July 2011 – South Lakes Footpath Team Update
Mickledore & Crinkle Crags
In early June we changed from our benched path project on Bracken Hause on the north side of Helm Crag, covered in our last update. We have completed around half of this zigzagging benched path and will return to finish this later in the year.
Part of the team has since been working with the Northern Team on the north side of Stake Pass. This is the third year of work on this sub-soil path and more information on progress should be available in the Northern team updates.
The rest of the team has been working with the Western team on two different projects.
We initially joined the Western team to help them finish the final stretch of repaired path on the route up to Mickledore, part of a popular route to Scafell Pike. We helped complete the last 20 metres or so of stone pitching, built a couple of drains and finished it off with landscaping.
It was good to be working with stone again, after lots of digging, turfing and benching on Bracken Hause.
(pictured) Ian working on a section of the Mickledore route stone pitching
The other project was one that had been planned as a joint project with the Western team. The aim was to create a new sustainable route onto the second crinkle (‘Long Top’) avoiding the ‘Bad Step’. The existing path avoiding the step was deteriorating with a bad erosion scar at one end, which was getting worse and was difficult to walk on.
(pictured) Erosion scar on existing route avoiding the ‘Bad Step’
Whilst up there, with the help of the volunteer lengthsmen, we removed some misleading cairns and created new ones, which we hope will give better guidance when the crinkles are in the clouds.
It is unusual for us to create new cairns (there are more often reasons to remove them), however in this case we felt it was justified.
(pictured) Volunteer Lengthsmen adjusting the cairns. The cloud came in and demonstrated how useful well placed cairns can be.
Creating the new route involved a range of tasks. A large part of it involved clearing a route through scree, moving rock and building rough retaining walls to create a path. This was finished off with finer material from the main erosion scar to produce an attractive surface to walk on.
A section of bedrock at one end was re-modelled to make the route more accessible (the Western team seemed to take delight in doing this).
(pictured) Creating part of the new route
Work was also carried out repairing the main erosion scar, moving rock to help blend it into the surrounding scree and adding soil and seed to help the slope green up over time. There was also landscaping to finish things off and to remove the previous route, which was quite a prominent path, so that people are not drawn towards it.
Finally we completed a small amount of stone pitching and built a couple of drains at the top end to divert the water off the new path.
Whilst on Crinkle Crags we were pleased to be joined by a volunteer, Lin, who enjoys spending her holidays working on the upland paths. This was Lin’s third stint with our team and she was with us for a fortnight.
We had a really good spell up on Crinkle Crags. We had expected to be in the clouds most of the time however this was only the case on a handful of days.