Product Description

The Coast to Coast Walk, devised by Wainwright himself, stretches across 190 miles from St Bees Head on the East coast to Robin Hood's Bay on the West, passing through the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors. This Pictorial Guide, first published in 1973 and updated in 1992, contains Wainwright's original text and his hand-drawn black-and-white route maps for this much -oved walk.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1206 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

About the Author
Born in Blackburn in 1907, Alfred Wainwright left school at the age of 13. A holiday at the age of 23 kindled a life-long love affair with the Lake District. Following a move to Kendal in 1941 he began to devote every spare moment he had to researching and compiling the original seven Pictorial Guides. He described these as his 'love letters' to the Lakeland Fells and at the end of the first, The Eastern Fells, he wrote about what the mountains had come to mean to him:

"I suppose it might be said, to add impressiveness to the whole thing, that this book has been twenty years in the making, for it is so long, and more, since I first came from a smoky mill-town (forgive me, Blackburn!) and beheld, from Orrest Head, a scene of great beauty, a fascinating paradise, Lakeland's mountains and trees and water. That was the first time I had looked upon beauty, or imagined it, even.

Afterwards I went often, whenever I could, and always my eyes were lifted to the hills. I was to find then, and it has been so ever since, a spiritual and physical satisfaction in climbing mountains – and a tranquil mind upon reaching their summits, as though I had escaped from the disappointments and unkindnesses of life and emerged above them into a new world, a better world.

In due course I came to live within sight of the hills, and I was well content. If I could not be climbing, I was happy to sit idly and dream of them, serenely. Then came a restlessness and the feeling that it was not enough to take their gifts and do nothing in return. I must dedicate something of myself, the best part of me, to them. I started to write about them, and to draw pictures of them. Doing these things, I found they were still giving and I still receiving, for a great pleasure filled me when I was so engaged – I had found a new way of escape to them and from all else less worth while.

Thus it comes about that I have written this book. Not for material gain, welcome though that would be (you see I have not escaped entirely!); not for the benefit of my contemporaries, though if it brings them also to the hills I shall be well pleased; certainly not for posterity, about which I can work up no enthusiasm at all. No, this book has been written, carefully and with infinite patience, for my own pleasure and because it has seemed to bring the hills to my own fireside. If it has merit, it is because the hills have merit."

A. Wainwright died in 1991 at the age of 84.

Customer Reviews

A walk I'll never forget
Having conceived the ever more popular coast to coast walk I'm sure AW would regret the impact it has probably had on the countryside. He wrote the walk as an example for people to go out and create their own long distance walks; but this is a classic walk that is hard to resist.

Told in the usual Wainwight style of lovely pen and ink drawings, meticulous attention to detail and dry whit, this is a great guide. You should really take (and rely on) the two OS Coast to Coast maps in order to navigate and refer to Wainwright for enlightenment/enjoyment as you go along.

It doesn't really give notes on planning and booking accommodation, but such research is half the fun of setting up for and doing the walk.

The memory of this walk will stay with me for the rest of my life, and reading back through my battered copy of this book from time to time brings it all back to life.

A wonderful guide for a wonderful walk
I did the Coast to Coast walk back in '89 (in baking hot weather) and again - partly - in '96 (in pouring rain). Up to this day the memory of this walk remains with me as vividly as ever and I consider that forthnight as the most wonderful two weeks in my life. AW learnt me to appreciate the North English Countryside with its quiet villages and open spaces, its desolate moorlands and austere fells. Furthermore, I consider this guide a little gem because of the hand drawn illustrations, maps and (witty) narrative. I mean - who hand-writes a book?
These days you will need additional map material because the route has changed in places, but this book is a requirement. I still remember reading the C-to-C walker's log book in the Danby Wiske pub where Wainwright in '89 (two years before his death) had written with a somewhat trembling, but recognisable hand: "Don't give up!"

A fantastic guide from a fantastic guide
This is the fifth Wainwright guide I have bought and look forward to using it to do the Coast to Coast walk next year. I have full confidence in these guides as I have used them before.