NORTH-EAST walkers are joining mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington and arts supremo Lord Melvyn Bragg to follow in the footsteps of the country's greatest fell-walking chronicler.

The Cumbrian duo are striding out in the Lake District in May to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first of Alfred Wainwright's bestselling guides, A Pictorial Guide to the Eastern Fells.

Sir Chris will tackle High Pike, near Caldbeck, while Lord Bragg will take on Binsey, overlooking Solway Firth.

Between May 14 and 25, 250 people taking part in the challenge are walking one of the 214 'Wainwrights', including England's highest peak - the 3,210ft Scafell Pike.

Wainwright, from Lancashire, published seven hand-written and hand-drawn guides after taking a job as Kendal's borough treasurer in the 1950s.

He later devised the Coast-To-Coast walk between St Bees in the west and Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire, which came second in a search to find the 50 best walks in the world.

John Burland, of the Wainwright Society, said two million guides have been sold. He said: "The fellsides and summits haven't changed. The books are as valid now as they were in the 1950s when he first started them."

Broadcaster Eric Robson, chairman of both the Wainwright Society and Cumbria Tourist Board, said: "Alfred Wainwright communicated better than any guide book writer before or since the essence of the Lakeland landscape, the visceral attachment of man to place, the spiritual power of weathered rock and angry sky. He was priest and poet in his own blunt way."

Registration for the challenge costs £10. Apply online at www.wainwright.org.uk/ challenge or send a £10 cheque to Peter Linney, the Wainwright Society, 3 Beech Close, Farnham. Knaresborough. HG5 9JJ.