“Those few hours on Orrest Head cast a spell that changed my life.” Alfred Wainwright.

After many hours of experimenting with the Loughrigg print, I decided to make the most of the current fine weather and take a trip to Windermere for a jaunt up Orrest Head – one of the smaller and more accessible Wainwrights, but certainly not to be sniffed at, offering spectacular views across the southern lakes and across Windermere.

I’ve been using Outdooractive to set routes, which also allows me to log images and notes, keeping everything in one place. I’m now in the habit of packing a ‘field kit’, which contains a soil bag and latex gloves and I’ve found that using a sharpie to label the soil samples works as well as mucking about with labels. So, armed with some sandwiches and plenty of water, I picked a route directly from the train station in Windermere with a view to walking a circular route out towards Troutbeck and back.

It was a gentle assent, but I find it rather busy when I arrived. At first I was a little nervous about digging round for soil samples with everyone watching, but then I though, ah sod it and got to work. The only time I had to disturb anyone was to kindly ask a family to move off the bench so that I could get an image of the lake and bench from the summit. I also took some audio recordings but on the summit it was mainly voices – I think these are equally important though.

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always had a thing about benches on my hikes. I seem to be drawn to them, interested in it as an object that conjures ideas of who has sat there, the conversations they may have had, the people yet to sit.. I especially like the old rickety wooden ones I often come across in woodlands and forests. I’m going to edit this image later with a view to using it in portrait orientation for one of the cyanotypes.

Overall, another successful Wainwright bagged along with some soil samples, images and audio recordings. Looking forward to compiling it all and setting the next route!