Eastern Team
by Nic Fish
February 2009
The footpath teams are now preparing for the annual bag filling. This usually takes place in March with the first helicopter lift of the year happening towards the end of the month.
Although bag filling isn’t the most eagerly anticipated job, it is one of the most essential. Without these 300 bags of rock we wouldn’t be able to undertake our summer footpath repair work.
Before filling the bags, we needed to make sure that the rock sites were not SSSI sites (Sites of Special Scientific Interest). We did this with the help of Simon Webb from Natural England. Simon also checked that rocks were not overgrown with rare mosses and ferns, such as woolly hair moss and parsley fern.
Now that Simon has given the all clear, the team can look forward to filling 300 tonnes worth of rock over the next couple of weeks.
Forthcoming projects
This summer the Grasmere and Great Langdale footpath team are finishing the Rosset Ghyll project from last year and tackling two new projects:
Stickle Ghyll
This summer we want to make the route up the left-hand side of Stickle Ghyll more user-friendly. We will replace old pitching, add new drains and make a more defined line higher up.
Harrison Combe
Our second project is to replace stepping-stones on Harrison Combe, as the current ones are starting to fall out. People are beginning to walk around them, which is causing a large erosion scar.
