Country Walking Magazine (UK)

TARN BAGGING IN THE LAKES

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The tarns of Lakeland have a devoted following. Guidebook writer Alfred Wainwright asked for his ashes to be scattered at Innominate Tarn on Hay Stacks. Cumbrian artist William Heaton Cooper called them ‘the eyes of the mountain’ and published a book about them. And John and Anne Nuttall, while camped beside Greendale Tarn on a rainy day, decided to ‘investigat­e every little speck of blue’ on the map – a project that turned into a twovolume guide. The precise definition of tarn – from Old Norse tjörn meaning pond – is subject to debate, but they identified 335 in total, of wonderfull­y various sizes and situations, and 82 walking routes to bag them, saying ‘more than anything else tarns reflect the seasons and the weather so that no two visits are ever the same’. Books are out of print, but available secondhand.

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