Walking the Cumbria Way

I’m looking at walking the Cumbria Way this September.  Reading various posts and reports etc the route is designed to be walked south to North, but some people are walking it north to south because the Carlisle section isnt very good.

So has anyone on STW walked it?

My wife (and the dogs) did it a few years ago with me supporting. We’d reccied it quite a bit beforehand too. It was a nice project for her. She ended up doing  the Carlisle leg before the Caldbeck leg due to bad weather but that worked well. The last leg isn’t the most scenic or exciting by any stretch. I bought her the map and a book about it (we’d already got the relevant OS maps). We had a few incidents with cows on the reccies, from memory these were roughly round the Beacon Tarn area heading for Coniston.

We walked it in June south to north. It’s a great route although the last day is a little bit monotonous. You are out of the hills by then and there are some long stretches of paved cycle path on the run into Carlisle. I would recommend it though as an overall experience.

I did it years ago. We did it S-N mainly for logistics as we got the train from Newcastle.  The first day was quite hard, not hilly but lots of stiles and things to climb over. Middle was good. End was a bit odd walking into Carlisle. It was a while ago but it felt like you wandered off the fells into light industrial and urban areas. Heading south it would be farmland.

Not sure I’d do it again. I’d probably do something in the more classic areas expanding the middle section. Depending on transport you might be able to fix the start/end issues by simply moving them. There isn’t a “finish” as such in Carlisle.

Think we bought a guide book which covered everything.  We stayed in B+Bs. Most were nice. The old dungeon ghyll was the only real option in Langdale. Not sure if it’s changed in 10 years. It was “quirky” when we stayed there!

I did the beacon tarn to torver leg last week and the cows are still there, a few had horns too.  Its just near the farm south of beacon tarn and they stayed in a group the other side of the field.  I m doing it in segments so can’t comment on the whole trip.

I’m currently reading a book by Tom Chesshyre, called ‘Lost In The Lakes – Notes from a 379-mile Hike Around The Lake District’, and it’s an excellent read, very recent, his partner he writes about helping a couple of Ukrainian refugees, and the effects Covid had on staffing. He shows each leg as he walks it, and describes the region, its geography, inhabitants and accommodation/watering holes in a lot of detail.
Current on the Cartmel to Ambleside section. Maybe not the Cumbria Way exactly, but absolutely worth a read, for the amount of walking he does around the lakes themselves. Although technically there’s only one actual Lake.