Does the Cumbria Way go over any Wainwrights?
Short answer: no. 90 of the 214 come within 5 km of the Cumbria Way, and 0 within 250 m of it. The Westmorland and Furness Way, which opens on 15 September 2026, does not come within 5 km of a single one. Two routes, the same answer, for completely different reasons — and that difference is the interesting part.
Read the two figures on this page the right way round.
The Westmorland and Furness Way is not open and not waymarked. It launches on 15 September 2026; until then there are no waymarks on the ground. We have walked neither route. Everything here is desk measurement of two lines on a map, done on 31 July 2026.
Every distance is a straight line from a summit to the nearest point on the route, measured flat on the map. It is not a walking detour, not a path, and not a promise that a path exists.
- 0Wainwrights within 250 m of the Cumbria Way, out of 90 within 5 km.
- 0Wainwrights within 5 km of the Westmorland and Furness Way. Not within 250 m — within five kilometres.
- 309 mfrom the Cumbria Way to the nearest Wainwright, Castle Crag — horizontally. It stands 290 m high.
- 9 & 6summits of any list within 250 m of the Cumbria Way and of the Westmorland and Furness Way.
Two ways to miss the Wainwrights
Both routes answer the question the same way and it means two entirely different things.
The Cumbria Way threads between them. It runs Ulverston to Carlisle through Coniston, Langdale, Borrowdale and Skiddaw Forest — the middle of the Lake District — and 90 Wainwrights sit within 5 km of it. It is published as a largely low-level route (opens in new tab), and the geometry matches: our line passes 309 m from Castle Crag and never gets nearer to any of the 214 than that. A route can be ringed by summits and stand on none of them.
The Westmorland and Furness Way is somewhere else. It is not that it avoids the summits; it never reaches the ground they are on. From Alston it crosses the North Pennines, runs down the Eden valley, over or under the Howgills, across the Lune and Kent valleys and along the Furness coast. Its southern sections enter the National Park, but on the low, wooded, enclosed fringe. Not one Wainwright is within 5 km of any part of it.
That is the whole comparison in one line: one route goes between the Wainwright fells, the other never reaches them. Which of those you want is a question about the walk you are after, and it is yours to answer, not ours.
The two routes, measured the same way
Same 5 km radius, same hill database, same 250 m threshold for “on the line”, same rule that a summit on several lists is counted once in a total. The hill database (opens in new tab) carries every classification flag, not just our Lakeland subset — two thirds of the Westmorland and Furness Way is outside Wainwright country and a Lakeland-only extract would have returned nothing there and silently flattered it.
| Westmorland & Furness Way | Cumbria Way | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Length, as we measure it | 197.65 km 122.8 mi | 117.60 km 73.1 mi | Flat-map length of the line we measured, projected to the national grid. |
| Length, as published | 193 km 120 mi | 112 km 70 mi | Their figures, not ours. The gap is a different measurement, not a correction. |
| Listed summits within 5 km | 232 | 349 | Every summit in the hill database, on any list, counted once. |
| Summits within 250 m of the line | 6 | 9 | Horizontally. No elevation test was run. |
| Wainwrights within 5 km | 0 | 90 | Of the 214. |
| Wainwrights within 250 m of the line | 0 | 0 | The row this page is about. |
| Outlying Fells within 5 km | 31 | 15 | Of the 116 the database flags. |
| Outlying Fells within 250 m of the line | 2 | 3 | The summits either route genuinely crosses. |
| Birketts within 5 km | 9 | 208 | Of the 541. |
The Way is walked as one of two published section 3 variants, so the whole-route figures above count it once, via the low route — the like-for-like line with the published mileage. The high route over the Howgills changes the summit figures sharply and is covered on our page about the Way. Never add the list rows together: a summit that is a Wainwright and a Birkett appears in both, which is why they sum to more than the total.
Near the Wainwrights, never on one
Every Wainwright within a kilometre of our line, with its height beside the distance. Read the two columns together and read them carefully: the distance is horizontal, and the height is the summit’s, from the hill database. We did not measure the height of the line itself — we hold no elevation model for this ground — so the gap between the two columns is not a climb we have calculated. It is the reason a summit can be near the route and still not be on it. Castle Crag is 309 m from the line on the map and stands 290 m high.
| Summit | Height | From the line | Grid ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Castle Crag | 290 m | 309 m | NY249159 |
| Latrigg | 369 m | 421 m | NY279247 |
| Eagle Crag | 523 m | 466 m | NY275121 |
| Sergeant’s Crag | 571 m | 486 m | NY273113 |
| Bakestall | 674 m | 631 m | NY266307 |
| Catbells | 451 m | 681 m | NY244198 |
| Lonscale Fell | 715 m | 788 m | NY285271 |
| Pike of Stickle | 708 m | 802 m | NY273073 |
| Loft Crag | 682 m | 844 m | NY277071 |
| Great Crag (Stonethwaite) | 449 m | 882 m | NY270146 |
| Longlands Fell | 483 m | 898 m | NY275354 |
What each route does cross
The summits either route genuinely goes over are small, and on both routes they are in the same corner of the map: the low commons above Ulverston and the Blawith and Torver country north of it. On the Cumbria Way that is 9 listed summits within 250 m of the line, 3 of them Wainwright Outlying Fells. The route runs directly over Beacon Fell — our line passes 7 m from the summit, which is as close as this method can say two things are the same place.
| Summit | Height | From the line | Grid ref | On our lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beacon Fell | 255 m | 7 m | SD278907 | Outlying Fell, HuMP |
| Holm Crag | 124 m | 106 m | NY250170 | — |
| Anne Riggs | 148 m | 130 m | SD283926 | — |
| High Guards | 137 m | 153 m | SD309981 | — |
| Wool Knott | 223 m | 158 m | SD272896 | Outlying Fell |
| Tottlebank Height | 236 m | 190 m | SD269885 | Outlying Fell |
| Subberthwaite Bank | 155 m | 200 m | SD274874 | — |
| Great How | 211 m | 214 m | NY322025 | — |
| Tom Heights | 269 m | 231 m | NY327005 | — |
The Westmorland and Furness Way, via the low route, crosses 6 — 2 of them Outlying Fells, and two of them the same tops the Cumbria Way crosses.
| Summit | Height | From the line | Grid ref | On our lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Musgrave Hill | 181 m | 10 m | NY769134 | — |
| Trickle Banks | 195 m | 90 m | NY720158 | — |
| Subberthwaite Bank | 155 m | 197 m | SD274874 | — |
| Heathwaite Hill | 195 m | 207 m | SD420969 | — |
| School Knott (Outlying Fells summit) | 247 m | 220 m | SD428967 | Outlying Fell |
| Tottlebank Height | 236 m | 223 m | SD269885 | Outlying Fell |
Where the two routes touch
They are not strangers. 58 of the summits within 5 km of one route are within 5 km of the other — both lines pass through Ulverston, and both work north through the same low Furness country before they part. 2 summits are within 250 m of both lines:
| Summit | Height | From the W&F Way | From the Cumbria Way |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tottlebank Height | 236 m | 223 m | 190 m |
| Subberthwaite Bank | 155 m | 197 m | 200 m |
After that they diverge completely: the Cumbria Way turns north up the middle of the Lake District, the Way turns east for Windermere, the Lune and the Howgills.
What this page does not tell you
It does not compare how many people walk each route. We hold no data that measures how many walkers are on a path, and one of these two routes has not opened, so there is nothing on it to count. We have measured what each route passes, which is a fact about the ground. Anything about who you meet on it is not ours to state, and we are not going to imply it by arranging the facts to point at it.
It does not tell you which route to walk. We have walked neither. This page compares what ground each line covers — not what either is like underfoot, in weather, or over a week.
“On the line” means horizontally, and on a valley route that matters more than anywhere. We ran no elevation model, so a summit within 250 m of the line is 250 m from it on the map. The Cumbria Way is a valley route: it can sit 250 m from a summit and several hundred metres below it, on the other side of a crag. Read every distance on this page as a map measurement and nothing more.
They are straight lines, not walks. A real detour follows paths, gains height and comes back. It will be longer, sometimes several times longer, and for some of these tops no route may exist at all.
We have not checked access. No right-of-way or access-land check was done on any summit named here, on either route. Nothing on this page says a summit is reachable, walkable or legally open to you.
The two lines are not equally solid
Read this before you quote a number
Westmorland and Furness Way — the promoter’s official line
Seven GPX files downloaded from Visit Lake District (opens in new tab) on 31 July 2026, stored unmodified with their sizes and hashes. This is the route as published. It may still be revised before 15 September 2026, and if it is, the official files are the ones that get corrected — we link them rather than rehosting them.
Cumbria Way — our own line, drawn by hand
Nobody gave us this file. It is our own interpretation of the Cumbria Way, drawn in Garmin Connect: not a recorded walk, not a GPS trace, and not an official or promoter-published route. The rights in it are ours, which is why we could use it — and why it is the weaker of the two. It will differ from the waymarked route in detail. It measures 117.60 km against a published 112 km, +5.0% long, which is about what a hand-drawn line does. Where the two disagree, the waymarked route is right and our line is not.
What that asymmetry does and does not affect: a drawn line that wanders 100 m from the real path can move a summit in or out of the 250 m bucket, so treat the Cumbria Way “on the line” list as indicative. It cannot plausibly move a Wainwright from 309 m to nothing, and it cannot move 90 of them across 5 km. The headline finding survives the weakness of the file; the fine detail does not.
Method, sources and limits
Both routes were measured by the same script logic on 31 July 2026. Each track was projected from WGS84 to the British National Grid (EPSG:27700) and measured flat, in two dimensions, on the projected polyline. Summit positions, heights and list membership come from the Database of British and Irish Hills v18.4 (opens in new tab), used under CC BY 4.0 (opens in new tab), taking every classification flag rather than only the Lakeland ones. For every summit within 5 km of a line we measured the perpendicular distance to the nearest point on that line, not merely to the nearest vertex. A summit that appears on several lists is counted once in every total and once in every distance bucket; the per-list rows count it under each of its lists, so those rows sum to more than the total by design.
The limits, stated plainly. Straight-line distances, so none of these is a walking detour. No path routing was run for either route: the repo’s routing graph does not cover either end of the Westmorland and Furness Way. No elevation model, therefore no ascent figures, no walking times, and no test that an “on the line” summit is level with the line. No access-rights check. Published mileages are the route owners’ figures and are measured differently again.
The routes. The Westmorland and Furness Way belongs to Westmorland and Furness Council, was conceived by the local walker and guidebook author David Pitt, and is published by Visit Lake District (opens in new tab); the GPX files are theirs and are linked, not rehosted, and their Ordnance Survey mapping is not reproduced. The Cumbria Way runs Ulverston to Carlisle and was devised in the 1970s by the local Ramblers’ Association, with the waymarking of the whole route completed in 2007 (cumbriaway.co.uk (opens in new tab)). The line we measured for it is ours, not theirs.
| File | Source | Bytes | Hash |
|---|---|---|---|
| W&FW Section 1 - Alston to Milburn.gpx | Visit Lake District | 57,002 | 818e6f5c425b2495 |
| W&FW Section 2 - Milburn to Kirkby Stephen.gpx | Visit Lake District | 69,971 | b7898756ee69f94e |
| W&FW Section 3 - Kirkby Stephen to Sedbergh (High Route).gpx | Visit Lake District | 43,246 | 7a8badebf9f0b78a |
| W&FW Section 3 - Kirkby Stephen to Sedbergh (Low Route).gpx | Visit Lake District | 50,154 | f54a795af281e11a |
| W&FW Section 4 - Sedbergh to Bowness.gpx | Visit Lake District | 87,646 | 064432c9e9a91e90 |
| W&FW Section 5 - Bowness to Ulverston.gpx | Visit Lake District | 75,712 | a48cd7563263f88e |
| W&FW Section 6 - Ulverston to Furness Abbey.gpx | Visit Lake District | 74,270 | eb61d5764550e8f2 |
| cumbria-way.gpx | Ours — drawn by hand | 510,164 | da433f2485641675 |
What we have not answered
- The Coast to Coast. It is out of scope here — only about a third of it is in Cumbria, and we have not measured it. We will not put a figure of someone else’s beside two of ours and call it a comparison.
- Walking detours. Every distance on this page is straight-line; turning one into a real out-and-back needs path routing we have not run for either route.
- Ascent, and any test that an “on the line” summit is level with the line. Both need an elevation model we do not have outside the central Lake District.
- Access. No right-of-way or access-land check has been done on any summit named here.
- Anything first-hand about either route: ground underfoot, waymarking, water, food, accommodation, transport. We have walked neither.
Common questions
Does the Cumbria Way go over any Wainwrights?
No. 90 of the 214 Wainwrights come within 5 km of our line for the Cumbria Way, but not one is within 250 m of it. It is a valley route: it threads between the fells rather than over them. The nearest is Castle Crag, about 309 m from the line - measured flat on the map, so that is a horizontal distance and not a climb.
Does the Westmorland and Furness Way go over any Wainwrights?
No, and for a different reason: not one of the 214 comes within 5 km of any part of it. The Way runs through the North Pennines, the Eden valley, the Howgills and the southern fringe of Lakeland, and never enters the Wainwright fells at all.
Which summits do these routes actually cross?
By our measurement the Cumbria Way passes within 250 m of 9 listed summits, 3 of them Wainwright Outlying Fells on the Blawith commons. The Westmorland and Furness Way, walked via the section 3 low route, passes within 250 m of 6, 2 of them Outlying Fells. Choose the section 3 high route instead and the Howgills change that picture completely - that is the subject of our page on the Way itself.
How long is the Cumbria Way?
The published figure is 112 km (70 miles), Ulverston to Carlisle. Our own hand-drawn line measures 117.60 km, +5.0% longer. That difference is about our line, not about the route: we drew it, we did not survey it, and it will differ from the waymarked path in detail.
Is the Westmorland and Furness Way open?
Not yet. It launches on 15 September 2026, and the council has said signage work is part of the launch, so until then it is not waymarked on the ground. We have not walked either route; everything on this page is desk analysis.
Read next
- The Westmorland and Furness Way — the full section-by-section measurement, and what the Howgills high route on section 3 is worth to a bagger.
- The Howgill Fells — the range both of these figures keep pointing at, and why Wainwright gave it a book of its own.
- How the lists overlap — why a Wainwright is often a Birkett too, and why the rows above must never be added together.
- The most-searched Wainwrights — where search demand goes, which is a different question from where walkers go, and the only one of the two we can measure.
Updates
The Westmorland and Furness Way opens on 15 September 2026 and its line may be revised before then, so these figures will change. Every change to this page is logged here.
- 31 July 2026 — First publication. The Cumbria Way measured against DoBIH v18.4 by the same method, radius, buckets and de-duplication rule already used for the Westmorland and Furness Way, so the two sets of figures can be read side by side.
Last updated 31 July 2026. Spot something wrong — especially if you know either route on the ground? Tell us and we will fix it.