Western Team Archive
Find out what the Western team have been doing and where....
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'Escape from the rocky clutches of Scafell' by Iain Gray
After completing phase two of the mickledore route in Wasdale we escaped from the rocky clutches of scafell to embark on a joint project with the south lakes team.more
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Shedding more light on Mickledore - phase 2
While “the may month flaps it’s glad green leaves like wings” in sunnier areas than Wasdale the looming crags of scafell blot out most of the potential sunlight. more
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'April really is the cruellest month' - Winter update from the Western Team
After being forced off the Mickledore project in early November due to snow and ice we eventually managed to begin our winter interregnum with an urgent realignment of a dangerous bit of riverside path at brotherilkeld in Eskdale. The newly created path on the right takes the route away from the perilously precipitous original line. more
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December 2010 update by Iain Gray End of year update from the Western team
The arrival of snow in hollow stones in early November brought our mickledore path repair to an end with just a few minor tasks still to be completed. One task we did achieve was to drive the power barrow down the hill, rather than wait for the next helilift in spring.This was a quite arduous feat of navigation-hopefully it won’t catch on as an extreme sport. more
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September 2010 - The scar turns green
Since our last update the Hollow Stones to Mickledore project has progressed quite smoothly. Settled weather throughout August allowed the landscaping of the erosion scars to continue unhindered
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July 2010 - Breakfast Rock (but not before breakfast!)
The next stage in the task of protecting the relentlessly used route to Scafell Pike via Brown Tongue sees us return to a path which the late Ray MacHaffie tackled in the early 1990s. It heads towards the ominous girt amphitheatre of Mickledore to that famous landmark- the Breakfast Rock. more
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April 2010 - Lingmell Gill and Bowfell
The problem of flying stone for path repair sites without disturbing the nesting season of protected bird species has been eased very much by the mild winters of recent years allowing bag filling and flying to occur in mid February without much difficulty - until this winter! more
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January 2010 - From Fix The Fells to Fix The Floods!
As soon as the Cold Pike repairs described in our last update were finished we were suddenly faced with the urgent task of repairing flood damage after the November deluge. more
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October 2009 - Bowfell and Cold Pike
Working with the Central team we have finally finished the project on Bowfell and Three Tarns. As much as we enjoy a good stroll to work we were quite pleased to go from having a three mile bog trot with 2000 ft of ascent, to half an hours walk! Our feet are beginning to dry out. more
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July 2009 - Brown Tongue
With a fresh supply of stone delivered to various sites during the March airlift we embark on another season of path repair projects. April saw a return visit to Wasdale’s hill walking equivalent of the M1 - Brown Tongue. With the help of a volunteer group from the RAF (prior to heading to Afghanistan) we have reset and widened about a quarter of the path, originally built in the early 1990s. more
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April 2009 - Helibags and the BBC
When spring arrives a footpath worker’s thoughts turn invariably towards...hundreds of tons of stone being loaded into helibags ready for the arrival of a helicopter in late March. During a hectic week of flying in the face of hostile weather and also the presence of a BBC T.V. crew recording for Countryfile, we moved a large amount of stone onto three sites where we will be working throughout the summer and probably autumn too! more
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January 2009 - Paths and walls
After spending the summer on the corridor route heading towards the heights of the Scafell Massif, the team made a drastic switch in altitude in mid November. The popular riverside path from the Wasdale Head inn to the famous packhorse bridge and beyond suffered serious damage during the severe flooding of late October. more
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October 2008 - Scafell
Throughout the summer volunteer groups have played a prominent role in the repair of the Scafell Corridor route. Mid July saw the most ambitious volunteer project of the year. A team led by Basecamp warden Paul Kear and footpath team supervisor Steve Jolley spent two nights camping on site in very testing conditions. more
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