Fellrunner Norman Hadley sketches out a new, logically metric Lake District challenge route that only the very best could do in a day. Do you fancy being the first? Or perhaps you'd prefer to backpack it over several days...?

History of an Obsession

People have been doing impossibly ambitious rounds of the Lake District fells for ninety years now. Back in the summer of 1932, Keswick bed-and-breakfast proprietor Bob Graham ran an incredible forty-two peaks at the age of forty-two in a shade under twenty-four hours.

Well, an incredible feat by one person is a fingerless glove thrown down in challenge to others. In the intervening nine decades, people have improved on Bob's time or added extra peaks within the 24-hour limit. At the time of writing, the speed record for forty-two peaks is an astonishing 12 hours 23 minutes set by American athlete Jack Kuenzle in September 2022.

The holder of the title for most peaks in twenty-four hours is British runner Kim Collison, with an astounding seventy-eight. Kim's run is a useful benchmark because, at 145 kilometres and 11,750 metres of ascent, it represents the current limit for Homo Sapiens in a day. Kim also holds the record for the most Munros in a day, with similarly mind-blowing statistics (33 Munros, 160 kilometres, 9,000 metres of ascent).

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that, after only three paragraphs, I have exhaustively strip-mined the thesaurus for synonyms in the realm of incredulity. The feats of the top flight runners may seem beyond the ken of mere mortals like us, but they can inspire us. After all, there's nothing to stop you doing a more sedate round of the Bob Graham route in two, three, or even four days.

But I assume too much. Perhaps you are not mortal at all, but one of the superhuman elite. Maybe your name is Kim Collison. Or Sabrina Verjee, Damian Hall or Nicky Spinks. Maybe you are scouting around for a new challenge?

Dropping the Gauntlet

Well, scout no more; I have the very thing for you. This route, the product of a housebound day when the imagination went for a wander, follows the pattern of the classic rounds, beginning and ending at Keswick Moot Hall. Rather than extending the Bob Graham Round, with its arbitrary choice of summits, it focuses only on the highest peaks.

All the 800m fells in a round - a lot by any reasonable person's definition but I calculate that a top-flight runner would just be able to complete it in 24 hours

The concept is similar to the Parr Round, which takes in all the tops above 2,500 feet. But the fastest known time for the Parr Round is an implausible (you can supply your own suitably breathless synonym) 33 hours 45 minutes by Andy Berry in 2003. From this it is possible to make a bold extrapolation: even if humankind lasts for another hundred thousand years, the Parr Round will never be completed in under twenty-four hours. So how do we create a challenge that could?

I have metricated the altitude threshold but where 2,500 feet would translate as 762 metres, I have rounded up to 800 metres. This reduces the number of peaks, using Wainwright as the definitive list, to thirty-five. Of course, they are more widely scattered than Bob Graham's tops, including a pair in the Far Eastern fells (High Street and High Raise) and another two in the Coniston Group (Swirl How and the Old Man). Over in the west and northwest, High Stile, Grasmoor and Crag Hill must be visited. These hills have never felt the imprint of a Bob Graham runner's studs.

The suggested route is for guidance only - feel free to do your own dot-to-dot if you think a different order would be more efficient or more satisfying. My tally measures 152 kilometres and 9,650 metres of ascent. That's a lot by any reasonable person's definition but I calculate that a top-flight runner would just be able to complete it in twenty-four hours. My reckoning is based on a Naismith-style comparison with Kim Collison's 78-peak benchmark. My route is 7 kilometres longer than his, but saves a whopping 2,000 metres of ascent.

Which way round?

You can manage another 23 kilometres for a pint, can't you?

The choice whether to go clockwise or anticlockwise is a personal one. For Bob Graham runners, the decision is driven by whether you want to get the Newland road section out of the way or leave it for the wobbly-legged stumble to the finishing line. For this route, the dynamic is very different: assuming a Keswick start and finish, the easiest section is midway through.

A huge factor is the length of the various legs. I've assumed, to minimise re-ascent, no drop into Wasdale between the Gable and Scafell groups. As a consequence, there is no road suitable for a support crew anywhere between Wrynose and Buttermere, a distance of 40 kilometres. So unless you're going unsupported you'll need a very good friend willing to hike up to Styhead with dry socks and jelly babies to revive you. If they can also be persuaded to give you a boost at Ennerdale to vault High Stile, so much the better.

Assuming a clockwise round from Keswick, the leg lengths are approximately:

1. 20km to Threlkeld. This is easier than the Bob because I'm generously sparing you the soul-sapping heather-bashing up Great Calva. You're welcome.
2. 30km to Hartsop. Compared with the Bob, you can skip Clough Head and Seat Sandal, but you'll have to go out and back to Catstye Cam with two traverses of Swirral Edge. And the Fairfield section will need to include St Sunday Crag and Hart Crag before you can drop back to valley level.
3. 15km to Kirkstone Inn up High Street via the Hayeswater track and down over Caudale Moor.
4. 20km of easy, low-level terrain to Coniston village. Much of this can be on-road.
5. 10km over the Coniston fells to Wrynose Pass.
6. 40 brutal kilometres linking the Eskdale and Ennerdale horseshoes, descending to Buttermere. This mammoth leg is potentially breakable at Ennerdale - if it doesn't break you first. Or see the Wasdale variation below.
7. 20km over Grasmoor and Crag Hill to Keswick.

Variations

It is possible to include Wasdale in the itinerary, but it will cost about 5 kilometres and another 400 metres of ascent. In that case, you'd need to summon the will to go up the Dore Head screes for Red Pike, then circuit upper Ennerdale anticlockwise to High Stile.

A shorter variant is possible, missing out the 23-kilometre long peakless stretch between High Street and Coniston, but this would no longer be a round. You wouldn't get the hero's welcome in Keswick. There'd be no crowds cheering as you stride up the Moot Hall steps with 23:59 on the clock. There'd be nobody passing you a foaming pint. You can manage another 23 kilometres for a pint, can't you?

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