Eastern Team
One step at a time
May 2011 by Ade Mills
During May our main job was to finish repairing the stepping stones at Stickle Ghyll. The original stepping stones had been in place since the mid-1990's but had slowly moved over time when the beck had been in full spate, which meant that to get from one stone to another was a bit of a jump. With a diversion in place so that any walkers could cross safely without interruption we set about winching some new stones into place. We used rock from higher up the beck and also moved about the original stepping stones into new positions. After five days of grunting and straining away we were preparing to winch the last rock.
(Picture: Stepping Stones (before)) (Picture: Stepping Stones (after))
Last month we also had our helicopter lifts at Stickle Ghyll. Except for a delay due to low cloud the lifts went relatively smoothly and we got all 98 bags flown. Low cloud makes for difficult flying conditions, especially when you're getting in close to the crags, as you really need to have good all-round visibility. The cloud didn't really cause many problems until around lunchtime when it suddenly dropped lower and forced us to stop for around an hour until it lifted again.
(Picture: Helicopter Lift in progress)
Another job was repairing an old section of path at Stickle Ghyll that had started to become undermined. When we bagged up the pitching stone, we also filled up several bags with extra large "landscaping stone". Landscaping stone is generally used next to the edge of the path to stop people from wandering off it and causing erosion damage. So we flew in a few bags of landscaping stone specifically for this section, which we used to build up the edge of the path and prevent it from collapsing. Once the first rock was in place at the bottom of the slope we positioned the others behind it. We then tightened all the rocks against each other and also to the path, finally we filled in the gaps with rubble and topped it off with some soil and then reseeded it. The path is safe from falling out now, preventing a much larger job than if we'd needed to rebuild the whole section of path.
(Picture: Path (before) (Picture: Path (after))
We were again joined by the Fix the Fells volunteer lengthsmen for a monthly work party. The session was again held at Mickleden and nine volunteers came along to help out. In a similar fashion to last months work party the weather was not on our side. Despite the poor weather, between us all we completed a good amount of pitching and also replaced some stepping stones, with something a little more substantial, as the old ones were starting to get washed away.
(Picture: Volunteers at Mickleden)
For a more detailed insight into our work: Visit: http://fellrangers.blogspot.com/ or follow us on Twitter 
