Coast to Coast Walk

Not to be confused with Sea to Sea Cycle Route.
Not to be confused with The Coast to Coast mountain bike route.
Coast to Coast Walk

St Bees beach – start of the walk – from South Head
Length 192 mi (309 km)[1]
Location Northern England
Designation Long distance footpath which is not a National Trail
Trailheads St Bees, Cumbria
54°29′31″N 3°36′43″W / 54.492°N 3.612°W / 54.492; -3.612 (Coast to Coast Walk, St Bees)
Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire
54°26′06″N 0°32′06″W / 54.435°N 0.535°W / 54.435; -0.535 (Coast to Coast Walk, Robin Hood's Bay)
Use Hiking
Elevation
Elevation change 1,560 m (5,120 ft)
Highest point Kidsty Pike, 780 m (2,560 ft)
Lowest point Sea level

The Coast to Coast Walk is a 192-mile (309 km)[2] unofficial and mostly unsignposted long-distance footpath in Northern England. Devised by Alfred Wainwright, it passes through three contrasting national parks: the Lake District National Park, the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the North York Moors National Park.

Wainwright recommends that walkers dip their booted feet in the Irish Sea at St Bees and, at the end of the walk, in the North Sea at Robin Hood's Bay.

History and status

The Coast to Coast was originally described by A. Wainwright in his 1973 book A Coast to Coast Walk. Due to legal restrictions on certain stretches of the path, increased traffic on some of the road sections, and erosion, the exact original route followed by Wainwright is not recommended. Wainwright's book has been revised a number of times in recent years (most recently in 2003) to provide a route that avoids trespass.

Wainwright's book describes the route in 12 stages, each of which ends at a settlement with at least some overnight accommodation nearby. If one stage is walked per day, with one or two rest days, the route makes a two-week holiday, and web logs of coast-to-coasters seem to indicate that this is the most common way of walking the route. However, Wainwright explicitly states that he did not intend people to necessarily stick to these daily stages, or even to his route. For instance, the majority of Wainwright's stages start and end at low level with a single up-down during the day: many walkers split the Borrowdale–Patterdale stage at Grasmere in order to maintain this pattern and avoid having two major uphill sections in one day. Splitting two or three more of the longer stages, and adding a further one or two rest days, reduces the average day-length to 10 or 12 miles and makes the walk a much easier three-week trip with time to "stand and stare", an activity much approved of by Wainwright.

I want to encourage in others the ambition to devise with the aid of maps their own cross-country marathons and not be merely followers of other people's routes: there is no end to the possibilities for originality and initiative.
 A. Wainwright, A Coast to Coast Walk

Although unofficial, the Coast to Coast Walk uses public rights of way (public footpaths, tracks, and minor roads), permissive paths and access land; it is one of the most popular of all the long-distance footpaths in the UK. Despite this it does not have National Trail status. In 2004 the walk was named as the second-best walk in the world according to a survey of experts.[3] Harveys publish two dedicated strip maps at 1:40,000 scale.

The start of the Wainwright Coast to Coast Walk at St Bees Seacote beach. Sign refurbished 2013 and stainless steel start banner added; a joint project between Wainwright Society and St Bees Parish Council.

Route

Route of the Coast to Coast Walk

The description in this article is given from west to east. This is the more popular direction, and the one given in the original and most of the current guides, and is the direction which keeps the prevailing wind and rain at one's back, and the evening sun out of one's eyes. Some walkers do start from the east coast, either because they wish to have the Lake District as the climax of their walk or because they have already walked the route in the conventional direction.

Wainwright's route begins at St Bees in Cumbria, on the Irish Sea. It crosses the West Cumbrian coastal plain and the Lake District, and enters Yorkshire as it crosses the Pennines. It then crosses the Yorkshire Dales, the Vale of York and the North York Moors to reach the North Sea coast at Robin Hood's Bay.

Lake District

Westmorland and Yorkshire Dales

Vale of Mowbray and North York Moors

Places of interest

The following major headland is traversed by the route:

The following hills are crossed by the route:

Crossings

In 1991, the route was run in 39 hours 36 minutes and 52 seconds by Mike Hartley, setting a new record;[9] this beat the previous record set in 1985 by Mike Cudahy, who completed it in 46 hours 49 minutes.[10]

References

  1. Guided Coast to Coast
  2. "distance calculated from GPS waypoints". Saturday Walkers Club. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
  3. "Coast walk tops trek to Everest". BBC News. 23 November 2004. Retrieved 19 October 2010.
  4. Cowley, Bill (1969). The Cleveland Way Dalesman Books. Clapham (Yorkshire).
  5. Cowley, Bill (1993). Lyke Wake Walk and the Lyke Wake Way (12th edition). Dalesman Books. ISBN 1 85568 063 7.
  6. Smailes, B. (2013). The Lyke Wake Walk Guide (4th edition). Challenge Publications ISBN 978-1-903568-70-5.
  7. Sherwood, P. (2001). Lyke Wake Walk. Dalesman Publishing. ISBN 1 85568 191 9.
  8. A. Wainwright (1973). A Coast to Coast Walk. Westmorland Gazette.
  9. "Coast to Coast record". Retrieved 22 June 2007.
  10. Cudahy, Mike (1989). Wild Trails to Far Horizons. London: Unwin Hyman. ISBN 9780044403814.

Additional sources

External links

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