North Lakes team
by Paul Delaney
"The main project recently has been on the path at Loft Beck in Ennerdale. Although this path has relatively low traffic, it is the first serious section of the popular Coast To Coast walk and at this time of year can see large numbers of walkers, mostly in the afternoons and 98 percent going uphill!
In the late 90s some pre-emptive work was carried out and this has stood up well over the years. However the loss of the river crossing point at the top has caused people to wander around looking for a suitable crossing point causing several new paths to appear. This has changed the course of the beck itself which in turn led to severe erosion problems lower down the path.
The project got off to a novel start when we decided to use Cumberland Fell ponies to transport our lift bags to the site prior to work beginning. This worked well and seems to be a viable option for the future.
Our first task was to re-instate the crossing at the top of the beck. This caused much head-scratching as none of the team had attempted this type of work before. Eventually we constructed a fairly major revetment, starting about 16 feet below the crossing, to support a stone lined wath. Fingers crossed this seems to control the water fairly well having been tested recently by some torrential downpours.
The remainder of the project was to pitch and landscape several sections and blend them into the existing late 90s work. This has worked very well. Already feedback from walkers has been very positive."
You can read more about the work in 21 March 2007 - Fell ponies help fix the fells<no link text><no link text>.
