UKH

James Gibson has completed the first winter Wainwrights Round - a traverse of all 214 Wainwright peaks that takes in 325 miles and 36,000 metres of ascent. There have been several summer rounds in recent years but this is the first time it has been completed in winter conditions.

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Surely a winter round should be done in mainly snowy conditions, so Jan or Feb and not December I feel.

The precedent is from the BG round, where a "mid-winter" round is "attempted at any time from the weekend before the shortest day through to the first period of decent weather after the shortest day but to be completed no later than 10 January" and...

A "winter" round is anything else "attempted during the period starting on 1 December and finishing on the last day of February".

Also, have you not been following this? (or are you just winding us up). A significant portion of the high ground was covered in snow.

*looks at pictures*

*sees snow*

What's your point? 

I'll bet that James Gibson is glad there was a decent amount of snow so that there won't be loads of people whingeing that "it wasn't a proper winter round".

good effort James , really enjoyed following it all on Facebook 

Just the one 🙄

Gonna need a bigger boat to land this whopper. 

Just a few occasions when I checked the fell top conditions page, little mention of snow. But be interesting to know how many days we're actually done in snow, and I don't mean a few drifting snowflakes. Martin Morans winter round of the Munros had a spell of almost snowless tops in the far north west, but then again he was also avalanched!

I think it's been referenced elsewhere, but the full article on Winter Rounds by the Bob Graham Club is well worth reading, as it's pretty open in their acknowledgement of the complexity of providing a definite set of dates, because it's not necessarily about dates - it's about what the ground conditions are like.

http://www.bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=winter

In the case of the James' Wainwrights, I don't think anyone could possibly argue that what he did was not only in winter conditions in terms of timing, but also winter in terms of what it was like underfoot, because if that title photograph isn't in winter conditions - and if two named storms isn't enough - I don't know what is...

James will have experienced the full range of Lake District winter conditions on his round from waterlogged boggy fells for the first few days. Then later on the 4 Dec the snow started falling and the tops have been snowy and icy since then. He’s also had a full mix of weather from benign sunny light wind days to full minging blizzards with white out conditions.

It’s a very rare winter in the Lake District these days to have a full week of snow covered fells. 

For me one of the toughest factors in a winter round is the short daylight hours. A lot of the time is spent in the dark which is mentally taxing. You’ve got to give James full respect and credit for his winter round. 
 

(Rob - correction, there was only one named storm during his round. Arwen was the weekend before he started.)

Ahh yes, indeed it was - sorry!

As someone who ran a significant portion with James and was with him most days I can assure you it was a winter round. 50mph blizzards, heavy snowfall, climbing over and through drifts taller than all of us. On some legs we waded through snow for hours upon end.... Always one from the armchair.

I stand corrected, but it must be grim up north!