Footpath repairs at Dale Head

After we finished our work up at Esk Hause, and inbetween working at Gowbarrow, we also had a few weeks working with the North Lakes Team over at Dale Head in Borrowdale. This work was partly funded by the British Mountaineering Council Access & Conservation Trust who kindly donated £7,000 and also by a £600 donation from Kendal Fell Walkers.

Replacing a section of path at Dale Head

The path at Dale Head had previously been worked on but, due to a lack of drains, water has run down the path which has in some areas caused the stone pitching to fall out. The steepest sections of the original path are also extremely difficult to walk down and now that techniques have changed we can also remedy this. You can see in the photograph above the section where we were working, with some old-style pitching just below the worksite.

The work at Dale Head involved replacing the steepest sections of path and incorporating more stone drains to shed water away from the path.

New stone pitching

Although it's not immediately obvious from the photographs this section of path is a really steep section. The new path has been put in so that the stones aren't set at a steep angle, there's plenty of space to get a full boot on each step and the path also meanders to take out some of the gradient.

Landscaping the new section of path

As usual once the path was completed we set about landscaping the area around the path to help it blend in with it's surroundings. Any overhanging banks next to the path were graded to reduce any "hard edges" next to the path. Turfs that were removed while building the path were then used where the banks had been graded to make the path merge seamlessly with the fell side. Finally, grass seed was put down on areas of spoil and between the stones used to build the path. 

Looking up the newly landscaped path