass, and flew down while others were battling gravity and regret 🥴🤯. One of my better decisions of the day.

To keep things spicy, I picked a scramble line up Haystacks – Scarth Gap. I hadn’t scrambled in ages and I loved every second of it. Hands on rock, full focus, proper movement. This is why I hike. This is the good stuff.

Of course I had to go onto Haystacks, although I had been there before.

Dead Bodies Upstream

The descent from Haystacks into Warnscale Beck was where things briefly unravelled. I lost the path for a short while, nothing dramatic, but enough to slow me down and make me pay attention. As I rounded a corner and stepped toward the beck, I came face to face with something I will never forget.

Right there in the stream was a fully grown dead sheep, bloated, split open, its insides exposed. I actually jumped. It shocked me that much.

What made it worse was where it was. I was around 450 metres up, high enough that you’d never expect something like that below you to be feeding the watercourse. It looked, at first glance, like a pristine mountain stream. One moment you’re thinking about clear water and refilling bottles, the next you’re confronted with the reality of what might be further upstream.

That image has stayed with me. Every time I now see a beautiful, clear beck, I remember that moment. You never really know what’s above you. And it’s exactly why I will always treat my water. Always carry tablets. Always. Refill from a stream is my DESPERATE option.

Fleetwith Pike was my tenth and final Wainwright of the day. From there, the descent along Fleetwith Edge was narrow, steep, rocky, and exposed. After 11 hours on my feet, there was no room for mistakes. Every step mattered. I was fully present, fully locked in, and strangely calm 🥴.

The Ending I Hadn’t Planned For

I got to Gatesgarth Farm at 18:45 and went straight to bus stop – the times I saw on there were not matching what I saw online. Then I went to the ice cream shop. I asked the guy there if he knew when the last bus would be.

He looked at the time and told me it had already gone.

That sinking feeling hit immediately. I must have got the times wrong. I’d checked them so many times while planning, because this wasn’t a linear walk.

My car was parked at Crummock Water, and I was now 7 miles away, 10 km!. At that moment, the distance felt impossible, my feet were mashed! I been non-stop walking for nearly 12 hours.

He could probably see it on my face.

Then he said, very casually, that if I waited until he closed, he’d give me a lift. He was already packing away anyway.

Honestly, I would have waited for hours. Walking was not an option 😂.

I won’t pretend I wasn’t apprehensive. Getting into a stranger’s car after a twelve-hour hike, completely exhausted, wasn’t something I’d planned for. But we talked, and very quickly it became clear he was just one of those genuinely good people.

He told me he does this often. Helps hikers out when he can. He said he hopes that one day, if he ever needs help himself, the universe will remember that.

That stayed with me.

Some days test your legs.

Some test your planning.

And some quietly remind you that kindness still exists, usually when you need it most.

Thank you, Jon.

Truly.