The Pennine Way is Britain's first and best: known National Trail, and stretches for roughly 270 miles from the Derbyshire Peak District to the Scottish Borders, maintaining a high and often wild course along the backbone of England. The route traverses a wide variety of terrain, from the gritstone moorlands of Derbyshire through the limestone country of the Yorkshire Dales, to the bare boggy final stretch through the Cheviot Hills to the finishing point at Kirk Yetholm. It offers a superb and ever changing landscape of hills, moors, valleys and villages.

Special Offers, Quotes and Bookings

 

 

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Walk Information

• We will move your baggage from door to door, on a daily basis, at competitive rates.
• We can arrange your entire holiday for you, with the best available accommodation on the route, and can also arrange your Youth Hostel accommodation if required, under our Group Membership.
• We can provide safe storage for your car on our own premises, with personal transport to Edale for the start, and your return from Kirk Yetholm at the end of the walk. (Available to parties of 4 persons min & accommodation booked by Brigantes.)
• We are the only operator on the Pennine Way who will transport your baggage over its entire length. Without recourse to taxis.
• Our own local drivers have unsurpassed knowledge of the route, and the areas through which it passes.

Start Dates

Our current intended start-out dates from Edale for the 2012 season will be:

• April: 3rd, 7th, 21st and 29th
• May: 5th, 7th, 10th, 12th, 15th, 16th, 19th and 26th
• June: 12th, 15th and 17th
• July: 7th, 14th, 25th and 28th
• August: 4th, 18th and 25th
• September: 1st

We will also undertake to start the trip on other dates, provided your party numbers four or more persons.

The route is traditionally walked from south to north, from Edale to Kirk Yetholm, and most guidebooks describe it this way. The Pennine Way is a serious challenge, and you must be fully equipped to meet it, and unless you are fit and an experienced long-distance walker, you should not tackle the Pennine Way, certainly not alone. It is important that your boots are broken-in, and that you are able to carry a rucksack with your requisites for one or two days. Most people undertaking the walk in one go take 2 - 3 weeks to complete it, and many people choose to do a section at a time. The usual time required for a non-stop walk, is 17 days. The route attracts thousands of walkers each year, and yet some do not get beyond the second day, usually because fitness and stamina have been overestimated, and the weight of personal belongings required, has also been over-estimated!

The assistance of the Pennine Way Baggage Courier has helped hundreds of walkers to achieve the completion of the walk, and also to enjoy it without having to carry a heavy backpack, knowing that warm and dry clothing awaits them at the end of each day.

Our courier service is the only service which will provide you with door to door baggage transfers, from Edale at the start, all the way to the end of the walk in Kirk Yetholm, by using our own vehicles and personnel, thereby ensuring reliability.

The Way is only intermittently way marked with signs and cairns, so you will need a guidebook and maps and a compass. Maps - OS Outdoor Leisure, sheets 1, 21, 2, 30,31,43,42,16.

Be prepared for the rigours of hill walking, carrying warm and wet-weather clothing as a necessity, as well as sufficient food and drink, since this is not available over many stretches of the walk, once you have started out for the day.

The trek commences with the peat groughs of Kinder and Bleaklow followed by the wild moorland of the Bronte country around Haworth, before reaching the superb limestone scenery of the Yorkshire Dales. Streams disappear underground, and potholes abound as the walk passes Malham Tarn and Cove, and makes the ascent of Pen-y- Ghent before descending to Horton -in-Ribblesdale. From here good tracks lead over the moors to the old market town of Hawes in Wensleydale. Great Shunner Fell is climbed on the way to the old lead-mining area of Swaledale, and via Keld village, upwards again towards the highest inn in England, at Tan Hill. At 1732 feet above sea-level, this was once an important meeting place of trade routes, and the haunt of local coal miners. The Way continues via Baldersdale and the Balderhead dam to Middleton -inTeesdale, thence via Langdon Beck and Englands highest waterfall at High Force, to Cauldron Snout and High Cup Nick, before descending into the pretty red sandstone village of Dufton, nestling on the western side of the Pennine chain.

From Dufton the route continues eastwards over Cross Fell, the highest point of the walk, then on through the Northumberland National Park towards the northernmost section of the Roman Empire defined by Hadrians Wall, its milecastles and forts being of great historical interest. The long trek through the Keilder Forest area and thence along the ridge of the Cheviot Hills and over the Scottish border to Kirk Yetholm completes the 270 mile walk of the Pennine Way. Congratulations will be in order, but there will be no official reception, and no bands playing!

For this walk, we will arrange your accommodation on a Bed and Breakfast basis (evening meals can be arranged also) at local inns, hotels or private residences, all of which have been tried and tested by us satisfactorily in past years, and for your guidance, the following is a list of the usual stopovers, with the daily distances between each.

Please note:

We do not service a delivery to Uswayford Farm in the Cheviots, but can make suitable alternative arrangements, in order to shorten the last days walk between Byrness and Kirk Yetholm.

Public Transport:

Trains between Manchester and Sheffield call at Edale, the usual starting point, and a limited Bus service operates from Kirk Yetholm to Kelso in the Borders, from where buses to Jedburgh, Edinboro', Berwick on Tweed, or Newcastle operate.

Brigantes will also operate a return service to the Skipton area from Kirk Yetholm by minibus, for parties of four or more persons, by arrangement.

Pennine Highlights

An alternative for walkers who are restricted by the time available, and who would like to experience some of the best parts of the Pennine Way. This is a four or five night option through the middle section of the walk, commencing in Hawes in North Yorkshire, and finishing at either Dufton or Alston in the North Pennines. En-route, walkers will pass some of the natural highlights of the trail, including Hardraw Force, High Force, High Cup Nick, and Cross Fell.

Please note that for clients making their own booking arrangements using Youth Hostel accommodation, the following hostels are "self-catering", and in some cases there are no local shops from which to obtain provisions:

Mankinholes, Earby, and Kirk Yetholm.

Useful External Links

• Trailblazer Guide Books
• Walking Places Message Forum

Typical Itinerary