The Coast to Coast is one of the world’s great walks, originally described by Alfred Wainwright in his 1973 book ‘A Coast to Coast Walk’.
The path runs from St Bees in the west passing through Orton, Kirkby Stephen, Ravenseat, Keld, Reeth and Marske in the Yorkshire Dales National Park before continuing to Robin Hood’s Bay in the east. The Coast to Coast walk uses public rights of way, permissive paths and access land.
In 2021 the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority started work with Natural England and local partners to designate the Coast to Coast long distance footpath as a National Trail with a view to Natural England presenting a formal proposal to Government early in Spring 2022. Read more about that here.
The Wainwright Society is the Responsible Organisation for the Coast to Coast and publicises the walk on its website and reports access issues on the route. You can find out more on the Wainwright Society website here.
“Wainwright suggested a way of breaking the walk miles into stages, each of which to be completed in a day. With one or two rest days, this enables the route to fit into a two-week holiday. However, Wainwright stated that people walking the Coast to Coast should not feel constrained to keep to these day-stages or even to his route: for example, by reducing the days to 10 or 12 miles, the walk becomes more leisurely with time to stand and stare” – The Wainwright Society.
Wainwright’s Coast to Coast book is available in all good book stores and through a variety of online retailers.
