News and updates

We hope your training is going well, and that you’re looking forward to joining us on the 2026 Fellsman and Fellsman Dart.  Plans are well underway and the organising committee have been extremely busy behind the scenes making sure we have everything in place to ensure 2 successful events.

You may—or may not—have seen the post on our social media pages between Christmas and New Year, asking how we could improve the event.  This feedback was important for us to understand how we can improve the entrant experience of our events.  We have taken this feedback on board and, where practicable and possible, we have implemented the suggestions offered.

We wanted to share our proposed improvements with you personally before announcing it to the wider Fellsman community on our social media accounts

Much of the Fellsman route crosses private land and, as such, we have to carefully negotiate use for the weekend.  Yes, the Right to Roam Act is in place across much of it, but that doesn’t apply to larger events where up to 500 people cross the land unfortunately.  Over the years, we have built up strong relationships with landowners in the area and they are very happy to support our endeavours.  More recently however, sections of the route we cross have been designated as SSSi – Sites of Special Scientific Interest – which means they cannot be crossed at all.  Where these are implemented, we have to adjust our route to comply with regulations and it is for this reason that route changes in recent years have had to happen.  One such change was the change to access across Fleet Moss, resulting in the instigation of the road section.  We know that the road section between Fleet Moss and Deepdale was a source of frustration for many entrants on both the Fellsman and, more recently, the Fellsman Dart, indeed it wasn’t something the then committee wanted to implement either.  However, at the time, there was no other suitable alternative and thus the road section and 2 new checkpoints were implemented in order to keep the event running.

After many months of hard work by the committee, we have been able to negotiate a tarmac alternative.  This has involved many hours spent pouring over maps and many conversations with individual land owners and tenant farmers, larger land-management agencies, the Yorkshire Dales National Park rangers and the Government’s Natural England advisors, amongst others.  Unfortunately, we are unable to revert to the original Fellsman route out of the back of the checkpoint across the infamous moss. However, we are delighted to report that we have been able to successfully negotiate the removal of the dreaded road section!

The new route will see you head the opposite direction out of the Fleet Moss checkpoint along to the village of Marsett, round to Stake Moss and then around to Cray.  This route reinstates more of the traditional terrain that we know is a key attraction of our events – off-road paths and moorland – and removes a significant stretch of tarmac which we know you all hated!

To accommodate this change, we have introduced two new hilltop checkpoints: Marsett (SD 903862) and Stake Moss (SD 932831) and have removed the following checkpoints:  Deepdale, Chapel Moor and Hell’s Gap (see map below)

Full details will be found on our website shortly, and also in our entrant handbook which will be winging its way to your inboxes soon too.  We have also updated our iconic tally to reflect these changes and have a new Harvey’s map featuring the new checkpoints.  Maps can be purchased shortly from our Fellsman online shop (via our website).  Previous entrants will be able to use existing maps should you wish, but additional mapping will be required to feature the new checkpoint locations.  We know this may be a little frustrating for some of you but hope that the return to better terrain underfoot and a route closer to the beloved Fleet Moss will go some way to make up for this.  Full details of the maps required will be on the website and handbook shortly.

We hope that this news will be well received.  There has been a huge amount of work by all our committee members, who organise this event voluntarily, to enable it to happen.  We would like to thank you for your continued support of our events and also for your feedback which we hope you can see is taken on board and acted upon.

For Full Fellsman Route entrants, please note that there is a new SSSi section on the approach to the Blea Moor checkpoint (this does not affect the Dart route).  SSSi rules stipulate that this cannot be crossed other than by using the public right of way (The Dales Highway – marked by the red dotty line).  To ensure we comply with this, a virtual checkpoint has had to be installed with an Open Tracking geofence.  Entrants are expected to use the identified public path through this area marked by the red dotty line.  Sadly, failure to follow this route deviation will result in disqualification with no exceptions.  We do not want this to happen to any entrant, so please ensure you adhere to the instructions and the map below.  This information is included in your entrant handbook, copies will be available on the weekend and it can also be found on our website.