Continuing the work at Mickleden

Since working with the National Trust volunteers on the Working Holiday, 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. We've now almost fully completed this section and it's really starting to take shape.

A section of the almost finished path

You can see in the image below, with only a few metres left until the path is finished, how it now winds it's route through the landscape. The bank of soil that can be seen in the distance, between Pete and Leo, shows the original line of the path. By adding a series of bends, rather than taking a more direct route, the gradient is greatly reduced making it much easier to walk down.

 

The path, showing the new line and the old route

With the path being on such a steep slope, during heavy rain there is a lot of surface water that if left to it's own devices 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.

Volunteers digging out a turf drain

Over the next week, we'll get the last few sections joined up, cover over much of the soil with turfs, and re-seed the whole area around the path and between the pitching. Providing that most of the seed germinates (we'll put some more down next spring/summer if it's required) by this time next year you'll hardly know that that the original route ever existed.