Eastern Team
http://www.fellrangers.blogspot.com/ or follow us on Twitter @NTCentralfells
To find out more about the work carried out by the team, visit the Eastern team diary archive
January 2012 update
by Nic Fish
2012 began with a host of new challenges for the Central and Eastern lakes footpath rangers.
Early January saw the team finishing of a project that they had begun at Aira Force last year. Despite some terrible weather the small wall and risers where completed and are bedding in well to the surrounding environment. Read the full January update.
November update
by Ade Mills
After finishing our work at Mickleden our attention turned back to the Stickle Ghyll path that we started in the spring before heading over to Mickleden for the summer.
Pitching with large stone really helps tie the path in with the landscape, but if they don't go in correctly the first time around it can really slow down progress! Read the full report
(Picture: Nic pitching with boulders)
October update
by Nic Fish
October was a busy month for the Central and Eastern lakes footpath team. Our monthly work party started the month of. Again the volunteers helped us to move the Mickledon project on at a good pace.
The rest of the month was spent carrying on from where the work party left off. October sees the end of the footpath season for the footpath teams around the Lake District. The days become to short and there aren’t enough day light hours to be up a fell at 1500ft working at 4:30pm.
Mickleden makeover
September 2011 by Ade Mills
Over the last month we've continued to replace the old section of pitching at Mickleden, making it more user-friendly by re-aligning the path, adding some bends and reducing the height of the steps. By adding a series of bends, rather than taking a more direct route, the gradient is much reduced making it easier to walk down.
With the path being on such a steep slope, during heavy rain there is a lot of surface water that if alone would run straight down the path and likely cause damage. To help address this problem, we arranged a day with the Fix the Fells volunteers to build a turf drain across the slope. This feeds the rainwater into a stone drain that is built into the path, which then sheds it out of the way.
(Picture: Fix the Fells volunteers building a turf drain)
Click here to read the full September update
The Mickleden project
August 2011 by Ade Mills
At the beginning of August we made the decision to have a break from our workon Stickle Ghyll and move our attentions onto the Mickleden project for a while.
The section we are working on is an area that had been previously repaired in the 1980s when the area was very badly eroded. As it was originally repaired before the use of helicopters for moving stone, all the rock would have been gathered by hand from the fellside. This meant, that the stone wasn't always ideal, meaning the resulting path was steep, straight and with many large steps, making it uncomfortable to walk down. This led to people stepping off the path and walking alongside it, which has once again started to cause erosion. As it is a common complaint, especially with some of the older paths, that the steps are too high, we decided to address the issue.
(Picture: Levering a stone into position)
Click here to read the full August update from the Eastern Team
http://www.fellrangers.blogspot.com/ or follow us on Twitter @NTCentralfells
To find out more about the work carried out by Ade and his team, visit the Eastern team diary archive