Lyke Wake Walk during a really dry Summer, with a recommended Nap
I did the Lyke Wake Walk, travelling West to East, starting at 0934 on Saturday 1st August 2026 and walking under the signal tower outside Ravenscar around 0630 on Sunday 2nd August.
This was an unsupported traverse and I offer the following observations for those attempting the Walk during a dry Summer.
First, from the map I realised that unless I took the 3km detour to the Lion Inn there is no certain water source directly on the route between Lordstones (km8) and Wheeldale Beck (km45). For me this meant leaving Lordstones well hydrated and with over 3L of water.
Second, due to the vagaries of public transport I couldn’t start before 0930. I didn’t want to be stumbling about in the darkest bit of the night so I brought a bivvy bag, sleep mat and some down clothes (total weight just over 2kg) and bivvy’d down for 5 hours outside RAF Fylingdales as it got dark. A bed in a 5 star hotel has never felt so good and I was much refreshed for the last quarter of the walk.
One thing I got wrong however was wearing approach shoes, i.e, lightweight walking shoes. A stiffer sole would have been better; I had really big blisters on the balls of my feet from Fylingdales to the end.
What a great walk, I look forward to doing it again with friends.
Good morning,
Myself (Imogen Jameson, Somerset), Polly Loftus (Wakefield) and Benjamin Moore (Nottingham) completed a crossing yesterday. We took 17.5 hours, unsupported other than chips at the Lion Inn halfway. We saw 2 adders, saw 2 deer and heard 1 night Jar.
We started at 5:41am from Cote Ghyll (wonderful stay), and had good dry weather throughout the walk. Spirits were reasonably high until the head torches were required, at this point the walk became significantly more solemn – very on brand!
We slept in the car before returning home to Wakefield at 7am and have been sleeping ever since.
A group of friends who met via the Sheffield-based outdoors group Peak Queer Adventures set off on the Lyke Wake Walk at 0300hrs from the Cote Ghyll Mill B&B and camping, Osmotherly. The B&B was very accommodating for walkers and left our early breakfasts in the fridge for us to pick up at 0230hrs! We spent the first 45 mins of the walk in darkness before dawn broke as we topped out on the first hill. We spent a pleasant few hours enjoying the sunrise and talking about I Kissed a Girl on the BBC. The first bit of the hike was the hilliest, which slowed us down and made for a hard start to the day. Fortunately, our amazing support crew met us after the first 16km or so and fed us breakfast wraps.
It was a hot and sunny day and, coincidentally, there was a trail run taking place on the route so we spent the first part of the day dodging very brave runners and putting on a lot of suncream. After our first stop we locked in for 14km of cruising along a flat gravel causeway. We picked up the pace and made excellent time to the pub which sits almost at the mid-point of the route. Big up the Lion Inn for serving us pints at 1100hrs! Suitably hydrated, and fed with pasta salad and ice creams provided by our support crew, we contemplated the second leg. At this point we were mostly feeling pretty fresh for people who had walked 30km on 3 hours of sleep. Although one of our group was suffering with some serious thigh chafage, we started to think we might actually be able to complete the hike!
Post-lunch the terrain got a little trickier, not hilly but rocky to the point where we had to watch our feet. The chat continued to be good and a brief bit of cloud cover gave us some respite from the sun. It felt like we should have been walking through a bog but the prolonged dry weather meant that our feet remained dry. Then things get a bit hazy for the next 20km – the body was feeling ok but our minds were drifting a bit.
We had our last significant pit stop at around 50km – at this point most people were feeling pretty wrecked but, having come this far it felt impossible to stop now. The next 12km were a slog, and unfortunately it wasn’t even particularly scenic as we appeared to be walking through the remains of a big wildfire. The cloud descended and obscured the radio tower that was meant to be our finish point. 3km from the end we have a final rest and some of us have a short lie down to energise. We stumble on to the finish line to the glorious sight of our support crew arriving with fish and chips! We finished at 2130hrs. Walking for around 16.5 hours in total.
Then it’s straight to Whitby and to the pub to watch the England vs Norway game.
In total 7 of us started the walk and 5 of us completed the whole thing.
Best wishes,
Sims, Abi, Ben, Fiona, Matt, Otto, Greg (walkers), Daisy and Emily (support crew) from Peak Queer Adventures