A huge number of people make Fix the Fells possible, from the online donater to the specialist footpath repairer. Fix the Fells helps develop skills for on the ground teams and volunteers.
A day in the life
by Moira Herring, Community Warden at High Wray Basecamp
"My path to Fix the Fells has been a little circuitous. When I graduated from Cambridge in 2003 I certainly wouldn’t have won any prizes for guessing where I’d be in four years’ time!
I’ve been volunteering with BTCV for years, a hobby initiated by a week spent pitching a footpath in Kentmere when I was 16. During university I started climbing, and found myself spending more and more time in the mountains. Then in the summer after graduating I landed a volunteer officer job in Iceland with BTCV, working on the paths in small teams and with groups of holiday volunteers. I loved it so much I went back again the following summer.
By this time I was fully committed to a career in the environment/conservation sector and itching to move back ‘up north’ - being a Yorkshire lass. I did a master’s degree in Environmental Science at Lancaster and focused on the ecology/conservation side of things, then worked for an ecological consultancy. Although I love wildlife and enjoyed the field surveying, the job turned out to be 95 per cent office-based, which didn’t really suit me. It was also very solitary, and I wanted a more people-based job.
Luckily the post of Community Warden for the National Trust came up, which ticked all the boxes of being in the Lake District, working with groups of volunteers and doing conservation work. At Basecamp we try to get a whole range of groups working on practical conservation projects, and learning about the Lake District fells. It’s great to be able to introduce them to the many ‘faces’ of this amazing part of the country."
Read more about the work of Basecamp in Groups.
