Stepping Stones at Stickle Ghyll

This week we finished off repairing the stepping stones at the top of Stickle Ghyll. The original stepping stones had been in place since the mid-1990's but had slowly moved over time when the beck had been in full spate. This meant that to get from one stone to another was a bit too much of a jump, and in addition to this some of the stones were set a little low so when there was a lot of water in the beck it became almost impossible to cross.

Stepping Stones in need of some attention

With a diversion in place so that any walkers could cross safely without interruption we set about winching some new stones into place. We used rock from higher up the beck and also moved about the original stepping stones into new positions. We started off using a 1.5 tonne tirfor winch, but it soon became apparent that it wasn't up to the job, so we moved on to our 3.5 tonne winch.

 

Preparing to winch one of the stones 

After five days of grunting and straining away the stepping stones were almost finished, and we were preparing to winch the last rock.

The last rock almost in place

So now when you're next up Stickle Ghyll the job of crossing the beck should be much easier. We could really do with a few days heavy rain to give the stones a good test but we're not in any real rush for that right now!

The completed Stepping Stones