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The Westmorland and Furness Way

By Lee McCoy — desk analysis, not a walked route. Updated 31 July 2026.

A new 120-mile long-distance route from Alston in the North Pennines to Furness Abbey on the Cumbrian coast, in six sections, conceived by the local walker and guidebook author David Pitt and published by Westmorland and Furness Council (opens in new tab) on Visit Lake District (opens in new tab). It opens on 15 September 2026.

Two things about it are worth knowing before you plan anything. First, we measured the council’s own GPX files and make the route 197.65 km (122.8 mi) rather than the published 193 km — a difference that is not spread evenly across the sections. Second, for anyone who keeps a list: this is not a Lakeland high-fell route. Not one of the 214 Wainwrights comes within 5 km of it. The bagging story on this route is the Howgills, on section 3, and it is a good one.

• 197.7 kmour measurement of the whole route via the section 3 low route (122.8 mi). Official: 193 km / 120 mi.
• 0Wainwrights within 5 km of any part of the line.
• 31Wainwright Outlying Fells within 5 km — but only 2 within 250 m of the line.
• 6summits the section 3 high route puts within 250 m of the line, for no loss at all.

The six sections

Mileage, ascent and suggested days are the council’s published figures, from the official section pages (opens in new tab). The measured column is ours: the length of the published GPX line, projected to the national grid and measured flat, in two dimensions. We have not measured ascent at all, so the ascent column is theirs and is unchecked by us.

Section 3 has two published variants and you walk one of them, so the whole-route total counts it once. Via the low route we make the Way 197.65 km (122.8 mi) against the official 193 km (+2.4%). Our figures are flat-map distances and so, we think, are theirs; neither includes the extra ground a climb adds.

Where our figures come from — and where the council’s files disagree with the council’s mileage

Each of the seven official GPX files carries its own distance in its description field. Our independent measurement agrees with that embedded figure on every one of the seven, to within 0.07 km — and their descriptions are only printed to the nearest 0.1 km, so that is as close as agreement gets. That is the point worth making first: where our numbers differ from the published mileage, it is not because we are reading their files differently.

Section 2 measures 39.96 km, not 37

The published mileage for Milburn to Kirkby Stephen is 23 miles (37 km). The GPX file for that section states 39.9 km in its own description, and we measure 39.96 km — about 8% longer. This is the council’s file disagreeing with the council’s published mileage, not an error we have caught them in: the two numbers were plainly produced by different methods, or from different versions of the line, and the route may still be revised before launch. It matters practically, though: on the longest riverside day of the route, that is nearly three kilometres nobody has planned for.

The section 3 “high route” file is a spur, not a section

The high-route GPX does not start at Kirkby Stephen. It begins 8.82 km along the low route — its first point sits on the low-route line, to within a metre — and rejoins at Sedbergh. On its own the file measures only 20.85 km, which is why it looks 8 km short of the published 29 km. Stitched to the shared start it becomes 29.68 km, which matches the published figure closely. Anyone loading that file expecting a complete day from Kirkby Stephen will be missing the first two hours of it. Every high-route number on this page uses the stitched line.

What a bagger actually gets

We took every summit in the Database of British and Irish Hills (opens in new tab) within 5 km of any section — 234 of them — and measured the straight-line distance from each to the nearest point on the published line. The result is more interesting than the obvious pitch, and less flattering.

No Wainwrights. None.

Not one of the 214 comes within 5 km of any part of the Way. The route runs from the North Pennines down the Eden valley, through the Howgills, across the Lune and Kent valleys and along the Furness coast. Its southern sections cross into the National Park, but the line stays in the low, wooded, enclosed country on its fringe and never reaches the Wainwright fells. If you are walking it to tick the 214, you will tick none of them.

The Outlying Fells claim is real but small

31 Wainwright Outlying Fells lie within 5 km of the line. That number flatters the route badly. Only 2 are within 250 m of it and 9 within 500 m; the rest are real detours, and the furthest sit far enough off the line to be separate outings. Section 6, the Furness coast, has no Outlying Fell within 5 km at all.

Three names need a word — one in that table, and two that are missing from it. Wainwright’s Outlying Fells chapters sometimes cover several tops, and the hill database flags only the one it nominates — so School Knott appears twice, as the flagged summit and as the top of the same name. And Hoad Hill, the obvious one above Ulverston, is not in the database at all: it is below the drop threshold and carries no list flag, so we cannot measure it here. Birkrigg Common, 1.44 km from section 6, is in the database but carries no Outlying Fell flag, so it is not in the count above even though walkers commonly treat it as one.

The real find: the section 3 high route

Between Kirkby Stephen and Sedbergh you choose a low route through Cautley or a high route over the Howgills. By the council’s own figures the high route costs about 3 km and 345 m of extra ascent. For that, it puts 6 summits within 250 m of the line — including The Calf, the highest of the Howgills — and a seventh, Winder, within 500 m. The low route puts none of them closer than 1.4 km. At the 500 m threshold, the only top the low route is nearer to is Wandale Hill.

And what the high route gives up:

None of these Howgill tops is a Wainwright, an Outlying Fell or a Birkett — Wainwright gave the Howgills a book of their own. If you count Marilyns, Hewitts or Nuttalls, the high route is the better day by a wide margin.

How this compares with the Cumbria Way

The obvious question about a new long-distance route is what it gives you that the established one does not, and until 31 July we could not answer it without quoting someone else’s figures beside our own. We have now measured the Cumbria Way by exactly this method — same 5 km radius, same hill database, same 250 m threshold, same de-duplication rule — so the two sets of numbers can be read side by side.

The short version: the Cumbria Way has 90 Wainwrights within 5 km of it and, like this route, none within 250 m. It is a valley route running up the middle of the Lake District, passing beneath the fells rather than over them. This Way does not go beneath them; it never reaches the ground they are on. Two routes, the same answer, for entirely different reasons.

Read the full comparison — which fells each route actually crosses. It carries one caveat this page does not need: our Cumbria Way line is our own, drawn by hand, where the figures on this page come from the promoter’s official files.

What these distances are not

What we have not answered yet

• Our own ascent figures. We have measured distance only — the ascent column in the section table is the council’s, and we have not checked it.
• Walking detours. Every distance here is straight-line; turning one into a real out-and-back needs path routing we have not run for this route.
• Access. No right-of-way or access-land check has been done on any summit named here.
• A comparison with the Coast to Coast. The Cumbria Way half of this question is answered — we measured it the same way and published the comparison. The Coast to Coast is not measured and is out of scope for now: only about a third of it is in Cumbria, and quoting someone else’s figures beside our own would defeat the point of measuring.
• Anything first-hand: terrain underfoot, waymarking, water, food, accommodation and public transport per stage. That waits until the route opens and we have walked a section.

The official route

The route belongs to Westmorland and Furness Council and is published by Visit Lake District. Their pages carry the section descriptions, the mapping and the downloadable GPX files — go to the source for those. We deliberately do not host copies: if the line is revised before launch, the official files are the ones that get corrected.

• Westmorland and Furness Way (opens in new tab) — the route hub, Visit Lake District
• Explore the route (opens in new tab) — the six section pages, with the official GPX downloads
• Announcement from the council (opens in new tab) — launch, signage and accessibility work

Common questions

Method, sources and limits

Updates

This story will change several times before 15 September 2026. Every change to this page is logged here.

• 31 July 2026 — The Cumbria Way measured by the same method, and the comparison published at which fells these routes cross. The “not answered yet” list above was updated to match: the Cumbria Way half of that gap is closed, the Coast to Coast half is not.
• 31 July 2026 — First publication. Desk analysis of the seven official GPX files (downloaded 31 July 2026) against DoBIH v18.4: independent section distances, and every listed summit within 5 km of the line.

Last updated 31 July 2026. Spot something wrong — especially if you are involved with the route? Tell us and we will fix it.