Is there a better way to celebrate 55 years of hiking, than to attempt to summit over 200 mountains within 24 hours?
Lancaster University Hiking Club doesn’t think so. As one of the largest outdoor student societies in the UK, LUHC has been organising and running hiking trips across the country for over 50 years now. Recent hikes have taken them to Kettlewell, Braithwaite and Scotland.
However, to celebrate the club’s 55th Anniversary, LUHC have something special planned. Scheduled for the same weekend as Roses, LUHC will be running a festival style hiking event based in Silverdale coined as ‘The Big Bag’. The event will be a collective attempt to summit all 214 Wainwrights within 24 hours. These are a group of mountains and fells in the Lake District that were climbed and written about by Alfred Wainwright – hence the name.
Although ‘The Big Bag’ is the celebrative event for the club’s 55th Anniversary, it will also be a charity event, raising money for outdoor charities such as Mountain Rescue. When speaking with SCAN, LUHC said that “the idea of collectively ‘bagging’ all 214 of the lake district Wainwrights’ in 24 hours had been suggested a few months back, so we thought it would be great to run this as a fundraising event to give back to the outdoor community, while bringing together current members, alumni, friends and family to celebrate the clubs 55th (or 57th!) Anniversary.”
LUHC explained that the club’s very first treasurer had shed some light on the club’s history while ‘The Big Bag’ was being promoted to members saying that the records say it was founded in 1965. This would make this year the club’s 57th Anniversary.
When speaking about how the club has evolved over the years, LUHC said that “the club has grown massively, currently we have over 450 members I believe. We love taking people to the Lakes or further afield every weekend. This makes us one of the largest student-run outdoors clubs in the country, so we really wanted to do something to give back to the outdoor community.”
As a club, LUHC are looking forward to getting past and present members together to share stories, and complete their mammoth adventure in the Lakes at the end of April.
