The New Lyke Wake Club
Couple of Condolences : Kate Marriott and Joseph Dendle
While Chernobyl spat its nuclear spray,
My own father walked this way.
Forty years passed and here I stand,
Ready to cross this northern land.
He left me tales of bog and stone,
of wind that leaves a man alone.
So I came armed with guidebook page,
and stories passed from age to age.
We came as couple, new and small,
less than six months in love at all.
And if the moor we could complete,
then perhaps our love, life could not defeat.
But things went wrong from the beginning,
The starting stone seemed to be missing.
A kilometre we walked, which felt quite far,
To find the stone just 10 meters from the car.
The forecast promised calmer skies,
the weather witches told their lies.
They said the day would stay warm and fair,
but rain soon came slanting through the air.
Now one of us has earned the name,
the ‘Witch’ her title and her fame.
So we ask with half a smirk,
which witch is better at her work?
The weather witch who reads the sky,
or she who crossed the heather high?
Soon the railway gave us faster pace,
flat and smooth we jogged our race,
A flatter track, a freer run,
a stretch of miles more quickly done.
Though we were unsupported and self-sustained,
a Red Lion pit stop briefly was gained.
The porcelain throne had called our sphincter,
definitely not one that made a picture.
Then bog arrived without a sound,
and dragged us knee-deep in the ground.
For days thereafter, stained with peat,
our peasant feet looked rough and beat.
We crossed beneath the radar’s gaze,
at Flyingdales’ unseen ways.
Yet though the sky had eyes above,
below we found no path to love.
The heather rose up, purple and deep,
By this point we just wanted sleep.
We were not lost from radar’s view,
but lost in all we walked into.
At Lilla Cross we saw with delight,
The final mast had come in sight.
But hours passed and though closer we came,
that bloody mast had moved again.
Then burned land came, ash and bone,
a moor reduced to broken stone.
The wind picked up the burnt remains,
and filled our eyes with grit and pains.
No guidebook spoke of this at all,
no father’s tale recalled its fall.
Just stripped-back earth and drifting air,
and nothing there was soft or fair.
In final miles a man and dog,
appeared through mist and shifting fog.
My father came in quiet grace,
to meet us near the ending place.
He offered help to ease the load,
but we kept our packs, we kept our road.
Though weight was pressed on aching frame,
we bore it still, and did not change.
Like at the start we had been wrong,
We found the ending stone was gone,
A trig point stood where we first thought,
the final stone we might have caught.
But we soon then found the proper end,
where stones and story both transcend.
We closed what once had first begun,
fourteen and a half hours ago, under sun.
One path once walked by father’s feet,
returned again through wind and peat.
The moor could test, but did not break,
what six short months had dared to make.
A Witch and Dirger, from now we’re known,
And we’ll walk together, wherever we roam.
With deepest sympathy,
Joseph and Kate
Self-Condolences: Andrew Kidd
Lyke Wake Walk 15 June 2026
Dirger: Andrew Kidd (supported by Jewell Kidd and Tilly Kidd, with Tilly joining for the last 15 miles)
Date: 15 June 2026, start 4.46am from LWW start/finish stone at Cod Beck Reservoir, finish 1.12am LWW start/finish stone near beacon at Ravenscar.
Walking time: 16hrs 37mins
Actual crossing time: 20hrs 26mins
Total distance: 39.1 miles, 63 km
My teenage self offers my deepest condolences to my 65 year old self. As a lad growing up in Newcastle, a good number of my school mates were doing the LWW. It was his idea and it took me a while to get around to it. Glad I did.
I had decided to go for it mid 2025 but realised I needed to get fitter and yet wanted to do it mid summer, for the longer day length. The time was well spent training up and preparing, including getting new inserts from my podiatrist and finding a better pair of boots (leading to no blisters!). My research suggested merino wool underlayers may help avoid chaffing and indeed they did. I took trekking poles which were very useful for some parts in particular and I, surprisingly, used them almost throughout the walk.
We had a cottage in Osmotherley for a week and I was hoping for one day that had better weather. Monday 15 June was the day. Mainly cloudy, some sun, a little headwind in parts, and only a sprinkle of rain towards the end.
The route essentially followed that suggested by Brian Smailes, with only a couple of minor accidental detours. I had plotted the route on plotaroute and downloaded the gpx file to Guru Maps app which really helped at a couple of uncertain moments.
I went to bed 8pm the night before and slept surprisingly well, getting up at 4am. I was so grateful to have Jewell and Tilly at the checkpoints. Tilly’s partner Dan is an extreme challenge nutritionist, fortunately. His advice was useful to ensure the prep of loading up with white rice etc for 24-36 hours before and having a white bread jam sandwich, a bottle of lucozade, a banana at most checkpoints, plus 30 grams of sugar each hour in between checkpoints (basically 9 jelly babies or equivalent). I stayed pretty well hydrated along the way also, I think.
It was great to have Tilly join me for the last three legs. It was getting dark towards the end of the second to last leg when we entered the “surprise” ravine at Jugger Howe. Half way down we somehow (my fault) went right instead of left and had to climb through undergrowth and bog along the bank to find the stepping stones. That leg took us about twice what would have been expected timewise. But we saw a couple of glow-worms which brought delight and added a bit of energy. Indeed, the wildlife, the birdlife and the views were amazing.
Tilly worked up a playlist for the last 2 mile leg which she described as the “lap of honour” leg. So, in the pitch black though headtorched, we sang along to such delights as “and I would walk 500 miles” and “these boots were made for walking” etc.. That helped the grind at the end.
Pretty stiff in the ankles the next day but managed to recover in time for a weekend at Tynedale Rugby 7s and Beer Festival. A perfect end.
Detailed Stats:
Andrew Kidd, supported by Jewell Kidd and Tilly Kidd
Start 4.46am, Finish 1.12am. Total time 20h 26mins.
Distance: 62.96km, 39.1 miles. Total gain 1,345m, Min elev 173m, Max elev 506m
Steps: 101,386
Calories estimate: 4,500
Time walking: 16h 37mins (ave pace 16:07 mins per km, max 11:14 mins per km)
Splits: fastest 12:26mins, slowest 28:51mins
Time resting: 3h 49mins
Time resting at checkpoints: 2h 12mins
Time resting between checkpoints: 1h 37mins
To checkpoint 1: 6 miles in 2h 32mins (deviation from Brian Smailes Guidebook +32mins) – break 19 mins
To checkpoint 2: 4 miles in 1h 58mins (deviation +28mins) – break 17 mins
To checkpoint 3: 9.5 miles in 3h 57mins (deviation +52 mins) – break 30 mins
To checkpoint 4: 5 miles in 2h 6mins (deviation +6mins) – break 32 mins
To checkpoint 5: 8.5 miles in 3h 37mins (deviation +37mins) – break 16 mins
To checkpoint 6: 5 miles in 3h 12mins (deviation +1h 32mins) – break 18 mins
To finish: 2 miles in 52mins (deviation +22mins)
Regards, Andrew Kidd
Three Crossings, One Frog, and a Man Who Should Have Known Better
Or: how to fail to learn a lesson over the course of five years.
My relationship with the Lyke Wake Walk began, as all the best disasters do, over a drink. A colleague asked whether I “fancied joining a group doing a walk in the North York Moors.” I said yes, because at that point I still believed words like walk and moors to be reassuring. This was June 2018.
The crossing was completed in fifteen hours. My dignity was not completed at all. By the time we reached the youth hostel in Whitby, my legs had filed for divorce, and I was reduced to descending the stairs backwards, heel first, like a man abseiling without rope or competence. I vowed, with the conviction of the truly broken, never to do it again.
The Walk, you understand, is named for the watching-over of corpses. I had assumed this was metaphorical. It is not.
Act II — The Memory of a Goldfish
Five years, it turns out, is precisely how long it takes me to forget pain. In June 2023 I not only agreed to cross again, I organised it. Ten brave souls signed up. Three turned up. One of those three gave up at the ten-mile mark — which, by my arithmetic, gives the Walk a 70% attrition rate before anyone’s even had a properly bad time. The survivors crossed in eighteen hours. The dirge sings to people, it seems, before they’ve finished lacing their boots.
Act III — The Foolish Boast
I manage a junior team at Dinnington RUFC. During a perfectly innocent discussion about fundraising, a parent suggested the Lyke Wake Walk and kindly began explaining what it was. Rather than confess that I had already limped across it twice while questioning my life choices, I said — and I cannot overstate how foolish this was — “Oh, I know the route.”
And so, crossing number three. The 12th of June, six of us departing Cod Beck Reservoir at 19:00: Johnny (my long-suffering LWW companion, and the only man who keeps coming back — which says something about us both), Ellie, Anne, Ange and Mikey.
The first ten miles went suspiciously well. Then one of the group began to shriek — a sound of such pure, undiluted terror that it must surely have carried as far as Middlesbrough. I braced for the worst: a body in the heather, the Hound of the Baskervilles, the Grim Reaper arriving early to collect.
It was a frog. Sitting in the middle of the path. Minding its own amphibian business.
Reader, I was unaware that Ellie suffered from ranidaphobia. Note to self: all future pre-walk questionnaires must screen for this, alongside the standard checks for ambulophobia, agoraphobia, and completion anxiety. On a route named after the dead, it was — fittingly — the one living thing that nearly finished us off.
The frog, it turned out, was the easy part.
The Long Dark Bog of the Soul
At twenty miles the maths arrived, and the maths is cruel. Someone did the sum out loud — “hang on, are we only half way?” — and you could feel the morale leave the group like air from a slow puncture. Forty miles is a number you can say cheerfully in a pub. It is a different number entirely at one in the morning with a bog where your feet used to be.
By Rosedale Moor the group had nothing left. The bogs had taken their toll — and at least one casualty was permanent, Ange parting with two toenails for the privilege of crossing. Honestly, the Lyke Wake Club should issue them as commemorative pin badges.
The wind was doing its best to relocate us to the Irish Sea, so I made a Leadership Decision. “Let’s not rest here,” I said, with the easy confidence of a man pointing at a map. “Wheeldale plantation gives some shelter, and it’s not far.” Friends, not far on the map and not far in the heather at 2am are not the same distance. They are not even the same unit of measurement. Two hours later we collapsed into the heather at the plantation and were granted a fifteen-minute power nap — generously soundtracked by Mikey and Johnny snoring like a brass section warming up.
The Mast That Lied
Onward to Fylingdales Moor, where I made my second great error of the walk. I pointed out a mast on the horizon and announced that it marked the finish. This was meant to inspire. (For the record, I have since established it was an unidentified transmitter mast near Ravenscar — radio, probably — and not, as I’d implied with great authority at 4am, the literal end of our suffering.)
It did inspire, for roughly four minutes. Then the mast became the group’s entire universe — and the trouble with a distant mast is that it has the manners not to get any closer. We walked for what felt like hours. The mast did not move. One of the group began a steady chant of how far, how long, which gradually simplified into a single word, directed at me, repeated with the patience of a metronome: “liar.” Over. And over. I have been called many things on the moors. That night I learned which ones stick.
We Buried Them at Last
And yet — we crossed. All six of us limped over the finish on the Saturday at 15:15: twenty hours and fifteen minutes, fully unsupported, every gram of it carried on our own backs. Slower than my fifteen-hour first crossing and my eighteen-hour second, which I choose to read not as evidence of decline but as proof I’m savouring the place more each time. For a group that had been emotionally bested by an amphibian and a transmitter mast, I’ll take it. Bill Cowley would, I hope, have nodded grimly and bought a round.
The whole undertaking was in aid of the Dinnington RUFC Under-14s, who train hard, play harder, and remain blissfully unaware of the suffering committed in their name. If you’d like to make two lost toenails and one shattered friendship feel worthwhile, the lads would be very grateful: https://gofund.me/21ac3cf06. Every pound buys a small piece of dignity I will personally never recover.
Would I do it again? Absolutely not. Ask me again in five years.
Paint Brushes and Cold Pints – Alex Williams
Good afternoon,
I’m happy to report I would like to report my first crossing.
Just before midnight on Friday 5th June 2026 45 walkers set off from the start point in Osmotherley. Things started steadily with lots of talk around the selection of sweet goods we’d all brought along with us. Initially me and a friend, Harry, stuck together, moving through the first check point at the cottages near Heathwaite swiftly.
As we moved over the moors on the next section we split off into different groups. At the aid stop at Clay bank another new group was formed, on the climb leaving Clay bank sadly one team member dropped out leaving 4 in our team, myself, Rob, Ben and Mike. Mike was complaining of a stone in his boot and we managed to convince him to check on it before moving any further. Mike removed his boot, turned it upside down and with a gentle shake a metallic object fell out. Ben picked it up and said it looked like a makeup brush. Mike looked and explained it was the head of a kids paint brush and his kids had been painting before we left. He gave his boot another tap and out came the 6” brush handle!
From here our little team stuck together and made good progress, sadly avoiding The Lion Inn at Blakey for a stop at Ralphs Cross where our support team was waiting with hot drinks and hot sausage buns!
Carrying on from Blakey we headed onto the ‘boggy section’ which thankfully wasn’t as bad as we had all built it up to be in our heads! Steady progress was made on the crossing over the moor top keeping our heads down and battling on Wheeldale road. Due to a medical issue with a member of the larger group behind us this would be the last time we would see our bags of extra kit which was on the bus before the finish line.
Spirits were still high until coming over Fylingdales where around 35 miles in we were met with driving rain being blown at 20-30 mph. This quickly penetrated our waterproofs which up until then had put in a very good shift. Thankfully with the end in sight we kept moving and picked up a packet of hobnobs at our final aid station 1.5 miles from the end.
Our team completed the walk in just over 15 hours and enjoyed a well earned pint in the Flask Inn to celebrate!
Kind Regards,
Alex
The Return Crossing – Walk 11 Graeme Noble
General Information:
Date & Start: Friday 15 May 2026, starting time [from the LWW stone at Ravenscar 9.50am] – Saturday 16 May 7.27pm at the LWW stone near Cod Beck Reservoir at Osmotherley. An east to west crossing.
Walking time: 18.28.
Actual crossing time 33hrs 28mins (36hrs allotted time as a Sexagenarian of 65+ yrs of age)
Total Walking Distance: 43.7 miles
Dirger: Graeme Noble (solo walk)
Weather – heavy and strong gales gradually settling down to full sun with a very slight breeze with some warmth in the air over the two days.
This was a cracking good walk (Gromit). On Friday 15th May 2026 Gerry and Julie picked me up from the Falcon Inn and deposited me at the LWW starting point at Ravenscar. To say the wind was overtly blustery would be an understatement. After the ritual of saying goodbyes, and the lament held in the wind, I began the return route to Armageddon Osmotherley. The walk itself across to Rosedale Farm Inn at Rosedale Abbey posed few problems and there was a genuine sadness at walking through Jugger Howe to see the damage done by last year’s fires on this part of the North Yorkshire Moors. The burned fence above Jugger Howe Beck walk (Lilla Howe side of the ravine), summarised in my mind – total devastation – the damage caused when I walked across here last year when the moors were closed for access.
The previous day I had called in a fire above Egton, which had come onto my radar walking across the duck ponds towards Beck Hole – there had been a lot of smoke drifting about, and I hoped on seeing the devastation on this section of the moors that this year wouldn’t see a repeat of last year. The landscape on this section across to Lilla Cross remains the same. Lilla Howe stands proud and Ellerbeck was remarkably dry. A little wet here and there, but nothing like the bogginess of four years ago. Global warming? There didn’t seem to be any trains running on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and I sat having a sandwich just off the tracks before heading on my way to Hamer House.
Gerry had suggested a visit there on this crossing earlier in the year. Cutting across Simon Howe produced a little more wetness on the path to Wheeldale Stepping Stones and walking across the Roman Cists to Wheeldale Moor. I took the lower path here (close to the Booth Stone) and followed the track to its end and then followed the footpath sign which is about two miles east of Blue Man-i’-th’-Moss to rejoin the ‘Raven Stones’ path across the moor. It is a fast track for moving across. Recommended. Then Hamer House – there’s nothing left there apart from greened ruins and a few out houses on the other side of the road.
Hamer Beck was flowing fairly quickly, and while it comes to memory there are a lot of new dams over White Moor on the footpath following the ‘Blue Man’, which Gerry thinks are connected to an attempt to regenerate the dried peat which sits on either side of the path. Then what followed was a rather quick walk through to Rosedale after a steep hill climb and an evening meal with Gerry, Julie and Kathleen (one of the witnesses at my wedding 40yrs ago). On pg.43 of the fifth edition, reprinted 1973,(1) Cowley mentions, ‘some of the party finished comfortably in the inn at Rosedale’.
Without much adooooooo… following breakfast, I turned right out of Rosedale Inn and followed a track walked upto Ana Cross through the quarries. A good fell climb. So, I’d achieved the two extremities of Bill Cowley’s outer sections of the LWW; St John’s Cross and Ana Cross.
What followed was a great ridge route to Bank Top and then onwards to Hasty Bank. The pace moved on to just over 3+ miles per hour. My left knee started to burn out with the pace! Below the Lion Inn I needed to stop and take stock of my left knee. Significant pain had been occurring over the area of the knee and behind, so, I peeled the knee support back and opened the wound cover to see a little bit of blood. Black pudding extraordinary! I stopped for 30 minutes or so and had some lunch.
Rosedale Abbey had forgotten to make a packing up and I was using the previous day’s rations, which seemed to work out perfectly after fish and chips the night before. After my break I peeled away the knee support and the looseness of the knee felt better. Walking around the Dales’heads was a great pain reliever and at Bloworth Crossing I realised I had been knocking up the miles and the knee felt swollen but freed up. Nevertheless, the knee was slightly bleeding, rather attempting to make sanguineous drainage or a scab.
Just below Carr Ridge, in the quarries, I stopped at one of my favourite seats, day or night and, looked at the view with the thought of the Cleveland Plain behind me yet to be exposed entirely. Apple Maps suggested a slightly different alternative approach to accessing the cliff top route rather than the steps. I followed it and to my surprise it was a similar incline but graduated (rather than pretending to be a giraffe jumping over oddly created clouds) leading me onto the next challenge.
From Lordstones’ cafe area I gradually began to seize up and wondered if I would make the finishing stone above Cod Beck Reservoir. But, a phone call from my better half, and the comment, (‘you’ve made it this far and I’m getting close to Scotch Corner’) I realistically considered my position, found extra energy and sort of walked in to (literally) the LWW stone at Cold Beck Reservoir laughing insanely at an odd humour which had gathered me. Kate took the final photograph of me standing at the LWW stone sort of quite rapturous at getting to the end, and I took to the car where soup, sandwiches, chocolate biscuits, tea and equally importantly, a cold compress for the knee, awaited my attention. An achievement of sorts.
The ridge walking earlier in the day will stick in my mind as much as, ‘I’m at Scotch Corner, keep going…’commentary, which, really was saying, keep going or I’ll have ye’, as Rab C Nesbitt might ha’ seid.
Until the next crossing…in September/October ‘26. I understand that some type of (lunatic) certification may cross my path before then? I prayer to the gods of the underworld that it may and save me from the charms of the dales and their entrapment. (Well, Kate hopes so).
1. Cowley, B. Lyke Wake Walk. Dalesman Publishing Company, Clapham, via Lancaster, Yorkshire. (5th ed.). [1971 reprint 1973].
The Outward Crossing – Walk 10 – Graeme Noble
General Information:
Date & Start: Wednesday 13 May 2026, starting time [from the Trig Point at Beacon Hill Scarth Wood Moor near Osmotherley 10.12am] – Thursday 14 May 9.34pm finish at the LWW stone near the beacon at Ravenscar]. A west to east crossing.
Walking time: 19.47.33
Actual crossing time 35hrs 24mins (36hrs allotted time as a Sexagenarian of 65+ yrs of age)
Total Walking Distance: 44.5 miles
Dirger: Graeme Noble (solo walk – claiming the extra 12hrs allotted time for being over 65yrs+).
Weather – on the first day it was cold with blustery showers and as late afternoon set in extremely windy from Round Hill to the Lion Inn. Day two gave weather that was fairly dry with windy weather on the tops, warm in the valley areas, until Newton House Plantation where intermittent heavy hailstone showers continued to the end of the walk. Exceptionally cold and windy from 6pm onwards.
Prior to beginning the walk, I had emergency treatment three weeks earlier, when I fell on the descent from Walla Crag in the Lake District. An odd accident as I missed my footing and tumbled some 15-20 feet before coming to a stop, realising that I was in serious trouble as blood ran down my leg into my boot and I could see inside my left knee. There was other damage but seeing the blood flowing was a bit of a show stopper! Eventually, I was helped by Keswick Mountain Rescue and visited A&E Lancaster after being shoved through the NHS to the appropriate hospital to have the puncture/gash washed out, cleaned and stitched. A time line of recovery over the next three weeks with me testing out the leg, knee and associated pain meant that a knee support was needed, and prayer to the watchful gods and goddesses of the moors, that I wouldn’t damage anything following the stitches being removed a week earlier to the day of the walk.
So, with some trepidation I travelled by three trains and bus to the B&B, feeling my way around the knee and recognising that my feet and legs preferred going up and being on the flat rather than going in a downward motion. Well, part of the reasoning for continuing with the walk was that I had committed to the Wainwright’s Society Challenge 61 (Wainwright in his Coast to Coast Walk Book [C>C],(1) found in the latter part of the book after the index and offered by Wainwright as, ‘Some Personal Notes in Conclusion’, 1973, pg.xvi, writes of an alternative to his Robin Hood Bay ending to the C>C walk, utilising the Lyke Wake Walk (LWW) crossing from Osmotherley to Ravenscar without defining the precise route that Bill Cowley described in his Dalesman Books of the LWW from 1959-1973) to raise funds for one of the rescue teams (the whole challenge of 61 sections will ultimately be shared by all the rescue teams that straddle the C>C walk) that I had needed to help me from the descending path at Walla Crag, where I had previously fallen.
There was also some other thinking going on; to join up sections of the LWW that I had walked previously in the hours of the night, therefore not seeing any of the landscape covered on those crossings. I was determined to walk Bill Cowley’s alternative routes of the LWW, found in early editions of the LWW in an adventure of a return walk which I write of below. I think being a fairly determined person in nature pulled me through, but the return route (walk 11) which I’ll describe later, nearly finished me off.
Planning the route for walk 10 had been fairly simple. The first stage from the trig point at Beacon Hill was a homage tribute to Bill Cowley’s original starting point (see early editions) and which was the original starting place for the LWW. That was a no brainer! The next thought was, ‘how about walking some of the sections you have done previously, in the dark – this time doing them in the light and actually seeing the landscape’ (yes, I have an internal voice, most of us do!).
The next stage was walking through to Raisdale Mill following a stop at the seat dedicated to the memory of Ian Jeal at the T-junction near Huthwaite Green. There I have sat, eaten, drunk tea, noshed biscuits and pondered on Clain Woods and the final pull when walking east to west. Again, I did the same thing, however, standing for part of the time in the adjoining garage to the seat as heavy rain appeared from nowhere. A rather peaceful daybreak from the B&B at Ingleby Arncliffe, broken by wet weather and taken with some solemnity wondering what the day’s weather offered.
On page 20 of the 1971 fifth edition of the LWW, Bill Cowley (BC) describes the route I took as the third possibility. So, it was after leaving the classic route at Huthwaite Green, ‘by the Scugdale road and Raisdale Mill to Chop Gate…and so up to Botton Head by Bilsdale Hall and Medd Crag’, I followed as a BC anchorite. The rucksack feeling as heavy as the chains whipping my back. I did wonder if any blood was coming out of the knee , but left looking to the end of the day’s walking.
I chose this route because the previous time I walked through there it was approximately 2am and the weather was extremely challenging with heavy rain, wind and hailstorms, and in the dark, so, visibility was nearing zero in heavy rain and hail during that night. This varied valley route, in the sense of an undulating landscape, underfoot, with some steep climbs, I found offered superb views of Whorlton Moor, Snilesworth Moor, Bilsdale West Moor and the surprise of Barker’s Crags above Scugdale Hall; I had never seen those in the dark on a previous crossing.
Raisdale (Reith’s Valley [an Old Norse name]) Mill (now private housing) was formerly a water powered corn mill, and on this occasion I chose to stop for a few minutes. For me it offered a rather pastoral romantic setting in comparison to the busyness of its original function as a mill with Raisdale Beck running through the hamlet, and now, in a different temporal world sat calmness; the peaceful atmosphere with the winding road running through to Chop Gate, known locally as Chop Yat, its name probably coming from the Old Norse word ‘kaupr’ meaning ‘pedlar’ or ‘chapman’, and ‘gata’ which means ‘road’.(2)
Interestingly, Bill Cowley, 1973, pgs.46&47 mentions, ‘I took the Northern Route…I little thought that a month later the bulldozers would come into ruin that track…’. So , I felt rather blessed in having passed through such a beautiful area (restored by nature) as I arrived at Bilsdale Hall and the eventual climb onto Urra Moor and Round Hill with the Hand Stone beckoning me to proceed uphill from Medd Crag and converse eventually with the Face Stone just up the path and the Trig Point on Round Hill. I stood with my hands cradling the head of the Face Stone, beginning to understand its resonance of just sitting looking over the moors, knowing that the following few miles to the Lion Inn would cover some great ridge walking.
Meeting Gerry and Julie at the Lion Inn was rather an odd moment. Not in meeting them, but the sheer volume of people there I found to be quite overpowering and incredible in comparison to what I have experienced when walking in late in the evening (east to west walking) and after having experienced mile upon mile of meeting no one on this particular day. The volume of people and noise and having to make instantaneous decisions came as quite a shock. The Lion Inn, on this occasion, I later found, was/is suffering from a lack of water and washing one’s body I found was impossible to get fully clean. Apparently, the Inn needs to bore further to get their water supply upto pressure. However, the company over dinner and conversation was good and eventually I retired to bed.
After a decent sleep and breakfast I picked up my packed lunch and headed off to follow the Northern Route (1971, pg.35) (3) following the George Gap Causeway (Path), the Cut Road (Path) and the Duckponds (I called in a fire on the moors at Egton from above the Duckponds during this part of the walk) towards Beck Hole where this time I continued onwards without a stop off for a pint, eventually getting onto the Whinstone Ridge.
This is where the walking fun began, eventually, I reckon adding a couple of hours to the crossing. Below York Cross there is still terrible devastation following last year’s disastrous Moors fire. The ground is flooded more than when I crossed last year (walk 9) and the only way to proceed was by clambering up and down over the fire embankments. Loose peat is not a particularly safe way to proceed, but the footpath below is lost for the present. In fact, a snorkel may be a handy bit of kit to get across to John Bond’s Sheep House and then upwards to the remains of John Cross. There has been some serious tree felling before John’s Cross, and this slowed me down.
After this the navigation back to Biller Howe Dale Slack and the Flask Inn was a lot easier and I picked up some speed, although heavy hailstones raining down in random showers provided some entertaining encouragement to keep moving. At the Flask Inn, John the new publican poured me a nice pint and spoke of the benefits of the inn, rooms and food etc., welcoming me to a pint of bitter with a roaring fire which rather dried me out and lifted my spirits to get across Stony Marl Moor and arrive at the LWW (he said that he and his wife Nicola would welcome any LWWalkers to their hostelry) end of the route at Ravenscar, where Gerry met me halfway over the moor, and Julie patiently waited at the car with some rejuvenating food and a lift to the Falcon Inn. The Falcon Inn offers great rooms, a great breakfast, a great wash, a great sleep and great views across to the sea from the breakfast room. Then off for walk 11…the return.
- Wainwright, A. A Coast To Coast Walk. Westmorland Gazette, Kendal, Westmorland. [1973].
- Wright, Peter (2005). Yorkshire placenames. Skipton: Dalesman. p. 32
- Cowley, B. Lyke Wake Walk. Dalesman Publishing Company, Clapham, via Lancaster, Yorkshire. (5th ed.). [1971].
Sixty at Sixty by Mike Chatten
I am writing to report a successful crossing undertaken on Friday 22 May 2026.
I retired in 2024 and moved back to Yorkshire. Having completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge with an old friend unsupported in sweltering conditions in 2025, I was looking for an even bigger challenge for my 60th birthday and begun to read up about the LWW. 60km at 60 sounded ideal!
Over the preceding 2-3 months, from my home base within the National Park, I scouted out the ‘moorland’ section of the walk from the Ravenscar Mast to Bloworth Crossing. The main purpose was to try to avoid navigational ‘errors’. I also wanted to understand the sort of walking pace possible so that I could give my support accurate check point rendezvous times.
The crossing was a family affair with my son Jonathan agreeing to walk with me and my wife Julia driving the support car. He doesn’t do lots of walking, but he used to compete at national level in triathlon and still maintains a good level of fitness.
I decided to do a crossing from East to West, mainly because I knew that we could get to Ravenscar a lot quicker than to Osmotherly and could enjoy a bit longer in bed! Experience also suggested that the prevailing wind was more likely to be behind us going west.
My pacing practice suggested that we could achieve a time between 13 and 14 hours. We began our walk from the Mast a little before 6am with a projected finishing time somewhere between 7 and 8pm. To save time and to avoid (me) cramping up by stopping, we planned to eat and drink on the move and to travel as light as possible getting resupplied at 3 points along the way.
Around 1 mile from the start on Howdale Moor, about 50 yards away, we saw a small herd of fallow deer, comprising of a stag with 4 does and a couple of fawns. This was easily the most deer I have seen together on the Moors; they usually seem to be in pairs.
After c.11miles we arrived at 9:30 for our 1st rendezvous with our support vehicle on Wheeldale Road, 15 minutes up on schedule. After taking onboard fluids and food we set off once again with the boggy bits around White Moor and through the fords on Rosedale Moor to ‘look forward to’.
My son took a great photo of us both at Blue Man-I-Th-Moss but then managed to leave behind his borrowed walking pole which we only discovered as we hit the 1st boggy bit a few hundred yards later and balance became a thing!. He offered to go back but I said no, not wanting to add additional distance to the walk.
The next section from Smiths Lane to Knott Road was hard going due to the amount of rain in the days preceding our walk; these notorious boggy bits were indeed boggy! The highlight of the section was coming across an adder on the path enjoying the sunshine. I hadn’t seen one on the Moors until then.
By the time we arrived at our 2nd rendezvous at the Flat Howe (Marjory) exit from Blakey Ridge it was almost 1pm. We had lost the previous time gain and were now pretty much bang on schedule for a time of just over 13 hours.
At this halt, as well as taking more food and drink,I had a complete change of kit (ex-underpants). I had been wearing long trousers to avoid getting my calves torn to ribbons by heather crossing the moorland and was now bathed in sweat and had wet feet from the bogs. I changed into a pair of shorts, put on a new T shirt and socks and changed my boots for walking shoes. This obviously cost some time but gave a mental boost.
Annoyingly, I managed to lose the sketchy track over Flat Howe and the last couple of hundred yards to the railway track were over rough ground and the ditch. In fairness, I had only been over it in reverse and west/east is easier to follow.
Our march down the railway track to Bloworth Crossing was predictably joy sapping, particularly in the relatively high afternoon temperatures. My son had a minor sense of humour failure when I managed to get my ‘bends’ wrong and told him that we would be able to ‘see the Crossing around the next bend’ and then we couldn’t. Also, it was along this stretch that we started to feel ‘discomfort’ in our feet and at the Crossing decided to break open the ibuprofen to ease the pain.
In joining the Cleveland Way shortly after, we entered unknown territory as I hadn’t scouted this out given that the path is easy to follow. I have to say that the scenery on the way into our 3rd rendezvous at Clay Bank was stunning in the afternoon sunshine!
We descended to the B1257 and arrived at our rendezvous at 4pm which was around 20 minutes behind my schedule. By now the painkillers had made us less foot sore and, after a brief to stop to refill water bottles and food boxes we began our steep climb up Hasty Bank in good spirits, knowing that we now would now finish.
We crossed the Cleveland hills taking the climbs steadily sticking to the Cleveland Way and ignoring the low-level options. By the time we got to Huthwaite Green, however, we were tired and ‘keen’ to see the finish line. My son then suggested that we stay on the road via Swainby back to the reservoir rather than go via Clain Wood. He thought that this would be easier and I was too weary to think properly about the change of plan!
The diversion however added 1.5 miles to our journey and Coalmire Lane eventually gets very steep slowing us down further. We arrived at the LWW stone adjacent to the Quarry Lane Car Park just before 8pm meaning that we crossed walking only in almost exactly 14 hours for the 38.25 miles.
I wouldn’t have been able to maintain the required pace without logistical support keeping rucksack weight down. I have had problems with severe thigh cramp in hot weather in the past and drunk 12 pints of diluted juice on this walk, (half with added electrolytes). When I weighed myself the next morning, I was 3lbs lighter than usual (hooray!) which seems to have been due to fluid loss given that I was (boo!) back to ‘normal’ 24 hours later. So still dehydrated despite all the juice!
My wife had a long and arduous day too. As well as the 3 pit stops, she was up early to deliver us to the start and was also there at the end to pick us up. In all she drove a total of 230 miles and we were grateful for it.
I had my “never again” moment the next morning due to blistering, but now, a few days later with reduced swelling, am thinking about the next challenge!
The Return of Gerry Orchard
Crossing report Gerry Orchard
Thursday 09th April 2026
Those of you who know me will understand my feelings of a condemned man being reprieved.
For several years, I have been “medically stuffed” and unable to walk any meaningful distance and a walk of only a few miles left me barely able to get around the house for a few days. Well, thanks to James Stanley and his wonderful team at York Hospital, I was given a second chance ………………. OK, I am now an “old git” of over 70 years physically, however, mentally, I am still a teenager!
09th April saw me undertake the Lyke Wake walk for the first time in many years supported by my stressed and concerned partner, Julie. The first part of the walk went surprisingly well and the first issue arose on Wheeldale Moor where I completely forgot the route and ended up heather bashing for ¼ mile! Jugger Howe beck was a real landmark. I required 2 rests ascending the Eastern side and my Garmin had my body battery as flat lining ………………. I kind of felt that way. Luckily, I was saved by Julie, who had walked out to meet me and provided me with nutritious “stodge”.
Blimey, I was tired at the end. 14Hours and 49 minutes total time. Only one other person was encountered on the route – a lady walking two dogs near Clay Bank who was far too cheery for such a sombre occasion.
Will I do it again? Well, a sane person would retire…………………….
