Pennine Way food: resupply, shops and what to carry

Quick answer: you can buy food every day or two along most of the 268-mile Pennine Way, so most walkers carry only one or two days of food at a time. The exceptions are the 16 miles over Cross Fell from Dufton to Garrigill and the last 42 or so miles from Bellingham over the Cheviots to Kirk Yetholm, where there is no proper shop and you carry everything you eat.

Eat for the Pennine Way as if it were harder than its mileage suggests, because it is. England's oldest National Trail runs from Edale to Kirk Yetholm, just over the Scottish border, and its peat bogs, constant climbing and exposed tops make you burn far more calories than the same distance on a gentler path. Add cold, wet, windy weather and a grind of 16 to 19 days, and the fuelling problem is real. The table in section 2 shows where you can buy food, stage by stage.

About this guide

Written by James Frost, founder of Flaming Phoenix and the maker of Phoenix Bars. This page is one part of our wider ultra-endurance and expedition nutrition guide. Updated November 2026.

Key points

• The Pennine Way punishes you beyond its mileage: peat bog, near-constant climbing and exposed tops burn far more calories than the distance suggests.
• Two stretches have effectively no resupply, the 16-mile Cross Fell crossing and the Cheviots finale to Kirk Yetholm, so you carry everything you eat across them.
• The key places to stock up are Hebden Bridge, Gargrave, Hawes, Middleton-in-Teesdale, Alston and Bellingham, the last proper shop for 42 miles.
• Cold, wet, windy Pennine weather raises your calorie needs and makes warm food and a hot flask worth their weight.
• At 268 miles over 16 to 19 days, the cumulative load is the real test, and fading in the third week is an under-fuelling problem as much as a fitness one.
• How you walk it changes how you eat: self-sufficient and wild camping means carrying more, while inn-to-inn with bag transfer means only day food.
• The same route hosts the Spine Race, one of the world's hardest endurance events, which is the extreme version of the same fuelling problem.

Contents

1. Why the Pennine Way costs more calories than the map says
2. The two stretches with no shop: Cross Fell and the Cheviots
3. Cold, wet and high: the case for warm food
4. The long grind: fuelling 16 to 19 days
5. Two ways to walk it, two ways to eat
6. The Spine Race: the Pennine Way at its most extreme
7. Where Phoenix Bars fit
8. Frequently asked questions

1. Why the Pennine Way costs more calories than the map says

A common fuelling mistake on the Pennine Way is to treat it like a normal long-distance walk and plan your food by the mileage. The ground itself works against you. Long stretches cross deep peat bog, where every step sinks and has to be hauled back out, and the famous boggy moors near the start, Kinder Scout, Bleaklow and Black Hill, set the tone early.

On top of that comes the climbing. The route is one ascent after another across the spine of England, with a huge cumulative amount of uphill over its length, and exposed high ground where the wind never lets up. The result is that your calorie cost per mile is meaningfully higher than on a flat, firm path, so the calories that would see you through a gentle trail leave you flat here.

So fuel for the effort, not the distance. Plan to eat more than the map suggests, especially on the boggy and high sections, and graze steadily on nuts, flapjack and high calorie bars rather than rationing. The fundamentals of fuelling hard days on foot are covered in our hiking and trekking guide and long-distance walking guide, and the case for calorie-dense food in our calorie-dense foods guide.

2. The two stretches with no shop: Cross Fell and the Cheviots

For most of the Pennine Way you can resupply every day or two in the villages and the odd remote pub, including Tan Hill Inn, the highest pub in Britain. Two stretches break that pattern completely, and they are where carrying your own food stops being optional.

The first is Cross Fell, the highest point of the Pennines at 893 metres and the most exposed ground on the route. The 16-mile crossing from Dufton over the summit and down to Garrigill has no services, only the shelter of Greg's Hut bothy near the top, and Garrigill itself has little for walkers, so stock up in Middleton-in-Teesdale beforehand and again in Alston, a few miles beyond Garrigill. The fell is notorious for the Helm Wind that tears down the escarpment. You carry your day's food and water across it, and you carry enough spare in case the weather turns and slows you down.

The second is the finale through the Cheviots. The roughly 27 miles from Byrness to Kirk Yetholm is long, remote and committing, with only two mountain refuge huts for shelter and no shop, café or reliable water along the tops. Many walkers split it over two days using the huts or a farm pick-up, which means carrying food for the whole stretch with no chance to top up. Byrness has very little, so Bellingham, 15 miles earlier, is where you do your last proper shop, and you leave it carrying food for about 42 miles. It is often the hardest part of the entire trail, and the part where running short on fuel hurts most. The principles for these self-sufficient stretches are the same ones in our backpacking nutrition guide and wild camping food guide.

Where can you buy food on the Pennine Way?

This table follows the National Trail's suggested stages from south to north, with the food you can count on along each one.

The stage figures come from the National Trail's suggested itinerary and add up to about 262 miles, a little under the official 268, so treat them as approximate. Pubs, cafés and village shops open and close, and several on this route have changed hands in recent years, so check the ones you are relying on before you set off.

3. Cold, wet and high: the case for warm food

The Pennine Way is a high, wet, windswept route, and the weather shapes how you should eat as much as the terrain does. You can get all four seasons in a day, and the exposed sections offer little shelter, so cold and damp are constant companions even in summer.

That matters for fuelling in two ways. Keeping your core warm in the wind and rain raises your calorie needs on its own, so you burn more simply staying comfortable. And cold blunts appetite and makes fiddly, chilled food a chore, so the calories you planned to eat often do not get eaten.

So carry something hot. A flask of hot water, or a quick brew at a break, turns instant porridge or soup into something that lifts both your core temperature and your morale far more than the same food eaten cold. On a grim afternoon off Cross Fell, that hot bite is worth more than its weight. Our high calorie porridge guide and how to use Phoenix Bars guide both cover the porridge method.

4. The long grind: fuelling 16 to 19 days

The Pennine Way is not won or lost in a single day. At 268 miles taken over a typical 16 to 19 days, it is one of the longest sustained efforts of any National Trail, and the real test is whether you can keep going strong into the third week.

This is where a quiet, cumulative calorie deficit does its damage. Walk hard day after day while eating a little less than you burn, which is easy to do on a route this demanding, and it shows up not on day three but on day fourteen, as deepening tiredness, low mood and slower miles. Plenty of walkers who set out for the whole route stop short, and under-fuelling across the back half is part of why.

The fix is to eat properly from the start, not to wait until you feel depleted, and to keep your daily intake up even when appetite lags late in the walk. The logic of fuelling many consecutive hard days is covered in our multi-day ultra running nutrition guide, which applies directly to a long trail like this.

5. Two ways to walk it, two ways to eat

How you fuel the Pennine Way depends heavily on which of the two common styles you choose, and it is worth deciding early, because they call for different food.

The self-sufficient style means wild camping or using bothies and bunkhouses, carrying your shelter, and being responsible for your own food between the resupply points. Here food is a weight-and-bulk problem: you are carrying days of meals on a route that already punishes every extra kilo, so compact, calorie-dense, no-prep food that does not add bulk is worth paying for, and you lean on it hardest across the Cross Fell and Cheviots stretches. Our guide to the lightest high calorie food for backpacking compares the options gram for gram.

The inn-to-inn style means booking accommodation each night, often with a baggage-transfer service carrying your main pack between stops, so you walk with a light daypack. Here you only need to carry the day's food and snacks, you eat a proper breakfast and pub dinner at each end, and the job is simply bridging the hours and the two no-shop stretches in between. For the daypack, see our guide to the best energy bars for hiking.

Most walkers land somewhere between the two, and the right food kit follows from where you sit on that spectrum. Either way, the two remote crossings demand carried food, so even comfortable inn-to-inn walkers need a plan for those days. Our wild camping food guide covers the self-sufficient end in more depth.

6. The Spine Race: the Pennine Way at its most extreme

The Pennine Way is also the course for the Spine Race, one of the hardest endurance events in the world. Run in the depths of January, it sends competitors along the full 268 miles in a single continuous push through snow, bog and darkness, and finishing it at all is a serious achievement.

For the ultra-minded, the Spine Race is the extreme version of everything on this page. Racers eat almost constantly to stay ahead of a deficit they can never fully close, carry dense, easy-to-eat calories between widely spaced checkpoints, and rely on hot food to fight the winter cold. The same principles that get a walker through the Cheviots, carry calorie-dense food, eat steadily, prioritise warmth, simply get turned up to their limit.

If you plan to run the Pennine Way, or walk it in one continuous push, the fuelling moves toward race nutrition, covered in our trail running nutrition guide and fastpacking nutrition guide. The route rewards the same compact, high-calorie approach whether you take three weeks or three days.

7. Where Phoenix Bars fit

I make Phoenix Bars, and they fit the Pennine Way where it is hardest: the two no-shop crossings, the cold and the long grind.

Across Cross Fell and the Cheviots, where there is nothing open for many miles, a Phoenix Bar gives you up to 557 calories in a compact, 120g bar about the size of a phone, so a couple of bars carry serious calories for very little weight or bulk on a route that punishes both. On the cold, exposed sections they mix with water to make porridge. And over 16 to 19 days the six flavours, Apple and Cinnamon, Cherry Bakewell, Chocolate, Vanilla, Salted Caramel and Ginger, help fight the monotony that sets in on any long walk.

Bars are £5.25 each in every bundle. For a section, take the 12-bar bundle; for the full route or a camping trip, the 18-bar or 36-bar bundle, or build your own bundle. You can see the range in the Phoenix Bars collection and the bundles collection.

8. Frequently asked questions

Why is the Pennine Way so hard?
It combines the most demanding terrain of any National Trail, deep peat bog, near-constant climbing and high exposed ground, with serious length and famously bad weather. The bogs and ascents make you burn far more calories than the mileage suggests, and the remoteness of Cross Fell and the Cheviots means long stretches with no support.

Do you need to carry food on the Pennine Way?
For most of the route you can resupply every day or two, but two stretches have no shops or cafés: the Cross Fell crossing in the North Pennines and the Cheviots finale from Byrness to Kirk Yetholm. Across those you carry everything you eat and drink, plus a little spare in case the weather slows you down.

Where is the last shop before the Cheviots?
Bellingham. It has shops, while Byrness, the next stop 15 miles on, has very little, so leave Bellingham with food for the whole 42 miles to Kirk Yetholm, including the long Cheviots day or two.

Where can you resupply on the Pennine Way?
The most useful places to stock up, south to north, are Edale at the start, Hebden Bridge and Haworth (both off the route), Gargrave, Hawes, Middleton-in-Teesdale, Alston and Bellingham. Pubs such as the Tan Hill Inn and the inns at Malham, Horton and Once Brewed are good for a meal but not for buying the next day's food.

How many calories do you burn on the Pennine Way?
More than the distance implies, because boggy ground and constant climbing raise the calorie cost of every mile, and cold weather adds more on top. Using standard exercise estimates for hill walking with a pack, a 75kg walker covering about 15 miles in seven and a half hours burns roughly 3,400 to 3,900 calories while walking, or around 5,000 to 5,500 across the whole day. These are approximate, so fuel for the effort rather than the distance.

What is the hardest section of the Pennine Way?
The Cheviots finale and the Cross Fell crossing are the two that test people most: both are remote, exposed and committing, with no resupply and limited shelter. The Cheviots stretch in particular is long and often saved for last, when you are already tired.

How many days does the Pennine Way take?
Most walkers take 16 to 19 days for the full 268 miles, with fitter and faster walkers doing it in less. At the extreme end, Spine Race competitors cover the whole route non-stop in a matter of days.

What should you eat on a long, cold, boggy trail like this?
Carry compact, calorie-dense, no-prep food that survives a pack and can be eaten one-handed: nuts, dried fruit, oatcakes, flapjack and high-calorie bars. On cold, exposed days, add something you can heat with a flask, like porridge or soup, because warm food does more for your core temperature and morale than the same food cold.

Related guides

Closest companions: our West Highland Way food guide and Cape Wrath Trail guide for other tough northern routes, our Land's End to John o'Groats guide for the long-haul end of British walking, and our wild camping food and backpacking nutrition guides for self-sufficient walking. For the faster and racing approach, see our trail running and multi-day ultra running guides. This page sits within our wider ultra-endurance and expedition nutrition guide.

Sources: National Trails: Pennine Way; 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, walking and hiking; Phoenix Bar values from our own pack labels.