Patagonians help Fix the Fells
20 August 2007
Patagonians help to ‘Fix the Fells’ and learn new skills with National Trust staff and volunteers in the Lake District
Three National Park staff from the Torres del Paine National Park, in Patagonia Chile, have spent the last three months visiting National Trust properties throughout England and Wales to learn more about its access and conservation work.
The team, Paola Goich, Jorge San Martin and Rodrigo Gomez, has spent two weeks working with the Trust in the Lake District. Their working period here has included time at Fell Foot Park doing footpath work, then they took to the fells with the National Trust’s Coniston footpath team and worked on Browney Ghyll path in Langdale where they learned about upland path repair techniques. Their final week has been spent learning how to dry stone wall with the Eastern Valley and Hawkshead Warden teams at Mislet, near Windermere, as part a National Trust Acorn Working Holiday camp.
Jim Loxham, Property Manager, National Trust, for Coniston and Little Langdale said “it has been a great opportunity for them to learn about the Trust’s walling and footpath techniques.”
Ian Griffiths from the Coniston Path Team said “It was great to have their involvement in the Fix the Fells project. They picked up the skills required quickly and by the end of the week had completed a short section of path”
The visit has been organised by Ian Tillotson, retired Countryside Council for Wales Chief Warden.
The trip has been part-funded as part of a Chilean Government scheme, supported by their employers at Hosteria Las Torres in the Torres del Paine National Park, and organised by in Wales and England by Ian Tillotson, and by staff from the National Trust, Countryside Council for Wales, Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, and RSPB.
