Edward Baines visited the Lake District on several occasions, afoot or on horseback, recounting his experiences for the benefit of other travellers in "A Companion to the Lakes of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire". This extract (taken from the third edition, 1834) recounts an episode from the tour he undertook in summer 1828. It shows that, despite the improvement in guidebooks over the first quarter of the 19th century, tourists wishing to try excursions not explicitly covered by such works were reluctant to trust their safety to map and compass, preferring still to employ local guides.

On this occasion, riding up Langdale, he has stopped at several farms and attempted, without success, to hire a guide. So, inevitably, he comes to the farm known by modern map-makers as Stool End:

I went to Style End... the ultimate habitation in the valley- exactly at the foot of Bowfell. Here I found a young farmer harrowing potatoes, and, learning that he had often been on Scawfell, I asked him to accompany me. He seemed to have no particular objection, but put what I thought a high price on his services. He was a shrewd bargainer: having ascertained that I could get no one else but himself to go with me, he expressed his earnest wish that I would find another guide, said he would much rather not go, and declared that he was "thrang, varra thrang." As the fellow had the monopoly of the market, he put a monopoly price on his guidance, and such was my need of the commodity, that I was obliged to yield to his terms. After all, I believe he was an honest, hard-working man, and he appeared to maintain his family with decency. Having put my horse in his stable, and got a little bread and milk from a very comely young woman, his wife, I set out with my guide for the mountain. He was well accoutred for the expedition, having on a light jacket, and a stout staff in his hand; his sheep-dog followed him. I lightened my pockets as much as possible, took off my cravat, and opened my waistcoat; and thus, with a good stick in my hand, began to climb this formidable hill under a meridian sun.

The farmer had determined, after some deliberation with himself, to take me to the top of Bowfell, whence he intended to go along the summits of the fells to Scawfell Pikes. I suspected that this would not prove the easiest, if it were even the shortest route; but I acquiesced in his plan, both because I was myself ignorant of the place, and because, if his route were a little longer or more arduous, I should be repaid by having ascended two mountains instead of one. We began our journey in the most deliberate manner, keeping on the ridge which rises immediately from Style End to the very summit of Bowfell. As we proceeded, the sheep-dog was very active in chasing the sheep; and my guide told me that his master (for he is employed by a gentleman to farm his land at a fixed salary) had not less than five hundred sheep on Bowfell. The whole of the mountain does not belong to him, but he has a great part of it, and his sheep-walk is separated from those of his neighbours by a ravine, a gill, or some such boundary. The great business of the sheep-dog and the farmer's man- for there is no regular shepherd- is to prevent their neighbours' sheep from straying into their pasture. The sheep often go out of bounds, not from ignorance, but "a truant disposition;" for the moment a dog runs up to a mingled company of muttons, each scampers off with all his might to his own territory. A good sheep-dog knows his master's sheep as well as the shepherd himself,* and will in a very short time scour a large tract of mountain, over crags, bogs, and torrents, yelping his notices to quit, and expelling every intruder.

*I am bound to confess that the evidence of a shepherd at Seathwaite, in Borrowdale, contradicted that of my Langdale guide on this point; having told the former that I understood there were dogs which knew their master's sheep, he replied- "They're nobbut (only) thin i'this country, sic dogs as thae."

When we had been walking an hour, we sat down to contemplate what had already been achieved. We had almost attained the elevation of the pike o'Stickle, and were above the Stake- the mountain-pass which communicates between Langdale and Borrowdale. The Stonethwaite branch of Borrowdale was visible over the pass, and Skiddaw and Saddleback beyond. In the opposite direction, that is, on our right as we looked down Langdale, was the Pike o'Bliscoe, Wrynose, (which my guide pronounced Rainuz) Wetherlam, and many a ridge of heath-covered fells. In front, on the far horizon, was the not-to-be-mistaken head of Ingleborough. The farmer here complained, like myself, that it was "terrible het"; I thought he applied the adjective "terrible" appropriately enough, if not grammatically, in this case, but I found that he made as indiscriminate use of it as the French of their bien; for when I remarked that I had never ascended a mountain on a clearer day, he replied that it was "terrible clear." A quarter of an hour more gave us a view of Windermere, opening out beyond the valley of Langdale, and enabled us to see, over the Stickle Pikes, the whole extent of the Borrowdale and Langdale fells, Helvellyn, Fairfield, and many other hills. Shortly after, we saw the lofty mountain of Grasmoor and Grisedale Pike, to the north. My guide undertook the ascent of the precipitous crags which form the forehead of Bowfell; and I had no difficulty in following him as he wound amongst them, though, looking at the place from below, I should have thought it madness to attempt scaling them. A stranger, indeed, could not have done it alone without peril.

At half-past twelve, being an hour and three-quarters after leaving Style End, we found ourselves on the summit of Bowfell. The view was glorious, but the first object we looked for gave us little comfort. Scawfell Pikes appeared at least as far from us as we were from the valley, and, though we were within two hundred and fifty feet of their elevation, many thousand feet of cruel rocks separated us from them. My guide's theory had been delusive, and it offered another proof how defective a knowledge these men have of their own immediate neighbourhood. He had at different times tended sheep on Bowfell, Scawfell, and the surrounding hills, but there was a great want of combination in his knowledge: the plans of his sheep-walks lay in his head like separate portions of a dissecting map, which he could not put together. We had to descend many hundred feet, to make a long circuit, and then to re-ascend before reaching the point, an inch short of which I was determined not to rest. Whilst we were climbing the last and steepest part of Bowfell, and had been too much engaged in looking to our safety to observe any thing but the rocks around us, the sky had become completely overcast. My guide now prognosticated rain, but I suspected him of doing so from a wish to return; I thought it would still hold up, at least till we could reach Scawfell. In the south, there was a small ragged cloud hanging down from the rest over the Bay of Morecambe, and if the wind had changed to that direction, we were very likely to have rain. I held up my handkerchief to see the direction of the wind, but not a breath of air was stirring even at that elevation. Then the farmer talked about thunder: but as I observed that the clouds were still considerably higher than the mountain-tops, I slighted his evil auguries. However, no time was to be lost, and, after I myself had taken, and given to him, a taste of brandy, we prosecuted our enterprise. When we reached the top of Bowfell, we had so husbanded our strength, that I was a fresh as when I set out; but our apprehensions of the rain now made us push on with all our vigour, and our walk over the rocks and hill-tops was a severe effort till we reached the summit of our ambition. At the top of Bowfell we passed out of Westmorland into Cumberland. We had first a long descent, in which we skirted the top of tremendous precipices, till we came to the slack called Ash-course, overlooking the head of Eskdale. Here I saw clearly the direction we ought to have taken, and which would have saved us a long ascent and descent. We now went up the east side of Great End, and, passing over the top, again descended a considerable distance. From this place to the top of the Pikes, the summits are composed of huge blocks of stone, just painted with the lichens which cleave to their weather-worn surfaces, and, except in one spot, with no other symptom of vegetation. The last ascent is very steep, but I climbed it with hearty good-will, as it placed me on the highest summit in England.

[here Baines describes the view in great detail, from which I give only a short extract] ... Immediately south is the summit of Scawfell, within about sixty feet of the elevation of the Pikes, and separated from them by the great chasm of Mickle Door. The beautiful vale of the Esk runs down on the left to the sea, and Donnerdale also conducts the eye to the broad mouth of the Duddon. ...

Though the day was now far from being "terrible clear," we saw all these objects with distinctness. The clouds had not lowered since we noticed them from Bowfell, and a slight breeze had sprung up in a quarter which dissipated my apprehensions of rain. We sat down under the shelter of the pile of stones erected on the highest Pike, and divided our sandwiches and brandy. The ascent had been made in three hours and five minutes, and we had lost fully half an hour by crossing Bowfell. Having seen in the progress of our ascent nearly all the objects which were visible from the summit, we did not tarry long to survey the entire panorama. The descent cost us an hour and fifty minutes, though we ran a good part of the way; but, being exceedingly thirsty, we often stopped to drink at the fresh streamlets. From Ash-course we kept to the left, and descended an easier path to the level of Angle-tarn, which lies at an awful depth beneath the precipitous summit of Bowfell. The descent into Langdale is by an excessively steep and savage gill, called Rosset gill; and when we reached the valley, we had to walk about a mile to the farmer's house. The route which we took in our return is that by which we ought to have ascended. The young farmer, though habituated to the mountains from his childhood, was nearly as much fatigued as myself by our five hours' walk. My shoes and stockings were soaked with the water of the bogs we had crossed, and when I took them off to dry them, I found that my toes had lost some of their skin, from constant pressure against the shoe in coming down the hills. If my shoes had not been both strong and roomy, I should have suffered much more.