Five messages from first question to trailhead

Booking here is a conversation, not a checkout. It is slower than a marketplace and considerably more honest, because the person quoting the route is the person who will be walking it with you.

Step one: write with dates

Send the dates, the number of people and where you are staying. If you know which route you want, say so; if you do not, say what a good morning looks like to you and we will pick.

Step two: the quote

Within a day you get a route, a start time, a pickup window and a price. The price states separately what the guide costs, what the entry gate costs and what the car costs, because bundling them together is how people end up paying for a headlamp twice.

Step three: you confirm, then you pay

A reply saying yes is the booking. We send the guide's name and the pickup point, and payment happens on the morning of the walk or the evening before, in cash. Nothing is taken in advance for a route of our size.

Changing a date, or cancelling

Move a date up to twenty-four hours before the pickup at no cost. After that we only ask for the entry ticket if one has already been bought in your name. If the guide calls the walk off for weather, there is nothing to pay and we will offer the next clear morning.

What we need from you

• An honest answer about fitness and any injury that matters.
• Cash in small notes for the gates, or tell us and we will carry it.
• The name and age of anyone under fifteen.
• One working phone number for the morning itself.

That is the entire process. The rest happens at one in the morning, in a car park, with somebody checking that everybody has a working torch before the walking starts.