So that was 2023 gone in the blink of an eye and we all start to look at walks and places to visit for 2024. I’ll save talking about 2024 for lower down in this post and first look back at 2023, which will go down as one of my best walking years with plenty of varied terrain and destinations. We started with lots of Dartmoor walking, picking up lots of tors and Dartmoor 365 squares, which I had mentioned this time last year, as something in our plans. We started slowly on the coastal walks, with only 2 in the first 3 months, however by the summer we were walking by the coast more than anywhere else. Linda loves the coastal walks and we had some superb ones this year (the best will no doubt make the list below!).

In March we took our first trip away to the Yorkshire Dales, climbing Ingleborough in the snow, plus a couple of other fabulous walks. Then in May we again headed north to The Lakes, staying in Wasdale to try and pick off the rest of the fells in that area. We pretty much accomplished what we set out to do, regarding the fells, but the walks themselves leave memories that will last forever. I doubt we will get a better summit experience than Scafell in the warm sun at 5.30pm all to ourselves.

Into the summer months, our walks in June involved only walking on Dartmoor, before a 3 day trip to Land’s End to finish June bringing with it a month of coastal walks. The summer trips weren’t finished there, and a wedding to attend in Wales, followed by my mum and dad’s 50th wedding anniversary in Bolton, had us walking in Snowdonia, including Snowdon itself. The final 3 months of the year saw some normality return, with lots of Dartmoor walks, 365 squares and a couple of coastal walks for variety. In total I did 70 walks this year (3 still to write up from the Christmas period), which improved on my previous years, only 2016 had more walks with 75. These were split with 37 done on Dartmoor, 17 coastal, 6 in the Lakes, 4 in Snowdonia, 3 in the Yorkshire Dales, one Bodmin Moor, a town and a tank museum. As with every year I could have done more walking but I’ve suffered from Plantar Fasciitis, badly in the summer, and had to cut back both the frequency and length of walks to let it calm down. Thankfully it is a little better now, and I’m managing it a lot better which will hopefully mean it keeps getting better.

Again, as with previous years, I extended my South West Coastal Path completed sections, making it up to around 335 miles now, which I’m really pleased with. I’ve got 4 distinct sections left to do now, with South Haven Point to West Bexington, Falmouth to Penzance, Pendeen Watch to Holywell and finally Hartland Point to Minehead (all the walks on the coastal path are here). There are bits I’ve done in these sections alongside the odd small bit in other sections that I have missed, but all in all I’m over half way now. As for The Lake District and my efforts to complete the Wainwrights, I was able to visit the Lake District once in 2023, completing another 9 Wainwrights. This has pushed me to 203 now and just 11 left to do. I will talk about the plans for that in a bit (all the Lakes walks can be found here).

As for Dartmoor, this year we made a good dent in the Dartmoor 365 list, with myself and Linda visiting 148 of the squares, my second round on this and Linda’s first. The Dartmoor 365 list is probably the best way to see the whole moor and all it has (here). Regarding the ubiquitous tors on the moor, Linda has been to 281 of my 500 list, which is a superb effort in almost 18 months. The boys added around 25 tors to their list to get up to 150, with another 11 Dartmoor squares to get to 78. Both these two scores were hampered by my eldest getting a Saturday job, making walks for the 3 of us very rare. My youngest however has been walking the moors for his Bronze DofE, which he passed. He has started on silver already and is also training for the Ten Tors in May, so is picking off tors with his team. As for 2023 on the website, the number of views was just over 102,000 and about 53,000 people visiting. As a result of this the website as a whole went through the half a million mark this year, which is very humbling. A huge thank you from me to everyone of you that have clicked here and I hope you have found a walk, tor or map that was useful to yourself. My most popular pages/walks this year are the obvious tors lists, the Dartmoor 365 list, alongside individual pages for Black Tor Falls, Laughter Hole Farm, Shilley Pool and Sharrah Pool (classic wild swimming spots), Bench Tor was the top tor searched. The most popular walk last year was one from Steps Bridge to Clifford Bridge (here), plus a walk to Cornwall’s highest spot (here). As for the bad parts of the year, I’ve mentioned my Plantar Fasciitis already. However on the walk front, the path from Mousehole to Porthcurno was overgrown and with the rain, made for a miserable day on the coastal path apart from that all our walking went very well, although some winter sunshine would be lovely.

My favourite walks of the year:

Sheeps Tor, Marchant’s Cross and Ringmoor Down – This walk had to go on the list, cold crisp sunny February walk, sunset, moon rising and a silent rave on top of a tor (with a naked raver!)

Cheesewring, Kilmar Tor and Hawks Tor – Our one foray onto Bodmin Moor and it was a cracker around this section of the moor, Kilmar Tor is always a shock to see the size of this outcrop.

Ingleborough and Gaping Gill – A classic walk for the Yorkshire Dales, and easily in the top 3 walks we did this year. Snow around the summit and down to Gaping Gill, Trow Gill was superb.

Whin Rigg, Scafell and Slight Side – Probably my favourite walk of the year, just, over Ingleborough. This had everything. Cloud which rose as we climbed, plunging views down Wastwater Screes to Yewbarrow, empty Scafell summit and clear skies, rescue helicopter in Mosedale, Eskdale from Slight Side, jets flying overheard at Burnmoor Tarn and Miterdale and its waterfalls. Stunning

Pillar and Kirk Fell – Pillar is superb, from every direction its a brilliant climb, we tagged on an exciting ascent up Kirk Fell Crags to get to Kirk Fell summit as well. The views down to Wasdale Head as we descended were superb.

Holwell Bluebells – Purple, purple everywhere

Pendower Beach to St Anthony – Glorious sunshine and an even better bit of coastline

Land’s End Walk – The start of a 3 day walk around the end of England, astonishing coastline and even a bit of drizzle at Sennen Cove couldn’t spoil it.

Beesands, Hallsands and Start Point – More coast and a glorious day for walking, butterflies and seals were the order of the day.

Snowdon – All 4 of us heading up the Watkin Path on a brilliant day on this Welsh mountain. So many brilliant memories from this walk.

Linda’s had a list of 5 walks which included: Ingleborough and Gaping Gill, Whin Rigg, Scafell and Slight Side, Pillar and Kirk Fell, Beesands, Hallsands and Start Point and finally Cheesewring, Kilmar Tor and Hawks Tor. Both of us have mentioned another 3 or 4 walks that would easily make a list on a different year, Linda also liked our walk at Trevose Head (here) and her birthday walk at Bigbury (here). We’ve been very lucky with our walking this year.

So what’s next? Well as with every year I assume that Dartmoor and the South West Coastal path will feature heavily. We will look to push up the tors and Dartmoor squares for Linda and the boys as well. We have a visit to the Lakes booked in May and a second in August, which should mean I finish the Wainwrights all 214 of them. Linda has now done around 29 Wainwrights and the boys have both completed over 50, so we will add to that as well. I want to do another multi-day walk on the South West coastal path, possibly the Lizard area this time or maybe Dorset. So lots to think about and lots of new places to go and see, hopefully through this website you’ll come with me and enjoy it all as much as I do. Hope you all have a happy and healthy 2024.