Our return to upland work this spring meant a return to the footpath on Loughrigg Fell. We started the season by gathering some more stone for the repairs, which was flown on to site.
Flying stone on to Loughrigg
For this section of path we've decided to change the line to add more bends in the path and remove some of the gradient. You can see in the following two photos where the path has been moved to the right of the original footpath.
Original path and new line
You can also see that the old style of pitching is put in at the same angle as the slope, which makes it difficult to walk down, particularly when wet.
Lower section of path before landscaping
Lower section of path after landscaping
The old path line was landscaped by covering it with soil and turf that had been removed while building the new path. We left a section of temporary fence in to discourage people from walking in the area while the seed is beginning to grow. Once it's had time to bed in we'll remove the fence.
Middle section of path after landscaping
You can see in the following photo a section higher up the path where large stone steps had been used. The height of the steps were difficult to walk down and you can see to the left of the image where people have been walking around them.
Old stone risers
The following two photographs show the same section during repair work and after landscaping.
Upper section after removal of the old stone risers
Putting down grass seed on the upper section
The final section that we worked on this year was just above the previous two images and was another bad mixture of angled path and more high steps.
The old section of path was built on top of bedrock. We had to remove the old path and chip out the bedrock before the new path could be built. The following two photos show the old path and the new path after landscaping.
Old path in bedrock section
Replaced path
We'll be back working on Loughrigg again next year, continuing up through the bedrock and a few more repairs higher up the path.
