Location

W Coast - nr Whitehaven

Details

South of the Caf� at St.Bees is a 6 � 15m clay cliff that is eroding and taking the golf course onto the shingle/sand beach. The site offers an area of coastal ridge soaring that is useful when inland sites may be blown out.

Site Officer

Gordie Oliver : 07830 281986

Postcode for Sat Nav Systems (read the Health Warning!)

CA27 0ES

Seacote Hotel. This is right by the main car park.

Getting There

Make for St. Bees Beach which is at the start of the Coast-to-Coast walk - west of St Bees Railway Station and west of Egremont.

Getting to takeoff

No walk involved

XC potential

The flying is limited to soaring the small coastal cliffs.

Permission to use site

No need to ask however St Bees school owns the golf course area. Please do not upset the Head Master.

IMPORTANT - Restrictions on use

None

Paragliding

Take-off is normally from, or in front of, the old car park and requires some ground handling skills. On a good day you can cross the gap and fly 5km down the coast and back (take care of power lines and the railway line). North of the beach is a much larger sandstone cliff, facing SW and then WSW, with a footpath along the top. Take-off areas are few and committed. There are only large slabs below, so landing is back at the beach, or on the grass - taking care of the car park and the public. When soaring the WSW cliffs further north and out of view of the beach, be aware of the state of the tide in case you come back too low.

Hang Gliding

See paragliding information. Advised not to go north of the beach.

Additional Safety Notes

The site has some committed take off areas with limited landing options due to the boulders on the beach. The state of the tide needs to be taken into consideration.

Resources

Don't click on flight logs, download to your PC first (right click and 'Save Link As')

Type	Click to Follow Link	Notes
Flash Earth - Car Park
Flash Earth - Landing
Flash Earth - Take Off
Google Earth - Car Park
Multi Map - Take Off

Follow the links for further details of a site. For flights you will probably need to right click and save the link to your PC before opening Google Earth.
Google Earth links rely on Google Earth being installed on your system. Google Earth provides pan and tilt faciity. You can also upload your flights to GE - use GPS Dump (Links Page) to convert a variety of GPS file formats to a GE kml file
Flash Earth is an alternative to Google Earth but provides a top down view only. To view in Flash Earth, click on the instruction text to clear it - the cross is the spot

A selection of photos showing key aspects of the site. If you have a good photo showing take off and landing areas, then send it to the webmaster. Aerial shots showing the landing area are especially welcome.

The beach at Bees looking north. The triangular area and the grassy slope are takeoff areas - marked by the gliders. Photo by Dave Horne

Looking from the main cliffs to the south. Photo by Nick Bubb

Looking south down the southern cliffs. Black Combe in the far background. Photo by Nick Bubb.

You get an audience at St Bees! The take off area is at the bottom of the photo. Photo by Nick Bubb

 

Site Records

This page shows records for this site. Some of the older records are not very detailed. More recent records may have an igc file available You can right click and download this to your PC. You can then use IGC Flight replay to view the flight.

Paragliding

Open Distance XC
Distance :	33.5km
Date :	18/03/1997
Pilot :	Rob Grange

Hang Gliding

No records for this site