Author Topic: Have you really completed the Wainwrights?  (Read 1499 times)

Percy

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Have you really completed the Wainwrights?
« on: 08:40:34, 14/10/18 »
This is about the discrepancy between what people think is the summit of a hill and the summit as listed in the database of British & Irish Hills.


Case in point: Ling Fell in the North-Western Wainwrights. Here's the viewranger track of my visit:





You can find dozens of trip reports that talk of the 'summit trig point' and I've clearly visited it here.


But!


When I check my gpx file against the summit as listed in the database I find that the nearest I came to the summit was 216 feet away. The following image shows my track with the summit as the grey circle (can't use OS mapping with this software unfortunately)





I am ruling out this simply being inaccuracy with my GPS device as the trace clearly goes right through the trig point (on the OS map) and the marked summit (on the openstreetmap).


There are noted, and obvious, examples of the Wainwright summit being different from the true summit but I think you'd need surveying equipment to identify the true summit on something like Ling Fell. The database itself says:


Quote
 
ground is 1m higher than trig point 70m NNW at NY17961 28593 (W,B); cairn 50m N at NY 17982 28582 is 0.5m lower


70m? Sounds very much like 216 feet to me.  :-[



I've seen people checking the summit with their GPS device but what of us who've been walking the hills for donkey's years?


Have I really completed the Wainwrights? Have you?

Islandplodder

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Re: Have you really completed the Wainwrights?
« Reply #1 on: 10:15:29, 14/10/18 »

If you went to 'Wainwright's Summit" I reckon you have completed the "Wainwrights".
But not being a hillbagger I don't really understand the rules and anything I say is probably heresy.

Ridge

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Re: Have you really completed the Wainwrights?
« Reply #2 on: 15:28:51, 14/10/18 »
I'm sure that there must be Wainwrights where I've missed the absolute summit by a few meters while wandering round in the mist.


As for Ling Fell I definitely went to the trig point which, as far as I am concerned, is the top of the Wainwright.

Innominate Man

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Re: Have you really completed the Wainwrights?
« Reply #3 on: 20:12:22, 14/10/18 »
Isn't this only relevant if you are lost in poor conditions and reliant upon some form of GPS to identify/confirm your location ?
Otherwise, if you had a good walk, enjoyed yourself and as far as you were concerned were either at the summit/trig point or highest part of any given hill/mountain - why worry ?


As you will deduce from my Luddite response (and apologies to anyone offended) - I don't bag Wainwrights (I love his books and often follow some of the routes found in them) I simply walk to enjoy myself and sometimes may decide not to go to the highest point/trig point: That isn't the point for me.
Each to their own.
Only a hill but all of life to me, up there between the sunset and the sea. 
Geoffrey Winthrop Young

April

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Re: Have you really completed the Wainwrights?
« Reply #4 on: 12:21:49, 15/10/18 »
Wainwright has the trig column as the summit on Ling Fell so that would be the Wainwright summit for me. I have been up there a few times and I can't remember seeing any ground that was any higher than where the trig point is  :-\
Hate will never win

photonut

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Re: Have you really completed the Wainwrights?
« Reply #5 on: 10:10:04, 05/11/18 »
I think I may have covered all bases   ;D



 

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