Monday 15 September 2014

Adding the final touches to the Esk Hause path

Since the last update we've been spending much of our time working, and walking, up Esk Hause. We've calculated that for this year, in total, to repair the Esk Hause path we've walked a distance of 185 miles just to get to and from the work site and spent over 90 hours doing it. We've also climbed, and descended, over 102,500 feet, that's like walking from sea level to the top of Mount Everest three and a half times!

Turfing a section of path

In between all the walking we've also been building a path which has generated a lot of soil and rubble. This is all used to landscape around the path to help the area look more natural after the path repairs have taken place.

Starting landscaping around a drain

To help the path blend in and stop rubble falling on to it we also turf along the edge. Turf that is generated while building the path is reused and if any extra is required it is cut from areas away from the path, and out of sight.

Freshly landscaped drain

As you can see in the following photo often very large quantities of soil and rubble are generated. To reduce the amount of surplus rock smaller pieces are buried and any larger, and more weathered, rock is half dug in to create a natural looking bank.

Rubble and soil generated while building the path

Once the landscaping work is finished the area changes from something resembling a building site to something much more natural. After the area has been seeded (often once a year, over several years) the landscaping work will be indistinguishable from it's surroundings.

Path after landscaping