Walking the Coast to Coast in Two Halves — West Half and East Half

Wainwright wrote the route as one two-week walk, and most guidebooks still assume you have fourteen or sixteen days in a row. A lot of people do not. If you have two long weekends a year rather than one fortnight, the Coast to Coast still works — it just needs to be cut in the right place, and that place is Kirkby Stephen.

This guide uses the same distances and ascent figures as the stage pages, which are measured along the GPX line of the route rather than copied from a guidebook table.

Why Kirkby Stephen is the natural halfway point

Three things make Kirkby Stephen the split, and they all matter.

• It is on the railway. Kirkby Stephen station sits on the Settle–Carlisle line, about a mile and a half south-west of the town centre. Carlisle connects to the West Coast Main Line; Settle, Skipton and Leeds connect south. No other place between St Bees and Grosmont puts you this close to a train.
• It has everything a walker needs. Outdoor shop, chemist, supermarket, cafés, pubs with rooms, a hostel in a former chapel and B&Bs — it is the best-supplied town on the route between Keswick's outskirts and Richmond.
• The walk changes here. Stage 7 finishes the limestone country of Westmorland; stage 8 starts straight up onto Nine Standards Rigg and the Pennine watershed. You end one half on the last of the Lakes' influence and start the next on the first of the Dales.

Richmond (end of stage 10) is the other place people consider. It is a lovely town, but it has no station — the nearest is Darlington, 13 miles away by bus — and it splits the walk 10 stages to 6, which makes the second trip too short to feel like a walk.

The west half: St Bees to Kirkby Stephen

This is the mountain half. Five of the seven days are in the Lake District National Park, and between them they carry just over half of the whole route's climbing. Stage 5 over Kidsty Pike is the highest point of the entire walk and its biggest single day of ascent; do not schedule it after a short night.

The first day is also the longest of the half. St Bees to Ennerdale Bridge is 27.5 km with the cliff-top start along St Bees Head, and a lot of people arrive by train at lunchtime and try to do it that afternoon. Don't. Sleep in St Bees, dip your boot in the Irish Sea at breakfast, and walk it fresh.

Days: six if you walk the seven stages and pair the two short Lakeland days (Rosthwaite–Grasmere and Grasmere–Patterdale) into one long one, which strong walkers do; seven as published; eight with a rest day in Grasmere or Patterdale. Seven or eight is the sensible plan for a first visit — the Lakes are where the weather is worst and the ground is roughest, and it is the half that punishes optimism.

Getting there and back: the getting-there guide covers St Bees station in detail. At the far end, walk or taxi from Kirkby Stephen's centre to the station (allow 35 minutes on foot — it is uphill) for the Settle–Carlisle line.

The east half: Kirkby Stephen to Robin Hood's Bay

Longer, gentler in the middle, and with a sting at each end. The first day climbs Nine Standards Rigg and crosses the peat of the Pennine watershed — check which of the three seasonal routes is in use before you go. The two Vale of Mowbray stages (11 and 12) are the flattest 47 km on the whole route and the ones most people would shorten if they could; a lift from Danby Wiske is the usual way to turn them into one day and save a night.

Then the North York Moors arrive all at once. Osmotherley to Clay Bank Top is the second-biggest climbing day of the entire route, 898 m in under 18 km, because the Cleveland Hills are a switchback of short, steep tops. The last day into Robin Hood's Bay is 24 km with a surprising 784 m of climb; it is not the gentle stroll to the sea that the map suggests.

Days: eight if you combine the Vale of Mowbray into one day with a lift; nine as published; ten with a rest day in Richmond, which deserves one. Beds at Keld, Blakey Ridge and Clay Bank Top are scarce, so book those three nights first and build the rest of the plan around them — the accommodation guide explains why.

Getting there and back: Settle–Carlisle line to Kirkby Stephen at the start. At the finish, the Arriva X93 bus runs from Robin Hood's Bay to Whitby and Scarborough, both of which have stations; the getting-there guide has the detail.

Which half first?

Walk the west first if you can. It is the harder half, it is the half that needs the most settled weather, and finishing your first trip at Kirkby Stephen means you start the second one by walking straight out of the door of your B&B and up onto the moor — there is a satisfying continuity to it.

Walk the east first if your first window is early or late in the year. The east half is walkable in April and October when the Lakeland passes can still be in cloud and snow; the Moors are exposed but rarely dangerous, and the Esk Valley Line gives you an escape at Glaisdale, Egton or Grosmont if the weather does turn. Save the Lakes for June or September.

A note on direction

Both halves are described west to east here because that is how Wainwright walked it and how the waymarking and the guidebooks read. The route works in reverse — some people walk the east half eastbound one year and then the west half eastbound the next, so both trips still "finish" heading for the sea. The only thing that genuinely changes with direction is the prevailing weather: westerlies at your back going east, in your face going west.

Booking the split trip

• Book the two ends of each half first: St Bees and Kirkby Stephen for the west, Kirkby Stephen and Robin Hood's Bay for the east. Then the scarce middle nights (Black Sail or Ennerdale Bridge in the west; Keld, Blakey Ridge and Clay Bank Top in the east).
• Baggage transfer companies will carry for a half-route trip; most price per bag per day, so a seven-day west half is straightforward to quote. See the transfer providers listed here.
• If you are using the free app, download the offline map for the half you are walking before you leave home — mobile coverage is poor in Ennerdale, on Nine Standards Rigg and across the Moors.