Innominate Tarn
OS grid ref:- NY1912
Innominate Tarn, a popular beauty spot near to the summit of Haystacks, is situated at 520 metres above sea level. The tarn has an indented rocky shore and a line of tiny islets of peat. It was formerly known as Loaf Tarn in reference to the small islets which resemble loaves.
The tarn is the location where fellwalker Alfred Wainwright's ashes were scattered. Wainwright had expressed this wish in A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells Volume 7: The Western Fells, and in other publications:-
"All I ask for, at the end, is a last long resting place by the side of Innominate Tarn, on Haystacks, where the water gently laps the gravelly shore and the heather blooms and Pillar and Gable keep unfailing watch. A quiet place, a lonely place. I shall go to it, for the last time, and be carried: someone who knew me in life will take me and empty me out of a little box and leave me there alone. And if you, dear reader, should get a bit of grit in your boot as you are crossing Haystacks in the years to come, please treat it with respect. It might be me."
Alfred Wainwright - from "Memoirs of a Fellwalker" (1993)
Haystacks and Innominate Tarn from Buttermere
Distance - Around 8 miles
*Commencing at the National Trust car park, just west of Buttermere village, turn right on leaving the car park and walk toward Buttermere village. After the road crosses a beck, turn right, onto the road that leads to a further car park. At a fork in the road, take the left fork, leading down to Buttermere.At a point where the track splits in two, take the left hand branch and proceed along it down to the lake shore.
*On reaching the lake, turn right and continue towards the stream which connects Buttermere and Crummock Water, cross the stream and follow the path as it enters the woodland. Continue on this track as it emerges from the woods until, near to the end of the lake a path diverges to the right, and climbs diagonally up the hillside heading for Scarth Gap. Take this path, and follow it for approx 1 mile.
*On reaching the top of the pass the path crosses another path than runs along the ridge line from High Crags to Haystacks. Turn left, and follow this path as it climbs up the western face of the fell. Follow the track along the summit of the fell passing to the left of Innominate Tarn before dropping down to Blackbeck Tarn.
*Retrace your steps to return.