2018 – UK – Pennine Way Part 2

Walking from Middleton in Teesdale to Kirk Yetholm

The Pennine Way  

The Pennine Way was Britain’s first national trail.  It was devised from the 1930’s onwards and finally officially opened in 1965.  It follows a high route along the Pennines from the Peak District in Derbyshire to reach the Scottish Border at Kirk Yetholm in the Cheviot Hills.

According to the official guide book the Pennine Way is 256 miles (412km) long. But this total doesn’t include the various diversions that are necessary to access accommodation and transportation.

Known as the toughest trail in Britain, the Pennine Way presents various challenges to the would-be walker but also offers a real sense of achievement to those who manage to complete it.

The Plan

We completed the first part in (137 miles) July 2016 and July 2017 on 4 separate trips

Our original plan had us walking continuously for 8 or 9 days in 2018 to complete part 2.  In the end we couldn’t commit to a continuous amount of time off so we decided to split it into 2 separate trips.

This meant that the original plan to use a luggage transfer service was also abandoned and I decided to carry the full 10kg-15kg pack all the way through.   The money saved on the transfer went on the extra rail tickets needed for two trips, although in the end the train tickets were cheap enough to make it an even larger saving.

The new plan meant tackling Middleton to Once Brewed (on Hadrian’s Wall) at the end of June and then completing the walk from Once Brewed to Kirk Yetholm at the end of July.

We had originally planned 8 walking days and that had included a short day of just 6 miles on day 4.  We decided to follow the same basic plan, split into two, and we decided we would walk 5 miles on the day we arrived back in Middleton to kill time and reduce the distance on the next day.

The end result was one trip (Trip 5) of 5 walking days and a final trip (Trip 6) of 4 walking days….

 

 

 

Pennine Way – Mileage Chart  

Part 1

#1	Culm	Date	Start	End	Railhead or Access	Ascent	Descent	Miles	Miles
1	1	29/07/16	Edale	Crowden	Edale	2430	2560	16	16
2	2	30/07/16	Crowden	Standedge		2165	1575	11	27
3	3	31/07/16	Standedge	Calder	Hebden Bridge	1150	2100	15	42
#2
1	4	27/05/17	Calder	Ickornshaw	Hebden Bridge	2885	2490	16	58
2	5	28/05/17	Ickornshaw	Gargrave	Ickornshaw	2360	1970	11	69
3	6	29/05/17	Gargrave	Malham	Gargrave			6	75
#3
1	7	01/07/17	Malham	Horton	Skipton	2660	2560	14.5	89.5
2	8	02/07/17	Horton	Hawes	Garsdale	1760	1727	14	103.5
#4
1	9	30/07/17	Hawes	Tan hill	Garsdale	3005	2346	16.5	120
2	10	31/07/17	Tan hill	Middleton	Darlington	1614	2280	17	137

Part 2

#5	Culm	Date	Start	End	Railhead	Ascent	Descent	Miles	Miles
1	11	22/06/18	Middleton	High Force	Darlington	1837	2001	5.1	142.1
2	12	23/06/18	High Force	Dufton				16.5	158.6
3	13	24/06/18	Dufton	Alston		3410	3085	21.2	179.8
4	14	25/06/18	Alston	Greenhead		1770	2295	18.8	198.6
5	15	26/06/18	Greenhead	Once Brewed	Haltwhistle	3051	3117	7.2	205.8
#6
1	16	27/07/18	Once Brewed	Bellingham	Hexham			16	16.2
2	17	28/07/18	Bellingham	Byrness		1814	1470	15	15
3	18	29/07/18	Byrness	Windy Gyle		2618	1591	14	16
4	19	30/07/18	Windy Gyle	Kirk Yetholm	Tweedbank	2411	3838	13	14

Details of the final two trips can be found here:

Trip 5

Trip 6

Details of the first four trips can be found here:

Trips 1 to 4 (Part 1)