Ourea Events has completed the acquisition of the Northern Traverse and Lakes Traverse events from Open Adventure.

The Northern Traverse is a continuous 300km footrace from St Bees on the west coast of England to Robin’s Hood Bay on the east coast. The route follows the well-established coast to coast route inspired by Alfred Wainwright. This long-distance walking route is arguably the most popular in England attracting around 10,000 walkers each year. The Lakes Traverse is a 100km footrace starting at St Bees at the same time as the Northern Traverse but finishing in Shap - having completed a traverse of the Lake District National Park fells. The full Northern Traverse route continues through the Yorkshire Dales National Park and North York Moors National Park.

With immediate effect, Ourea Events have taken on the responsibility for the organisation and management of the event including the delivery of the 2022 edition. Shane Ohly, Managing Director of Ourea Events explains: “The first edition of the event took place in 2016 and attracted 62 runners taking part in the Northern Traverse. The second edition in 2018 attracted 106 runners split evenly between the Northern Traverse and the new Lakes Traverse race. The event was planned to take place biennially with the third edition scheduled for 2020. However, the global COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the postponement of the 2020 edition, until April 2022”.

He continued, “I am absolutely delighted that the team at Ourea Events have the opportunity to build on the fantastic event that James Thurlow from Open Adventure has inaugurated, and I am confident that we can build on the solid foundations that are already in place. We are planning for over 300 runners in 2022 who will come to Northern England to measure themselves against this logical, but extremely challenging ultra-running event.”

James Thurlow from Open Adventure said, “The Northern Traverse is a unique event, so when the time came for us to look to move on from running this event, the pool of people able to take on this task was pretty small. At the top of the list was Ourea Events – with our sister company Open Tracking, we have seen how Shane’s team operate and are confident that his team will not only take this event in their stride for 2022 but take the event to new heights in the future.”

The acquisition of this event represents a logical move for Ourea Events as it provides an English expedition-style race that is highly complementary to the Welsh Montane Dragon’s Back Race® and Scottish Cape wrath Ultra® events also organised by the business. Shane Ohly added, “We are emerging from a hugely demanding and uncertain period for all businesses because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, I remain confident in the growing market for high quality, experiential events in a booming global trail running market, and can’t wait to welcome the runners to the 2022 edition of the Northern Traverse and Lakes Traverse.”

Already have an entry into 2022?

Ourea Events is looking forward to getting in touch with you soon (in November) - meanwhile no action is required.

Still looking to enter?

The 2022 edition (2nd April to 6th April 2022) of the Northern Traverse and the Lakes Traverse are open for entries: