What changed in June 2026

The definitive, fully-sourced data report on mountain rescue in the Lake District, set in the England & Wales picture -- built to be the page people cite when they need the numbers. Every figure is dated and counted by a stated basis (published sources only, no individuals named): how call-outs have risen, the busiest teams, what call-outs involve and why, fatalities framed with care, a coverage map of all twelve teams, and an honest look at whether the unpaid volunteers get the funding they deserve -- with the April 2026 parliamentary debate to back it. It credits every team and shows how to support them, and ties the patterns back to the navigation, first-aid and beginner's guides. Current to the 2025 figures, refreshed each spring, with a downloadable dataset and embeddable charts. Read the data report →

A beginner's guide to getting safely onto the fells -- what to do, what to carry, and what it really costs to begin (far less than the shops would have you believe). It covers starting small on easy routes, planning a day with Naismith's Rule, where to spend and where to save on gear, reading a proper mountain forecast, walking with others while you build judgement, and stepping up to the bigger fells when you're ready. It's told through the avoidable mistakes I made myself -- the wrong shell on Helvellyn, trail runners on wet rock, a frozen drinking tube on Helm Crag -- with my own photos throughout, and no affiliate links. Read the beginner's guide →

An honest, field-tested guide to first aid on the Lakeland fells -- what to do in the window before Mountain Rescue can reach you, which on a remote summit can be well over an hour. It covers the things that actually happen up here: ankle and lower-leg injuries (the single biggest call-out), hypothermia staging, blisters, head injuries and cardiac arrest on remote ground -- with a clear 'self-evacuate or call for help' decision chart and hand-drawn diagrams. It's a holding action, not a replacement for Mountain Rescue or proper training: in an emergency, dial 999, ask for Police, then Mountain Rescue. Read the first-aid guide →

A new long-form guide to navigating the Lakeland fells -- the fundamentals of map, compass, contours and grid references taught the Ordnance Survey way, alongside a first-hand, honest reckoning of GPX smartwatches versus paper maps (including the day a watch on Dollywaggon Pike nearly sent me over the edge). It covers planning and Naismith's Rule, comms and emergencies, the Lakeland danger spots worth knowing, and a verified directory of the ten Lake District Mountain Rescue teams and the areas they cover -- with hand-drawn diagrams for taking a compass bearing and for reading the key contour shapes. Read the navigation guide →

A new guide to twenty of the finest views in the Lakes -- chosen for the reward against the effort, from five-minute roadside stops like Ashness Bridge and Surprise View to short, shapely fells like Catbells, Loughrigg and Orrest Head. Each one tells you what you actually see from the top, how to reach it (distance, climb and parking), a first-hand note and a map, and where it sits on Instagram -- ranked by how many photos are tagged at the spot itself as a location, not by hashtag. For the big-summit panoramas, every card links through to its full fell guide. See the viewpoints guide →

The site is still cookieless by default -- no analytics, no tracking, no account. The one new exception is entirely opt-in: the new viewpoints guide can show photos straight from Instagram, and because Instagram (Meta) sets its own cookies, nothing from it loads until you choose to allow it -- either through a one-line consent banner or by clicking an individual photo card. You can change or withdraw that choice at any time via 'Cookie settings' in the footer. The full detail, including what Meta receives, is in the privacy policy. Read the privacy policy →

Collections has had a proper polish and rejoined the main menu. Each group now opens with a short description -- with a few recommended guidebooks for the easy walks and the scrambles -- and a new panel up top picks out the highest-scoring fell to climb today from the daily conditions. The lists grouped by town gained a quick area filter, and they now use a tighter 5 km radius, so the walks shown are genuinely on your doorstep rather than a drive away.

A behind-the-scenes fix to how each fell page is matched to its write-up. A few summits that share a name with another fell -- the two Harter Fells (Mardale and Eskdale), the two Yew Banks, Great Crag and a handful more -- could end up showing the wrong one's description. Every page now carries its own, and I removed a few duplicate write-ups that had slipped onto two pages.

The lake guides are now complete -- seven more waters join last week's ten, for seventeen in all. The new ones: Esthwaite Water (Beatrix Potter's lake, a private fishery with no swimming); Buttermere (the classic flat circuit and its little rock tunnel); Grasmere -- the lake in Wordsworth's vale, not to be confused with the village on its shore; Loweswater (the quiet one that drains inward, away from the sea); Rydal Water (Rydal Cave, Dora's Field and the old Coffin Route); Brothers Water (the easy Hartsop circuit at the foot of Kirkstone, and the honest truth behind its sad name); and Elter Water -- the smallest lake, the 'lake of the swans', and why you can't really walk round it. Each gives the facts, the swimming rules, the best walk, and a 'Walks by [lake]' list of every nearby route and fell with live conditions.

I've made a broad pass to make the site work better for everyone, towards the WCAG 2.1 AA standard. Every fell's main photo now carries a written description for anyone using a screen reader; the colour contrast is stronger across the search box, links and form controls; the menus, filters and the bagging-tracker buttons are properly labelled and keyboard-friendly; and there's a 'skip to content' link with clearer page structure throughout. If you browse with a screen reader, a keyboard or larger text, it should all feel smoother now.

Every fell's weather card now does more than list the next seven days -- it scores each day for that exact summit, using the same rating behind the daily conditions, and picks out the best day to go. Each day gets a colour-coded band; tap one to open the detail (summit gust, rain, temperature, visibility and daylight), and the days further out fade as the forecast gets less certain. It stays honest about a poor week, and always points you to the MWIS and Met Office mountain forecasts before you set off.

We've added full guides to the lakes themselves -- not just the towns and villages on their shores. That now covers ten: Lake Windermere, Ullswater and Derwentwater; Coniston Water (Donald Campbell and Bluebird, Swallows and Amazons, the Steam Yacht Gondola); Haweswater (the reservoir that drowned the village of Mardale); Bassenthwaite Lake (the only water actually called a 'lake'); Thirlmere (and the gentler way up Helvellyn); Ennerdale Water (the remotest lake, with no road alongside it); Wast Water (England's deepest); and Crummock Water (Scale Force and a fine swim). Each covers what makes it special -- the facts, the boats, swimming and the rules (which differ lake to lake), and honest answers to the things people ask -- and opens a 'Walks by [lake]' list of every route and fell within about five miles, with live conditions. More lakes and tarns to follow.

The Collections section has grown. There's now a page for each of the seven Lakeland areas (the Northern Fells, the Eastern Fells and so on, with live conditions); the walks grouped by the size of the day, from Easy to Severe; a hand-picked 'Scrambles & the edges' list for those with a head for heights; and 'Fells to save for a bad day' -- the low fells that keep you below the cloud when the tops are wild. The exposure rating on the serious routes has been walked and confirmed first-hand, not just estimated.

Five long days from my own GPS tracks join the routes library: the Kentmere Horseshoe, the full Coniston Horseshoe (all seven tops), the Ullscarf, Eagle Crag & Sergeant's Crag round from Stonethwaite, the Fusedale Circuit above Howtown, and the far-eastern Longsleddale round. Each carries honest distance, ascent, pacing and difficulty -- proper half- to full-day rounds, not easy strolls.

The heart of Borrowdale gets three village guides: Seatoller at the foot of Honister Pass, Stonethwaite in its quiet side-valley, and Rosthwaite, the walkers' hub of the upper dale. Each has the usual -- getting there and the 78 bus, parking, where to stay and eat, and the walks and fells right from the door.

A few more fells now carry my own pictures instead of borrowed ones -- Bleaberry Fell, High Tove and Fleetwith Pike, plus a new shot of Derwentwater. I'm slowly replacing stock and Wikimedia images with my own across the site.

There's a new Collections section that pulls the site's walks together into curated, data-backed lists -- and it leads with the one thing no other Lake District site can: which of them are good to climb today. There's a 'Walks from [town]' page for every place I cover (every nearby route and fell within about five miles, ranked, with live conditions), a 'Lake District fells you can reach by bus' list for car-free days, the easy & family walks, and more to come -- all gathered on the new Collections page in the menu. Every fell and route page now also shows the collections it belongs to, so it's easier to find your way around the site. The lists are generated straight from the live data, so they keep themselves up to date.

Two more village guides join the Places section, both near Keswick. Portinscale is the quiet Derwentwater-shore village a mile from town -- Lingholm and Beatrix Potter's walled garden, the marinas for getting on the lake, and the Catbells path on the doorstep. Grange-in-Borrowdale is the tiny, postcard village by the famous double packhorse bridge in the heart of Borrowdale -- Castle Crag (the lowest Wainwright), the Bowder Stone and swimming in the River Derwent. Each carries the usual honest steer on getting there, parking and the walks from the door.

I've added a batch of new low-level walks. Five more easy & family walks -- the Grasmere lake circuit, Blea Tarn in Little Langdale, Slater Bridge & Cathedral Cave, the Bowder Stone and the Loweswater circuit -- plus five longer low-level routes for a half-day without the big climbs: Castlerigg Stone Circle, Watendlath and its packhorse bridge, Ashness Bridge & the Surprise View, the Crummock Water shore and the Wray Castle circuit. I've also swapped in my own photographs on several routes and fells in place of borrowed ones.

There's a new Easy & family walks section -- a home for the gentler side of the Lakes: low-level lakeshores, waterfalls, tarns and easy viewpoints, all under 500 m of climb. I've seeded it with fifty of the best easy walks across the district, each with honest suitability flags -- whether it's genuinely pushchair-friendly, good for young children, has a standout view, and how it is underfoot -- so families can see what they're taking on before they set off. You can filter the list by all of those, plus by feature (lake, waterfall, tarn, viewpoint or forest) and distance. The first ten now have full guides with maps, GPX and live conditions -- Tarn Hows, the Buttermere lake circuit, Aira Force & Gowbarrow, Orrest Head, Stock Ghyll Force, Latrigg, Friar's Crag, Hallin Fell, Loughrigg Terrace and Elterwater -- and the rest are on the way. The main Routes page now keeps to the proper fell days, with Easy & family walks linked from the top of it.

There's a new Outlook page that looks ahead about a fortnight, to answer the question most trips start with: 'I can get away some weekend soon -- which looks best for the fells?' It scores each of the next couple of weeks across all seven Lakeland regions the same way as the live Conditions page (clear summits, wind, rain and visibility) and lays them out as a colour-coded, day-by-day grid; click any day to compare the regions. There's also a window finder: tell it your dates and whether you want a day, a weekend or a week, and it ranks the best upcoming windows for you. The first few days are the most reliable and it gets vaguer further out, so treat it as a planning steer -- always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you head up. Find it as 'Outlook' in the menu, next to Conditions.

A new route guide for one of the finest ways up Skiddaw -- a loop from the Dodd Wood forest car park up the clean, airy ridge over Ullock Pike and Longside Edge, the loose scree pull to Skiddaw's summit and the view out to the Solway Firth, then back over Carl Side to the little wooded top of Dodd. As ever it's built from a walk I've done myself: five Wainwrights with the five-axis difficulty profile, elevation profile and fast/steady pacing, a stage-by-stage description, two escape routes, and honest notes on the two navigation traps -- don't bear left too early or you'll miss Skiddaw's summit, and take the careful, GPS-checked line off Carl Side down to Dodd. GPX to download, cross-linked to every summit and the live conditions.

There's a new route guide for the Coledale Round -- one of the great north-western horseshoes from Braithwaite, taking in Grisedale Pike, Hopegill Head, Crag Hill, Sail, Outerside and Barrow. Like the others it's built from a walk I've actually done: the page carries the five-axis difficulty profile, an elevation profile and fast/steady pacing, a stage-by-stage description, three escape routes for when the weather turns, and honest notes on the airy bits -- the steep, hands-on pull up Grisedale Pike, the sharp drop to keep left of along Hobcarton Crag, and the descent off Sail to avoid. The GPX is there to download, and it's cross-linked to all six Wainwrights and the live conditions.

The About page now shows a handful of my most recent walks: the ones I've taken photos on, each with a small gallery of my own pictures and a link out to the full activity on Strava. It's a simple, honest way to show I'm actually out on these fells in all weathers, not just writing about them from a desk -- and it refreshes as I add new walks. It's built to stay light: the photos are kept small and only load as you scroll down to them.

If you ever land on a broken or mistyped link, you'll now get a proper Lake-District-themed 'page not found' page rather than a bare server error -- with a clear signpost back to the fells, routes, places and today's conditions, and a nudge to let me know if a page you were expecting really should be there.

There's a new in-depth guide to Glenridding -- the little village on Ullswater that's the classic base for Helvellyn -- joining the Places section alongside Keswick, Ambleside, Grasmere and the others. It leads with what people actually search for: parking (which car park, how to pay, where to leave the car for Helvellyn or Glenridding Dodd, and the fallbacks when the main one's full), then the easiest and the most dramatic ways up Helvellyn, Glenridding Dodd and the high fells, Ullswater and the steamers, Aira Force and the Ullswater Way, where to stay and eat, and the honest story of the 2015 floods. It's cross-linked throughout to our fell pages, the Striding Edge route and live conditions.

The 'Best fells today' ranking used to show 'not available yet' early in the morning, before that day's scores had finished calculating -- annoying if you were planning a walk over breakfast. It now falls back to the freshest scores it has (the next day's are ready the evening before), so the page stays useful around the clock, and the daily scoring runs earlier too. The date the scores are for is always shown.

A round of speed work on top of the recent homepage changes: the site's styles, scripts and images are now compressed and minified, and your browser is told it can safely cache them, so repeat visits and moving between pages are quicker and use less data. We also tidied up a couple of small text-contrast spots for better readability.

There's now a proper Contact page -- the quickest way to flag a wrong parking spot or a broken link is still the report form, with email and LinkedIn as alternatives -- and a standalone Privacy page that spells out the site's no-cookies, no-tracking stance in plain English. Every page's footer is now consistent, with Privacy and Contact links added alongside the rest.

An experimental, behind-the-scenes step: the daily fell-conditions feed is now described in a standard machine-readable format, so AI assistants and agents can find and use it ("which Lake District fell is best to walk today?"). Nothing changes for visitors -- it's an early, optional bet as these AI-discovery standards emerge, and we'll keep it only if it proves worthwhile.

The homepage fell list and the Conditions ranking now arrive as part of the page itself, rather than being drawn by JavaScript after the page loads. In practice the list you came for shows up straight away -- noticeably quicker on a phone or a slow signal -- and the whole thing still works even if scripts are blocked or fail. Everything you could do before still works once the page is interactive: search, sort, the Wainwright/Outlying filter and your progress ticks on the homepage; the Today/Tomorrow toggle, the region, length and bus filters, 'near me' and the map on the Conditions page. Same pages, just faster and more robust.

Where I've actually been up a fell or written up a route from the ground, the page now carries a small 'Written and walked by Lee McCoy' line with the date I last reviewed it -- an honest marker of first-hand experience. It only appears where it's earned: a fell shows it if I've left personal notes or logged a walk up it on Strava, and a route shows it once it's had a full field-checked write-up. Pages built from data and research alone don't make that claim.

Share a page from the site -- on X, Facebook or a messaging app -- and it now shows a proper preview card with the fell or place photo, the title and a short description, instead of a bare link. Alongside that, every page photo now carries clear, machine-readable credit: my own photos are marked as mine, and the Wikimedia photos name the photographer and their Creative Commons licence, linking back to the original. Nothing changes on the page itself -- it's about how the site looks when it's shared, and making sure every photographer is properly credited.

The 'Local Mountain Rescue' links on Helvellyn, Fairfield and St Sunday Crag now point straight to Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team -- the team that actually covers those fells -- rather than the national Mountain Rescue body, matching the other two dozen fells in the Patterdale area. The Keswick Mountain Rescue links have also been tidied to a single consistent address.

A round of under-the-hood work helps search engines understand the site properly: each fell is described as a mountain (tied to its Wikipedia and Wikidata entries), each route as a hiking trail with its distance, climb and start point, each guide as an article with its author, and the site itself as a named publication. None of this changes what you see -- it just helps the right page turn up when you search, and lays the groundwork for richer search results over time.

There's a whole new Events section -- an honest, month-by-month guide to what's on across the Lakes: traditional Lakeland sports days and agricultural shows, music, food and film festivals, and the gloriously odd local traditions (gurning at the Egremont Crab Fair, the World's Biggest Liar, Penrith's torchlit Winter Droving). Every event is tagged with its nearest town (linked to our full guide), whether it's indoor or outdoor, and whether it's family-friendly, with a 'coming up' list that rolls forward by date. The flagship events -- Ambleside and Grasmere sports, the Hawkshead and Keswick shows, and the world-renowned Kendal Mountain Festival -- get their own pages with how to get there, what's nearby and how to plan a day around them. We only show a firm date once it's confirmed with the organiser; where one isn't out yet we say 'usually [month]' and link the official site so you can check. You'll find 'Events' in the top menu, and every town guide now links to the events near it. We'll keep adding events over time.

There's a whole new Places section -- honest, in-depth visitor guides to the Lakes' main bases, tied together by a Lake District orientation hub. The hub answers the big planning questions: where it is and how to get here, the difference between Cumbria and the Lake District, how the area is laid out (north, east, west and south), how to choose your base, the lakes themselves, how many days you need, and what it costs. From there it links to full guides for Keswick, Windermere, Bowness-on-Windermere, Ambleside and Grasmere. Each guide covers where to stay, what to do, food and drink, getting there and parking, and -- our speciality -- the best walks and fells straight from the door, cross-linked to our fell pages, routes and live conditions, with a clear FAQ on every page. They lead with first-hand local knowledge rather than rehashed tourist-board copy. You'll now find 'Places' in the top menu.

The location guides now serve modern WebP images (with a JPEG fallback for older browsers), cutting the main photo's file size by a third to a half -- the Windermere header image, for instance, dropped from about 220KB to 80KB. The lead photo also loads with high priority and a reserved size, so it appears quickly and the text no longer jumps around while the page loads.

The Catbells-Maiden Moor-High Spy round is now a field-checked guide, the third route to get the full human pass after Fairfield and Langdale. Re-ingested from an adjusted GPX, it runs as a loop from Hawes End: up the Catbells ridge over Skelgill Bank (with the well-known scrambly steps), on over the easily-missed top of Maiden Moor to High Spy, and back the same way keeping right off High Spy to avoid re-climbing Maiden Moor. Five stages of hand-written navigation notes and the spots people go wrong, a confirmed bail-out from Catbells/Hause Gate (east to Derwentwater is the gentler, more sheltered way down; west to Little Town is shorter but more exposed), a turn-back-at-Catbells short option, and the High Spy North Top detour for top-baggers. Live conditions score the three Wainwrights. As ever, it's a guide -- check the forecast before you go.

Twenty-two Wainwrights were showing under the wrong Wainwright 'book' (region) -- which affected the area grouping, the homepage search filter and, on the new Maps & guidebooks panel, the recommended Pictorial Guide volume. For example Cat Bells now correctly sits in the North Western Fells (Book 6), Place Fell in the Far Eastern Fells (Book 2) and Loughrigg Fell in the Central Fells (Book 3). The seven books now hold exactly the right number of fells, and a build-time check will stop the same drift creeping back in if the underlying hill data is ever re-imported.

On wider screens the right-hand column (Best fells today, your progress, What's new) could squash and overlap itself when its contents were taller than the screen, clipping a card or two. The column now keeps each card at its natural height and scrolls within itself instead, so nothing overlaps.

Each fell and route page now has a small 'Maps & guidebooks' section near the bottom, suggesting the right OS Explorer sheet for that fell and the guidebooks that actually cover it -- the correct Wainwright Pictorial Guide volume for the area, plus the Birkett, Outlying, Synge or Nuttall books where the fell is on those lists, and the occasional fell-specific title. It's driven by a hand-curated list matched to each fell by region, list membership and location, so adding a book once makes it appear everywhere it's relevant. Routes gather the union across the summits they cross, so a round spanning two areas shows both volumes and both OS sheets. The Amazon links are affiliate links (we earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you); there's a short note in each section and a fuller explanation on the Data sources page. No Amazon cover images or live prices -- just text links.

The welcome blurb on the homepage now reflects everything the site does, not just the Birketts-alongside-Wainwrights idea (which still leads, since it's the whole point). It now also points to today's climbing verdicts, the hand-mapped routes with GPX, Mountain Rescue hazard notes, FAQs, progress tracking, and my own notes and photos -- with quick links through to Best fells today and the Routes hub for anyone arriving for the first time.

The routes map now loads in a single neutral blue rather than a green-to-red difficulty ramp, so it reads cleanly for the roughly 1 in 12 men with red-green colour blindness. You can still colour the map by difficulty or by today's conditions from the menu beside it -- the difficulty ramp has been swapped to a colour-blind-safe blue-to-orange scale (no red-next-to-green), and the legend changes to match whatever colouring you pick. Every coloured element also spells out its meaning in words: each route's map popup names its difficulty, the cards keep their text labels, and the per-route difficulty chips show the band name as well as the tint. The conditions bands got a small tweak too, nudging Marginal from amber towards a more distinct orange. Colour is never the only signal anywhere.

The Langdale Pikes Round is now written up as a field-checked guide, the second route to get the full human pass after Fairfield. It runs clockwise from New Dungeon Ghyll up Stickle Ghyll to Sergeant Man and High Raise, then back over Thunacar Knott, Pavey Ark, Harrison Stickle, Pike of Stickle, Loft Crag and Thorn Crag before the pitched descent to Stickle Barn -- nine stages, each with hand-written navigation notes and the spots where people go wrong. The safety notes are explicit: Jack's Rake is flagged as a serious scramble to avoid on the walkers' line, the sheer north edge of Pavey Ark and the short hands-on scramble onto Pike of Stickle are called out, and there's a shorter variant that skips the out-and-back to Sergeant Man and High Raise to save about an hour. As ever, it's a guide -- check the mountain forecast before you go.

Every route page now shows a ‘Conditions on this route’ panel: it takes today’s (and tomorrow’s) summit scores for the fells on the round and reports the route on its worst summit — the band and score, what’s holding it back, and the windiest top — so you can judge ‘should I do this one today?’ at a glance. Where a route also bags Birkett or Outlying tops, it says how many summits are covered (only the Wainwrights are scored), and it’s modelled guidance for the tops, not the valley. The Routes page gains a sort (gentlest first, by length, climb, summits or name), a combined map of every route colour-coded by difficulty (with an optional ‘today’s conditions’ colouring), and a ‘conditions today’ badge on each route. As ever, it’s a guide — check the mountain forecast before you go.

Every page now has a navigation bar in the header — Fells, Routes, Conditions and About — so you can move around the site without scrolling to the footer (the ⛰️ logo still takes you Home). On a phone it tucks into a tidy ☰ menu. The footer links are unchanged.

The Fairfield Horseshoe route is now the worked example for the new route guides — written up clockwise (Nab Scar first) with a stage-by-stage walk-through, the route-finding and the spots that catch people out (the featureless Fairfield plateau in mist; the deep bog above Low Brock Crags), confirmed escape routes down to Grasmere, Stone Arthur and Seat Sandal, and easier/harder variations with the reasoning for going clockwise. The other routes will follow this standard over time.

Apostrophes and dashes typed into a fell's notes could occasionally show up as a stray ‘—’ symbol, depending on how the text editor saved the file. The site now repairs that automatically when it builds the pages, so punctuation always displays correctly.

On wider screens the homepage now puts the fell explorer front and centre with Best Fells, your progress and the news tucked into a tidy panel of cards down the right-hand side that stays in view as you scroll; on phones and tablets it stays as a single column. The cards now read as a neat set rather than full-width stripes. The homepage ‘Best fells’ box is leaner too — the top three picks with the day toggle, and the full ranked list with its map now lives on the Conditions page (linked from the box). With that map off the front page, the homepage loads noticeably quicker. Same colours and content — just calmer and easier to scan.

The homepage now puts the search box and fell list right at the top, with the search bar staying put as you scroll — so your results never get separated from the search. Start typing (or pick a filter) and a ‘Showing N of 330 fells’ line appears with a Clear button, and the Best Fells, progress and news panels tuck out of the way so the matching fells fill the screen; clear the search and they’re back. Those panels now live together in one section just below the explorer. Same look and content — just arranged so finding a fell is the first thing you can do.

The homepage now has a collapsible ‘Your progress’ panel: a bar for each list (Wainwrights and Birketts first, then Outlying, with the in-area lists behind a ‘show all’ — and only the full lists can ever read ‘complete’, honestly). Fells you’ve bagged now show as a green ring on every map, and a new ‘Your fells’ overview map plots all 599 across the Lakes so you can see your progress spatially. Pass a round number — 100 Wainwrights, 300 Birketts, a whole region like the Northern fells — and you get a gentle congratulations, with the milestones you’ve earned kept as badges and your next target shown alongside. There’s also a ‘What’s new’ summary on the homepage. Everything stays private on your device and adds no new network requests.

Every route page now goes well beyond a single ‘Moderate’ label. A new Difficulty profile rates the walk on five separate axes — length, steepness, terrain underfoot, navigation and exposure — each as Easy / Moderate / Hard / Severe with a one-line reason, so a beginner and an old hand can both read it correctly. Length and steepness are measured straight from the GPX; terrain, navigation and exposure start as a ‘desk’ estimate from maps and guidebooks (clearly tagged ‘not field-verified’) and firm up as I walk and check each route. There's also a pacing table giving a fast-to-steady time to each summit in turn, the elevation profile now marks each top (and any checked escape route), a stage-by-stage breakdown of the walk, an Escape routes section, and easier/harder variations. Fairfield Horseshoe is the worked example; the rest follow as I get round them.

Each Wainwright's page now carries a conditions verdict card just below the map — its band and score for today (and tomorrow), the one-line headline, what's holding it back, and the estimated summit wind — drawn from the same daily scoring as the Best Fells page. The ‘Birketts near…’ list has moved further down the page, just above ‘Other fells in this region’.

A new Conditions page ranks all 214 Wainwrights by today's and tomorrow's walking conditions, with a map and filters — by region, reachable by bus, walk length, ‘near me’, and hiding fells you've already bagged. Wind is now shown honestly as both the modelled valley gust and an estimated summit gust (exposed tops feel windier than the valley), and the ‘boggy underfoot’ rating now responds to the past week's rain — a dry spell firms up the bogs, a wet day sinks them. Linked from the homepage ‘Best fells’ panel.

The homepage now opens with a daily pick of the best Wainwrights to climb today and tomorrow, scored from the Met Office mountain-weather model — clear summits, wind, rain, visibility, comfort and how boggy it'll be underfoot. Each is given an honest verdict (Cracking / Decent / Marginal / Save it) with a one-line reason, plotted on a map, and tomorrow even suggests whether morning or afternoon looks better. It's modelled guidance, not a forecast in its own right — always check the mountain forecast and use your own judgement before heading up.

A round of tidying: route pages now show the photo and key facts side by side with the walk description flowing underneath, list which lists each summit belongs to (Wainwright, Birkett, Synge…), and only flag hazard notes for fells that actually have a hazard page. The Routes index is cleaner, the Fells page explains the lists before the hazard list (now trimmed to the genuinely serious High/Extreme fells), and every page now has the same footer with quick links to everything.

Each walking route now has its own page — an interactive map of the line, an elevation profile, the full walk description, every summit it bags (with links), parking and buses for the start, safety notes, and a GPX download. There's a new Routes hub listing them all (linked from the footer), and each fell page's 'Routes over…' section now links straight to the full guide.

Every fell page now has a ‘Mark as bagged’ button near the top, so you can tick off a fell while you're reading about it — no need to go back to the homepage list. It uses the same private, on-device record as the homepage, so a fell ticked in either place shows as bagged in both.

The homepage now has a ‘From the fells’ panel beside the welcome text, bringing together the things worth knowing before you head out: safety and weather warnings first, then access and path news (closures, parking, buses), then lighter fell news. Each item is a short summary linking to the official source — always check live conditions before you set off.

The homepage list now lets you tick off the fells you've climbed — tap the ✓ next to any fell and it's remembered. A new strip under the search bar shows how many you've bagged, including your Wainwright and Birkett tallies. Your progress is saved privately in your own browser (nothing is sent anywhere and there's no account), and you can Export it to a file to back it up or move it to another device — and Import it back. This is the first step of a bigger progress-tracker: per-list progress bars, your ticks shown on the maps, and milestone badges are coming next.

Every individual fell page now has a search box near the top: start typing and a list of matching fells appears, so you can jump straight to any other fell without going back to the homepage. It works by name (try a few letters), shows each fell's height and area, and is fully keyboard- and screen-reader-friendly.

Fell pages are starting to carry suggested walking routes you can follow and download as a GPX, with the distance, total climb and every summit each route bags. Each is marked ‘planned’ (a line I've drawn but not yet walked) or ‘revised’ (one I've walked and tweaked from first-hand experience, with a note on what I changed and why). Rolling out fell by fell.

A new Data sources page, linked from the footer, sets out where everything on the site comes from — the mapping, hill lists, weather, transport, parking and toilets, photos, my Strava hikes, the FAQs and the Mountain Rescue hazard information — with credits and licences for each.

Fell pages are starting to gain a Frequently Asked Questions section — the real questions people ask about each fell (how hard is it, the easiest route, how long it takes, what to wear), answered clearly and backed by trusted sources. Rolling out across the fells over time.

A significant behind-the-scenes refactor: every part of a fell page — hazards, my hikes, the weather and the new FAQs — is now written into the page itself rather than loaded by your browser afterwards. That makes the information much easier for search engines and AI assistants (such as Google’s AI overviews, ChatGPT and Claude) to read and quote accurately.

A new Fells page explains what a fell actually is and breaks down all the Lakeland lists — Wainwrights, Outlying Fells, Birketts, Fellrangers, Synges, Nuttalls, Marilyns and HuMPs — each with its book, author and every fell on it that's covered here. The fell breadcrumb link now points to this page.

Parking spots now show nearby public toilets (within 2km), with distance, free/paid status, accessibility, and RADAR key flags where known. Data from toiletmap.org.uk.

Many fell pages now open with a photo of the fell — from Wikimedia Commons (with credit), or my own pictures where I have them. On wider screens the photo sits beside the summary; on phones it stacks above the text. More of my own photos going in over time.

Fell pages now carry a hazard rating and a Hazard & Incident Information section — danger spots, common causes and honest advice — compiled from published Mountain Rescue reports. Rolling out the most accident-prone fells first, with more added each week.

Around 600 individual, search-engine-friendly pages — every Wainwright, Outlying Fell and Birkett — plus a full sitemap so they're easy to find.

A clearer name for what the site does (it was previously Birkett Bagger).

Each fell now opens with a plain-English summary, plus my own notes where I've been up there.

Every fell page now links to the neighbouring Wainwrights for easy trip planning.

A bit about the project and why it exists.

A colour-coded hazard tag below each fell name; the fell list now links straight to each fell's page; the parking section is now labelled Potential parking.

Added a Terms, Conditions & Cookies page, a Report a Problem link, a last-updated date, a changelog and a site icon (favicon).

Each fell page shows my own walks over that summit — the route drawn on the map, with distance, ascent, time, pace and photos.

New hikes sync in automatically each week, and site changes publish themselves — so the site stays current without manual effort.

For every Wainwright and Outlying Fell, the Birketts you can bag on the same walk — with free topo maps, suggested parking, bus routes from Penrith, Ambleside and Windermere, and a live 7-day summit weather forecast.

Fell lists built from the authoritative Database of British and Irish Hills — 214 Wainwrights, 116 Outlying Fells and 541 Birketts.