Coast to Coast Walk

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The Coast to Coast Walk is a long distance footpath in Northern England. It starts on the west coast, at St Bees in Cumbria, and goes 192 miles to Robin Hood's Bay on the east coast. It crosses the Lake District, the Pennines and the North York Moors.

The route starts at St Bees and crosses the West Cumberland Plain to Ennerdale Bridge, then goes up the valley of Ennerdale, over the fells near Great Gable and into Borrowdale. Then it goes over Greenup Edge and over the Helm Crag ridge to Grasmere. It crosses into Patterdale by way of Grisedale Hause, and goes past Angle Tarn to Kidsty Pike – at 2,560 feet the highest point on the walk – and then descends to Haweswater and goes on to Shap. Then it crosses the Westmorland Limestone Plateau to Kirkby Stephen. From there the walk goes over Nine Standards Rigg and down into Swaledale where it crosses the Pennine Way, following the River Swale to Richmond. It crosses the Vale of Mowbray, a generally less interesting section, then from Ingleby Cross does a high-level traverse of the North York Moors to Glaisdale and goes down to Robin Hood's Bay and the sea.

Notable hills crossed by the route

It was described by A. Wainwright in the early 1970s and uses existing footpaths. It is an unofficial and unsignposted route, and due to legal issues with certain stretches of the path, increased traffic on some of the road sections, and erosion, the exact route followed by Wainwright is not recommended. Wainwright's route has been revised a number of times in recent years (in 1994, 1995, 1998 and 2003) to provide a route which avoids trespass.

The Coast to Coast Walk has become one of the most popular of all the Long-distance footpaths in the UK. It crosses three national parks; the lakes, dales and moors. It is commonly completed in around two weeks. The longest single day of walking is 25 miles, and the shortest possible day is 6 miles.

The walk should not be confused with the Sea to Sea Cycle Route, which takes a completely different route between the two coastlines.

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