Coast to Coast Packing List — What to Carry, by Season

The Coast to Coast is a village-to-village walk, so the packing question is different from a wilderness trail. You do not need to carry days of food or a tent. What you do need is kit that copes with the ground and the weather, because between the villages this is a hill walk across the wettest corner of England, with 8,813 m of ascent spread over 16 stages.

This list is built from the stage pages: what each day's ground is made of, where the water is, and what the safety notes ask you to carry. It assumes you are walking in the April to October season. Winter walkers need a different list.

First decide: baggage transfer or not

Everything else follows from this. Baggage transfer companies move one bag between each night's accommodation, so you walk with a daysack. Both operators whose public prices we checked charge £17 per bag per move, with a 20 kg limit per bag. It is what most walkers do, and the accommodation guide explains why the B&Bs are used to it.

• With transfer: a 3 to 5 kg daysack. You carry the day's weather, water, food and navigation, and nothing else.
• Without transfer: a full pack of 8 to 10 kg once water and food are in it. Every item is carried up Loft Beck, over Kidsty Pike (1,128 m of ascent on that day alone) and across the Nine Standards bog.

The cost guide works through what transfer adds to the total. Kit-wise, the difference is not what you own but what leaves your back each morning.

Boots or trail shoes

Add up the surface breakdown on the 16 stage pages and the route is roughly 115 km of footpath, 73 km of track, 38 km of bridleway and 70 km of road and lane. Trail shoes would be fine for the road and the good track. They are not fine for the rest, and the stage notes are unusually direct about it:

• Kirkby Stephen to Keld: "wear boots, not trail shoes, and pack gaiters". Severe peat bog, gutters and rills across Hartley Fell, partly eased by flagging.
• Orton to Kirkby Stephen: wet, boggy moorland in the middle; waterproof boots and gaiters recommended.
• Shap to Orton: limestone pavement that is slippery when wet, with grykes deep enough to be a real ankle hazard.
• Richmond to Danby Wiske and Danby Wiske to Osmotherley: field paths that are "notoriously muddy" after rain.
• Osmotherley to Clay Bank Top and Grosmont to Robin Hood's Bay: flagstones with genuine bog between them, and the Graystone Hills at their boggiest after wet spells.

So: boots, waterproof, with ankle support, broken in on your training walks. Gaiters are worth their weight for stages 7, 8 and 9 and the Vale of Mowbray. If you are an experienced walker in a dry high-summer week you can make trail shoes work, but you are accepting wet feet on the moorland days and you still want gaiters.

Waterproofs, because of the Lakes

The first five stages cross the Lake District, and the best-time guide puts it plainly: assume at least one wet day and probably several, and carry full waterproofs whatever the forecast. Every mountain stage's safety note repeats it. Full waterproofs means a jacket with a hood that works in wind, and overtrousers you can put on over boots without sitting down in a bog. Add a waterproof liner or dry bags inside the pack; rucksack covers are not enough in a Lakeland downpour.

The other half of staying warm is what is under the shell. Carry a spare warm layer even in July: Greenup Edge, Grisedale Hause, the High Street ridge and the moor tops are exposed, and the stage notes describe cloud and wind on all of them in any month.

Poles, because of the descents

The route climbs 8,813 m and comes down the same amount. Three descents in particular are why people carry poles:

• Kidsty Howes on Patterdale to Shap: the stage warnings call it steep and rough, with care needed for footing. It comes after the biggest climb of the route, when legs are tired.
• The drop into Reeth at the end of Keld to Reeth: long and steep, and the stage notes say to save energy for it.
• The Nuns' Steps on Reeth to Richmond, greasy when wet.

Poles also help on the boggy crossings, where a third point of contact tells you what is under the moss before you commit to it. The one place to stow them is the short hands-on scramble through the Wainstones on stage 13.

Navigation

The route is now a National Trail with acorn waymarks, but the stage notes still describe open moor with faint or absent paths on stages 7, 8 and 9, a featureless plateau on stage 14 and pathless ground on stage 5. Carry:

• Paper maps. The stage pages name OS Explorer OL4, OL5 and OL7 for the Lakes, OL19 for the Westmorland and Nine Standards stages, OL26 for the central Moors and OL27 for the eastern Moors.
• A compass, and the ability to take and follow a bearing. Stage 8's safety note calls this essential.
• The GPX line on your phone, downloaded for offline use before you leave home; the free app carries all 16 stages offline.
• A head torch. Stage 14's notes recommend one outside high summer, and any long day in April, September or October can end in the dark.

Water

Carry capacity for 1.5 to 2 litres. The stage notes ask for at least 1.5 litres on the final day and 1.5 to 2 litres across the moor to Blakey Ridge, and there is nothing at all between Patterdale and Shap. Beck water on the fells is usable if treated; the moorland becks are peat-stained; on the lead-mining moor between Keld and Reeth the stage notes say to treat any beck water with caution because of metals in the ground. A filter or tablets weigh little. The food and water guide lists what each stage has.

The checklist

By season

• April and May: high passes can still hold snow, and Grisedale Hause and the Nine Standards moor are cold. Add a warmer mid layer, warm gloves and a hat you can walk in. The Nine Standards green route runs until the end of April; carry the map for it.
• June to August: longest daylight and warmest weather, but midges and horseflies on the moors in July and full waterproofs still. Sun protection matters more than people expect; most stages have minimal shade.
• September and October: the head torch becomes non-negotiable, daylight drops to 12 or 13 hours in September and less in October, and the first real storms arrive. Add the warm layer back.
• November to March: a different list and a different walk. Short days, saturated ground, closed accommodation. Winter hill skills and kit.

What to leave out

• A second pair of boots. Take one pair that fits and a light pair of shoes for the evening.
• Cotton anything. It stays wet.
• A large camera bag, a laptop, more than one book. Baggage transfer tempts people into packing for a hotel holiday; the bag still has to be carried up stairs every night.
• Bulky first aid. A small kit with plasters, blister dressings, tape and painkillers covers what you can actually treat on a path.
• A tent, unless you have decided to camp. The accommodation guide describes campsites on this route as sparse, so a tent carried "just in case" is dead weight over Kidsty Pike.
• More than one set of evening clothes. The Coast to Coast's evenings are village pubs and B&B lounges.

Before you go

Walk your longest training day in exactly the kit you will carry, including the full pack if you are not using transfer. Fill the water bottles. If something rubs, chafes or annoys you at 20 km, it will be worse at 27.5 km on day one out of St Bees. The training plan has the schedule; the packing question that matters most is whether to send the bag ahead, and that is a budget decision as much as a kit one.