Binsey and a bivvy

Binsey, that lonely little hill, as far north as you can get on your map of the Wainwrights. So, why did Alfred even include Binsey in a list of only 214, when he had hundreds of others to choose from? Tonight, I’m going to find out why and tell you what I got from Binsey that I got nowhere else.

Is this walk for you?

This is a short, easy Wainwright — perfect for an evening add-on, a quick tick on the way past, or, as I found, an easy summit to bivvy on when you fancy sleeping somewhere with a view. It won’t test your legs, but it’s exposed to whatever the weather’s doing, so bring enough layers if you’re planning to linger after dark.

My Binsey bivvy camp

Let me start by saying what led me here on a freezing cold winter’s evening. Why would I wild camp up here, and why only wrap myself in, essentially, a plastic bag instead of a tent?

I’d just embarked on a long hike at the top end of the northern fells, 18km in deep snow, covering six Wainwrights. A wonderful stroll around the quietest hills in the Lake District.

However, there was disappointment. I couldn’t bring myself to get that last one in, Great Calva. I figured I would be better leaving it and either having time to come up here, or not, that pushing my inexperience into getting into trouble, miles from my van. On hindsight, I made the right decision. But, at the time, I was pissed.

So, with this disappointment inside of me, and more time left of the day, I set out to ‘make up for it’.

After strolling down the side of Longlands Fell and reaching the van, I took the van over to Binsey Cottage (what Wainwright called Binsey Lodge, on a thin sliver of woodland referred to as Binsey plantation)and parked in a layby right next to the gate that starts the Binsey ascent. I emptied my bag on the floor in the back of the Transit and, thinking I would just hike up, have supper up there and return to sleep in the van, I considered the cold. If I’m going to ‘sit’ up there for half an hour, firstly preparing food, then eating, it might be a good idea to cover myself. My bivvy is very light and even my sleeping bag will hardly be noticeable in my pack.

Out for a wild camp

So now, I have my stove, food, bivvy, sleeping bag, all the other essentials a sensible person carries in a day bag. I’ll have a very comfortable hour up there, then on my return, have a nice sleep in the van before meeting a group of hopefuls tomorrow morning ready for adventure ascending the steep northern ridge of Ullock Pike and beyond.

I can’t say much about the rising track up the eastern end of Binsey, it takes you to the top. When you get there you meet a trig pillar, followed by a walled shelter (what will end up being my refuge for the night), then an elongated ridge with a cairn at the other, north-western end.

You can understand, even in the low light, why Wainwright included this little hill, as far north as you can get, into his fifth Pictorial Guide. The views over to the northern fells is outstanding. I can see all of the Udale fells I’d done earlier today. I love sitting down and working out which ones are which (my two lads take the piss whenever I’m out with them – that’s Skiddaw, that’s Blencathra, they would say, pointing into the distance).

You get to the top, coming from Binsey Cottage, and the first thing you see is the trig pillar. This was used by Ordnance Survey back in the day to survey the land. Using a theodolite, they could measure distances to other trig pillars and the height of each. It was built here and ‘levelled’ (finished) on the 1st of June 1952, the same year the Lake District National Park was officially formed.

Behind the trig, there’s a well received walled shelter ‘facing’ north. The bit of wind there is draws in from the south-west right now and when I sit down in the shelter it’s as still as can be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty much freezing cold but being out of the wind is a relief.

I leave the bag and go for a little wander. There’s a small elongated ridge on the top of Binsey and at the north-western end, another cairn. There’s not much to explore of course but I need to at least walk the 100m or so the other end. The view over to the Solway Firth is as good as it gets. I try to think if you would get a better, uninterrupted view. Skiddaw would give you this but every time I’ve been up there the cloud or mist has been a barrier. Longlands would have been great but for the mist in the air.

Can you take a bit of geology?

Another reason Wainwright put this in the book was that Binsey marks a geological border in history going back millions of years. See, the sedimentary slate we know from the Skiddaw massif was laid down 470 million years ago. That area was way south of the equator back then. Over time, it moved north and when the Iapetus Ocean closed up between two land masses, the mud stone was pushed up, folded, over millions of years eroded.

Then, about 10-15 million years later, volcanic eruptions on the mud stone’s new landmass friend causes lava to flow down onto what is now Blencathra and Skiddaw mountain ranges’ lower slopes, bloody cheek! One lump of this lava was Binsey. There have been a number of ice ages since then of course, scratching away at the land but Binsey is right at the border of the mudstone chunk and the lava that flowed onto it. Pretty cool I think.

Supper on a lava flow

Even the dog walkers aren’t braving Binsey tonight. I wrap up my sleeping bag and the bivvy over it and get warm. I get the stove on, sheltered from the wind in my little shelter and pour some water into a bag of food, tucking the pouch into my coat to warm my core.

I plan on heading back to the van in half an hour or so, and parking over near the Dodd visitor’s centre for a sleep before meeting to take a group up Ullock Pike.

After my food, I’m nice and toasty. Figure I may as well, as if I didn’t already subconsciously plan for it, sleep here the night.

I drift off with my head casually resting on a chunk of basaltic andesite (the volcanic lava), looking up to a cold cloudy sky.

I’m awakened abruptly at about 1, what a noise, my sleepy brain thinks there’s a volcano erupting.

A helicopter, hovering about 100m above the hill, light’s on full shining down on me, thunders around the summit. The search light waves around the ridge for a couple of minutes and I’m just lay there in my comfy little pod. Funny as, I lean up wondering what the hell is going on, thinking Abel Magwitch will be joining me (in case you don’t know, that’s the escaped convict in Great Expectations, a book I read as a teenager).

I didn’t have any prisoner join me that night and it wasn’t a dream, the chopper moved away and eventually just flew off towards Skiddaw Forest. What the hell just happened?

After my eyes adjusted, I lie back down again peering into the abyss of the sky, a million stars shining as bright as can be. Eventually, after seeing a number of shooting stars, and a hundred satellites ruining my view, I flow away into the night.

When you bivvy camp, you wake early. No time to wait for the morning sun to rise over Blencathra. It’s still dark and there’s that lovely winter morning’s moist air lingering. Up I get for a little wander. I’ll have breakfast on Latrigg, I think and watch the sun pop up over the Helvellyn Range (this photo was taken in spring though so it’s coming up over Halls Fell Ridge). Latrigg’s a nice place to go if you wake early.

Binsey — another one coloured in

A lonely little hill like Binsey is exactly why the 214 Wainwrights Checkmap exists — so the quiet, easily-forgotten ones get ticked off the same as the big names.

Shop the Checkmap

Sat up on Latrigg with the light coming up, I find myself looking the other way too — south-west, past Keswick to Grisedale Pike and the rest of the Coledale fells, the ones I keep eyeing up from the top of Skiddaw and and thinking ‘it’s about time’. It’s a new area to me, so, that’s next.

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