Data · 11 July 2026

Cornwall's coast path routes, ranked by climb per kilometre

One number that predicts how a coastal run will actually feel — with the two places it lies to you.

Distance tells you how long a coast path run is. Climb per kilometre tells you what it will do to you. This table is computed live from our route lines — the same data behind each route's elevation profile — so it always agrees with the route pages.

Route	Distance	Climb	m per km
Pentire Head and The Rumps Loop	5.8 km	266 m	46
Chapel Porth and St Agnes Beacon Loop	6.2 km	250 m	40
Perranporth to St Agnes Coast Path	6.6 km	234 m	35
Port Isaac to Port Quin	8.0 km	263 m	33
St Just to St Ives Coast Path	30.0 km	882 m	29
Zennor to St Ives Coast Path	10.7 km	304 m	28
Rame Head Loop from Cawsand	8.7 km	239 m	27
Charlestown to Carlyon Bay	5.1 km	137 m	27
Looe to Polperro Coast Path	7.7 km	185 m	24
Lizard Point and Kynance Cove Loop	7.5 km	167 m	22
Godrevy to Portreath Coast Path	10.2 km	202 m	20
Newquay to Watergate Bay	12.7 km	223 m	18
Tintagel to Boscastle Coast Path	8.0 km	134 m	17
Marazion to Perranuthnoe Coast Path	6.6 km	96 m	15
Crantock and Pentire Point West Loop	5.6 km	69 m	12

What the number gets right

The top of the table is exactly where your legs would put it. Pentire Head packs headland after headland into under six kilometres; Chapel Porth adds a summit to a cliff route. Anything over about 30 m/km on the coast means the running rhythm you arrived with is not the one you'll keep.

Where it lies

Two warnings. First, Tintagel to Boscastle ranks near the bottom, which is nonsense to anyone who has crossed Rocky Valley — its climbs are short, sharp and partly smoothed away by the elevation model, as our methodology explains. Treat its position as a measurement artefact, not a promise.

Second, the number says nothing about footing. A route can climb gently and still slow you to a walk on boulders, and the far-west routes do exactly that. Read the conditions notes; the table is a filter, not a verdict.

On the ground