National Park Walks with Kids: North York Moors

Jennifer (@family_hiking_adventure), mum of 2 shares her favourite walks in the North York Moors National Park with us as part of our National Park Walks with Kids series, for National Walking Month.

COLD MOOR TO WAINSTONES

With the North Yorkshire Moors National Park just a stone’s throw away, we spend many Sunday trekking across the moors. When we were asked to write a blog for Little Trekkers we picked one of our favourite family friendly walks in the National Park, Cold Moor to Wainstones.

Route
Wainstones Via Cold Moor

Length
Approx 6.5 miles

Difficulty

Moderate, this walk is not pushchair friendly, there are a couple of hills to climb and some uneven paths but this all adds to the adventure for our little trekkers. The walk is dog friendly but you may need to keep them on a lead from time to time due to sheep or nesting birds.

Time Taken

Approx 1hr 20mins each way, do allow some time in between for some climbing fun at Wainstones.

Facilities
There are no facilities on this route but some very clean public toilets at the carpark. Parking. We begin the walk by parking at Chop Gate village hall car park, TS9 7JW,it is a National Park car park. We are always early but there are plenty of parking spaces, public toilets and a contactless payment machine. The cost to park is £2 per day for cars.

ROUTE

Leave the car park on to the road and turn left walk on the footpath past The Buck Inn and the village Primary School. There is a sign for Lord Stones take this left then the immediate right up the track past the church this track is called Cold Moor Lane Continue following the track, which is surrounded by fields and beautiful views of Chop Gate and Bilsdale.

You will go through several gates along the track before getting to the bottom of Cold Moor from this point it is around 2 miles to the top of Cold Moor. The climb up to Cold Moor is slow and steady but once at the top the path becomes fairly flat. On a clear day you should get some amazing views of Roseberry Topping, Cringle Moor, Carlton Bank and Wainstones. Once at the top of Cold Moor join the Cleveland Way to Wainstones which is the rocky outcrop you can see.

Wainstones is a great place for the kids to climb and play although as always care has to be taken as there are some steep drops. Once you have had refreshments and the kids have worn themselves out just follow the same route back.

Both kids wore the Keen Targhee Mid Waterproof Walking Boots and they both agreed that they were very comfortable and good for rock climbing. There are plenty of views along this route and enough to keep the kids interested as you go along. If you do this walk/hike I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

The Keen Targhee are excellent quality boots that should easily last until your child outgrows them and the quality is that good they should still be in a good condition and be able to be passed down to a younger sibling if needed.

Both kids said that they were comfortable straight from the box (we did take their old boots just in case) but they were not needed for a 11km walk

The kids both did some rock climbing in the boots and agreed that the grip was excellent and stood up to the test.

There were no scratch marks even after climbing so they are a very robust pair of boots that handle the terrain of the North York Moors without any issue.

We have not had a chance to test them in wet weather yet which I am amazed at but I'm sure based on the quality of the boots they will pass the water test without any issues.

In short these are an excellent pair of boots that are comfortable, with excellent grip that will allow the kids to enjoy the outdoors.

Little Trekkers have a fantastic range of Keen Boots and Sandals.