Wainwright's Coast to Coast Path (c2c)
Wainwright's Coast to Coast Path (c2c) is an unofficial 304km (190 miles) footpath connecting St Bees in Cumbria with Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire. |
|
|
Long Paths & National Trails
Account Holders/Members can
download these GPS Waypoints and GPS Waypoint Key here.
GPS Waypoints for Walking Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk (c2c)
 |
GPS Waypoints for other Long Paths & National Trails
The Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge Walk
The Pennine Way | Wainwright's Coast to Coast Path (c2c)
GPS Waypoints for Walks in England, Scotland and Wales
The Coast to Coast Path (c2c) is a 304km (190 miles) footpath connecting The Irish Sea at St Bees in Cumbria with The North Sea at Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire.
The route was originally devised by Alfred Wainwright for his 1973 book and passes through three National Parks (The Lake District National Park, The Yorkshire Dales National Park and The North York Moors National Park) and some of the finest scenery this country has to offer.
Despite its popularity, the route remain unofficial and will probably remain so.
Indeed it was Wainwright's intention that you should devise your own route connecting the two seas rather than follow his suggestion. Subsequently it is not marked on any OS Maps*, quite poorly signposted on the ground and impossible to follow without a proper guide.
Of course it is possible to walk the whole route without GPS, but these GPS Waypoints will enable you to either:
- quickly establish your current position (useful in bad weather
or when you are tired)
- and - see how far it is to the next point of interest (like a pub, shop or a bed for the night).
GPS Waypoint Key for the Coast to Coast (c2c) Path
So here are 192 GPS Waypoints covering (Wainwright's version of) the route from the start at St Bees Head to the finish at Robin Hood's Bay. (Most people go west to east due partly to the prevailing weather conditions and partly to get the big mountains of the Lake District out of the way early(ish) on).
Each Waypoint has a 'CC-[number]' designation which relates to a named location on the accompanying GPS Waypoint Key (see the example above). NB. You will need to take both as the GPS Waypoints will make no sense without the GPS Waypoint Key. The GPS Waypoint Key is only two pages so you can print it on either side of a single sheet of A4 paper and keep it in a plastic A4 wallet in your pocket.
We have done it this way because most GPS Devices only allow Waypoint names with 6 characters or less. Whilst the first waypoint at St Bees is easy to name - it would soon get rather enigmatic as we travel across the country - so our Waypoints are numbered CC-000 St Bees, CC-001 St Bees Head, CC-002 North Head . . . all the way to . . . CC-189 Ness Point or North Cheek, CC-190 Robin Hood's Bay (top) and CC-191 Robin Hood's Bay (sea).
Please Note:
You must set your GPS device to: Position Format = British Grid and Map Datum = ord srvy GB
This system enables you to easily find any particular waypoint in your GPS as well as creating a 'Route' for all or part of the walk depending on how much you intend to tackle (many people walk the Coast to Coast in sections - often taking several years to complete the whole route.
As always, if you have an opinion - good, bad or indifferent - tell the
Ordnance Survey Maps required to walk the Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk
The Ordnance Survey Maps you will need to complete Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk are (in order from St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay):
OL4 The English Lakes - North-eastern area
OL5 The English Lakes - North-western area
OL7 The English Lakes - South-western area
OL19 Howgill Fells and Upper Eden Valley
OL30 Yorkshire Dales – Northern & Central areas
OL26 North York Moors – Western area
OL27 North York Moors – Eastern area
*In conjunction with Michael Joseph Ltd, The Ordnance Survey used to produce two 1:25,000 scale 'strip' maps detailing Wainwright's version of the Coast to Coast Walk - OL33 (ISBN 0-319-26061-5) and OL34 (ISBN 0-319-26046-1). As far as we are aware these maps are no longer in print.
All are available in both Paper and the Laminated versions favoured by more serious walkers and you can get 10% OFF with FREE postage and packing (to UK addresses) if you purchase them online through go4awalk.com by clicking on the above links.
*NB. Somewhat surprisingly, no-one seems to be able to agree how long the Coast to Coast Path is. Wainwright himself and a sign at the start suggests it is 190 miles (304km) but a sign at the finish states it is 192 miles (307.2km).
However, when we measured it having:
- headed up Ennerdale rather than go following the high level The High Stile Ridge,
- not gone into Grasmere,
- gone down Grisedale rather than following either the high level Helvellyn or St Sunday Crag alternatives
and
- follow the amended route rather than Wainwright's 1973 original (which crossed privately owned land)
then The Coast to Coast Walk is 304km (190 miles) long.
To contribute to go4awalk.com or to contact us about anything at all
- see Talk To Us. For help see Help.
go4awalk.com and go4awalk.co.uk are registered trademarks of TMDH Limited.
Copyright © 2000-2008 TMDH Limited. All rights reserved.
Copyright | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Statement
NB. To see our navigational hills you must have the Macromedia Shockwave/Flash Player plug-in installed in your browser. This is free and comes as standard with later versions. If you have an early version browser - click here and follow Macromedia's installation instructions. Furthermore, go4awalk.com makes full use of your browser's ability to display multiple pages in a single window as Tabs. To enable tabs in Internet Explorer see Tools > Internet Options > General. To enable tabs in Mozilla Firefox see Tools > Options > Tabs. To enable tabs in Safari see Safari > Preferences > Tabs.
