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The Pennine Way | |
| Introduction Edale Crowden Globe Farm Slack Top Ponden Thornton Malham Horton Hawes Tan Hill |
 The foaming waters of Cauldron Snout, Teesdale |
Bowes Middleton Langdon Beck Dufton Garrigill Alston Greenhead Twice Brewed Bellingham Bryness Uswayford |
The Pennine Way (PW) is a 250 to 270 mile (410 to 443 km) trail from Edale in Derbyshire (England) to Kirk Yetholm in Roxburghshire (Scotland). The length of the PW depends on which guidebook you use, the route you take (there are a couple of options) and any excursions away from the PW. It was first proposed by the rambler and journalist Tom Stephenson in 1935 and officially opened on 24th April 1965, at a gathering of over 2000 walkers at Malham Moor in the Yorkshire Dales. Since then thousands of people each year have traversed the PW in part or whole. This first and longest of the English hill-walks is under constant renovation as the effects of so many people are felt.
Information for the walk can be gathered from the following guidebooks:
The National Trail Guides -
Pennine Way South (Edale to Bowes) and
Pennine Way North (Bowes to Kirk Yetholm) - written by Tony
Hopkins, published by Aurum Press Ltd. in association with the Countryside
Commission and the Ordinance Survey. These books cover the whole route in
considerable detail with extracts from Ordinance Survey maps showing the route.
There is good advice on how to walk the PW, what to take and what to expect.
Included are a number of articles about features met on the PW - read
especially the one on peat and blanket bogs on pages 44-45 of the southern
book. As an added bonus there are a number of circular walks described that
take in some part of the PW. At the back of each book there is a section of
useful information - transport, accommodation, useful addresses, the OS maps to
use and other books to have a look at.
Pennine Way Companion - A pictorial guide by A. Wainwright
- a famous Lake District walker and journalist who died in 1993. This is the
classic PW guide written in 1968. It is well worth any money spent for AW's
style of wit, his unique presentation of the route, the many well executed pen
sketches and his notes on the history, geology and biology of the countryside.
It is no longer as accurate as it was - keep an eye out for an updated version
(hopefully in keeping with AW's style).
If you want to keep your guidebooks in mint condition to
enjoy in the evenings then the Footprint booklets, The Pennine Way parts 1 and
2, provide enough information to keep you on the right track (and are cheap and
light).
Also have a look at my Pennine Way
Fact File.
Most of the guidebooks describe the PW as "tough". By New Zealand standards, it is an average tramp - there are no long steep sections, no river fording and few navigation problems. Two factors though make it more suitable for fairly fit and experienced trampers.
Firstly there are large sections of the first 3 days and the
last 2 days (over the Cheviot hills) that trudge their way through bogs. These
bogs are not just a few patches of mud. The blanket bog on the Kinder plateau
and Featherbed Moss consists of square miles of black peat to a average depth
of over 3 feet. On top of this is a crust of moss and other water-loving
plants. Erosion by water and walkers boots form channels (groughs or cloughs if
they hold flowing water) which can be up to 6 feet deep. Navigation through
these groughs can be quite confusing (I can definitely vouch for that!).
Improvements are being made with boardwalks over the boggier patches in the
Cheviots and stone causeways in the southern bogs.
If you do the PW in one go (as I did) then you face the
strain of walking many miles each day, every day for up to 3 weeks. I was lucky
in that my only injuries were quite large blisters on an a heel during the
second day (caused by wet boots from the bog-trotting) which cleared up by the
fifth day. I suggest that you set a reasonable daily limit (mine was 16 miles
(26 km)) and have at least 1 rest day.
Despite the previous paragraph, I have heard of an American family with a 9 year old girl who did the PW and walked some of the way with a retired bloke. So age is no barrier.
Access to the start in Edale is quite easy by public transport since there is a railway station with regular trains from Manchester and Sheffield. I have tried both ways and the train journey in from Sheffield is longer but much more scenic than that from Manchester. What little I saw of Sheffield was also prettier than Manchester. The only public transport from Kirk Yetholm is buses (frequent Monday to Saturday but only 3 on Sunday).
I did the Pennine Way in 1991 - there have probably been changes so don't use this as a definitive route guide! For example, the path across Featherbed Moss has been improved by being paved with stone slabs (see The Pennine Way - Southern Section).
 The
Pennine Way |
| A wonderful site for planning your conquest of the Pennine Way - a good map, accommodation guides and lots of information. |
 The Pennine Way by Ian Steele |
| Lots on information based on his 1995 trip. |
 The Pennine Way - Southern Section |
| This is part of the Pub Hikers Guide and makes variations on the PW so that nearby pubs can be visited. |
 Pennine Way Association |
| A short description of the PW with distances, tips and addresses. |
| The Malham area |
| YorkshireNet description of Malham (nice pictures). |
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