Press & media

hikes.guide helps people enjoy the Lakeland fells safely and responsibly — and, first of all, get home.

Resources for journalists and writers — the mission, the founder, coverage, story ideas, sourced data and a press kit.

Help people get home

Honest, sourced, safety-first information about the fells, deliberately under-claiming on anything safety-critical.

Reduce Mountain Rescue call-outs

Prevention first — conditions, turnaround times, the descent risk, the right kit and honest judgement.

Enjoy the Lakes responsibly

The right fell for the day, sensible access and parking, and care for the fells themselves.

About the site & its founder

hikes.guide is an independent, field-tested guide to walking the Lake District fells, built and run by Lee McCoy. It is an honesty-first project: every figure is dated, based and attributed; safety-critical information under-claims rather than over-promises; and the full sourcing chain behind the data is published openly at data sources.

Lee is a fell walker working through the 214 Wainwrights and bagging Birketts along the way, who built the site to be the resource he wanted himself — accurate, sourced, and honest about what it does not know. More on the About page.

Lee in the media

For transparency: these are Lee’s own media appearances from an earlier career (2009–2015, over a decade ago) — they are not coverage of hikes.guide. They’re included as founder background: someone comfortable being interviewed on national TV, radio and in print.

BBC BreakfastTV · 17 Apr 2014

no clip — iPlayer expired

BBC Radio 5 Live — Wake Up to Money17 Apr 2014

BBC Radio 2 — Simon Mayo, with Ryan Tubridy17 Apr 2014

BBC Radio Suffolk — Easter Eggs18 Apr 2014

BBC Radio 2 — Steve Wright in the Afternoon, “Geek of the Week”3 Apr 2009

BBC Radio Merseyside — with Sean Styles10 Apr 2009

The Guardian4 Apr 2015

Read

The Daily Telegraph9 Apr 2009

Read

The Times

Read

The Times — “Website of the Week”

no clip/link kept

Lee is also cited in academic work on online reviewer discourse — the chapter “Judgement in Reviewer Self-Presentation” (opens in new tab) (pp. 71–98) in Depicting the Consumer of Experiential Luxury: Online Reviewer Discourse on Wine, Perfume and Chocolate (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

Story ideas & data for journalists

Original, sourced features from the site — each a pitchable hook with the numbers behind it. Happy to provide the underlying data, a quote, or a tailored cut.

“78% of Lakeland Mountain Rescue call-outs come after midday — the descent, not the summit, is the danger.”Mountain Rescue report → “Just ten fells soak up around 67% of all the search interest — the crowds concentrate hard.”Most-Searched Wainwrights → “Which Lakeland summits can see four nations on a clear day — and why it’s geometry, not weather.”The View Report → “Warmer, wetter, and less white: what 60 years of data show has changed since Wainwright.”Climate report → “What emergency satellite messaging really does — and doesn’t — for a UK hillwalker.”Phone Satellite SOS → “Why a crowd-sourced GPX line is not a vetted route.”Downloadable routes →

Facts & figures

214

Wainwrights, each with a page

599

fells with a full guide page (Wainwrights, Outlying & the Birkett list)

106

hand-mapped walking routes with GPX & difficulty ratings

Daily

conditions scored for all 214 Wainwrights

Coverage spans the 214 Wainwrights, the 116 Outlying Fells and the wider Birkett list — effectively the full Lakeland fell set. Every figure on the site is dated, based and attributed; the source and licence chain is published at data sources. Figures as of 26 July 2026, counted from the live site build.

Press kit & assets

Logo

PNG, square. Use to credit or link to hikes.guide; please don’t alter or recolour.

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Founder headshot

Lee McCoy. High-resolution press portrait; please credit hikes.guide.

Download (1200×1616)

The View Report — what you can see from every Wainwright

Feature imagery

Cover imagery from our data features — use to illustrate a piece, credited to hikes.guide (a link to the feature is welcome).

The View Report Mountain Rescue Climate

Citing our data

Journalists, writers and other sites are warmly welcome to cite hikes.guide’s figures and features — all we ask is a link and attribution to hikes.guide. The data is compiled from open, dated, attributed sources, and the full chain lives at data sources. If you’d like a specific number checked, a quote, or a tailored data cut, just ask.

Press contact

Talk to Lee directly.

Interviews, sourced data, quotes or images. Usually replies within two working days.

Contact form →

Boilerplate — ready to paste

Short (~40 words)

hikes.guide is an independent, honesty-first guide to walking the Lake District fells — safety-first information, daily conditions and sourced data for every Wainwright — built and run by Lee McCoy to help people enjoy the fells responsibly and get home safely.

Long (~100 words)

hikes.guide is an independent, field-tested guide to walking the Lake District fells, built and run by Lee McCoy. It exists to help people enjoy the Lakes safely and responsibly — and, first of all, to get home: honest, sourced, safety-first information that under-claims on anything safety-critical, and puts prevention ahead of rescue. It covers the full fell set — the 214 Wainwrights, the Outlying Fells and the wider Birkett list — with daily conditions, GPX routes, parking and access, and a growing library of original, sourced data journalism on Lakeland safety, search behaviour, climate and the view from the tops. Every figure is dated, based and attributed.