Returning back to work

Due to the outbreak of Coronavirus, and the team being furloughed from March through to mid-June, it's been a long time since our last post.

Prior to our furlough we'd been involved in a wide range of lowland work such as drystone wall repairs, stock fencing, deer fencing, and improving the drainage at Stickle Ghyll car park.

Our drystone wall work was mostly around the High Close estate and included repairing field boundaries and a large stone revetment that had been damaged by a fallen tree on the trackway that runs adjacent to the Red Bank road.

Damaged revetment

Newly repaired revetment

Stock fencing work was also carried out around High Close. An old fence that had been put in around 30 years ago to keep sheep out of a small area of woodland was definitely showing it's age. The fence was removed, any re-usable posts were kept, and it was replaced with new posts and wire. This will keep both the tenant farmer happy and also improve diversity in the woodland... a win-win.

We also erected a deer fence in a woodland above Troutbeck Park. A small enclosure was made which, being deer-free, will allow the ground flora to flourish and the trees to naturally regenerate thereby improving the age structure of the woodland.

Old fence on High Close estate

Replacement fence

Deer fence in Troutbeck

Our work at Stickle Ghyll allowed us to turn our hands to a bit of brick-laying as we added additional drains to the car park and replaced many of the original drains with a new "chambered" design while also replacing the drain covers. The car park regularly struggles to cope with winter flooding so fingers crossed the improvements will help rectify things.

Excavating in the car park before rebuilding the drains

Completed drain

But just as we were just about to complete our estate work for the year and resume our upland footpath work, the announcement came that the team would be furloughed.

On our return, after a day of catching up and reading all the new guidelines on how we can now safely operate, it was straight back into bag filling on Loughrigg ready for the upcoming helicopter lifts.

First bag filled on Loughrigg

Finishing at Boredale and preparing for helicopter lifts

Since our last post much of our time has been spent repairing the footpath up to Boredale Hause.

Towards the top end of the footpath the path-line follows a natural gully, but this has been much worsened by water and footfall.

 Starting work in the gully

The gully was steep through the lower section but levelled off as height is gained. There was also a fair amount of buried rock and areas of bedrock that made constructing the path more difficult.

 Path progressing through the gully

Nearby large boulders were moved and incorporated into the landscaping to help protect the edge of the path and give the work a more natural feel.

 Completed section of path

Due to the steepness of the bank in the gully a vertical edge was formed next to the path as we built the footpath.

 Top of gully before landscaping

This edge was graded back into the slope and turf edged before seeding. All the spoil that was generated while creating the footpath was moved and used for landscaping work and also seeded and spot-turfed.

 Top of gully after landscaping

The last section that we worked on was a short section of path incorporating a stone drain that led up to a section of bedrock.

 Working on the top section

Once again the spoil generated was used to landscape the path before turfing and seeding.

 Completed top section

The path gains height and joins seamlessly into a section of bedrock that is incorporated into the footpath.

Tied into the bedrock

With the footpath up to Boredale Hause completed we began preparing for the upcoming helicopter lifts.

 Loading the power barrow with pitching stone

Back in December 2015, during Storm Desmond, a large quantity of stone was washed down Glenridding Beck and had to be removed to prevent more flooding. So early in 2016 we took the opportunity to pick through the rock and store it for future path repairs.

 Bags full of rock ready to be flown

As suitable stone around Gowbarrow Fell is hard to find we're using some of the rock retrieved after the floods to repair a steep section of path on the Dockray side of Gowbarrow.

 Loading a power barrow with aggregate 

Through flatter, peaty, sections of the footpath we're using stone aggregate to build a more solid and sustainable path.

Filling a heli-bag with aggregate

The areas of path that we had previously worked on have been really successful. Further erosion to the path has been stopped and areas surrounding the footpath have now nicely revegetated. You can see how we previously worked with the aggregate on Gowbarrow by clicking on the link to this previous blog post... link.

Helicopter lifts and starting work at Hole in the Wall

With just a few days left to spare before the helicopter lifts, we managed to fill the last of the 325 heli-bags with stone that we need for this years upland path repairs. This gave us enough time to put out the warning signs and make sure we were fully prepared.

The first lift, over in Ullswater, was the larger of the two jobs. The bags were flown straight across Grisedale valley to the path leading up to Hole in the Wall. Although the weather conditions were tricky due to the constantly changing wind direction, we managed to get all 260 bags over to the work site in three days.

 Moving the stone to site

The next week we started work on the path. The first job was to unload just over half of the bags and move the stones a few metres down the path to exactly where the path would start.

Moving the rock into position

After a couple of days we had the bags emptied and the stone where we wanted it.

The emptied bags

With the bags emptied it was time to start building the path. We've recently been joined by a new team member, Jonny, who previously worked for the National Trust in North Yorkshire. Since he's never done stone pitching before, Pete gave him some one on one tuition for a couple of days to help bring him up to speed. After being taught the basics of what to do, it'll be just a matter of lots (and lots...) of practice and the rest of the team being on hand for when any help or advice is needed.

Jonny starting to get to grips with stone pitching

After a few days of working up at Hole in the Wall, it was time to get the rock moved for the path repairs on Stone Arthur. With perfect weather conditions we managed to get all 65 bags moved to position in less than five hours. We'll be starting the repair work on Stone Arthur late summer/early autumn time.

Moving the bags on Stone Arthur

Preparing for our upland path work

It's now the time of year when we start thinking about getting back up on the fells and resuming our upland path repair work. This means spending a few weeks filling bags with stone in preparation for them being flown to site by helicopter to the paths that need working on.

This year bag filling has proved slightly more challenging than usual as due to all the heavy snow we've struggled to get to our rock collection sites, and also finding any rock under the thick blanket of snow. You can see in the photo below just how bad it's been. In this instance we had hoped to get up and assess the path leading to Red Tarn in Ullswater to see exactly how many bags we'd need, but in the end this proved to be fruitless.

 

Heading up to Red Tarn

As Ullswater has suffered much worse with the snow than Grasmere we managed to fill a few bags on Helm Crag while waiting for some of the snow to melt elsewhere. These will be used for landscaping around the sub-soil path that we've been recently working on.

Bag Filling at Helm Crag

Another one of our jobs this year is repairing the path on Gowbarrow. This work will require building stone drains, culverts and resurfacing. The original path was worked on a couple of years ago using a digger to create a subsoil path, but in a few areas no decent material could be found on-site for surfacing it. This has lead to the path starting to deteriorate in patches. We therefore decided that we'd fly some gravel to site which we'll use to prevent it getting any worse. The gravel is locally sourced and compacts to a hard surface, it also doesn't wash clean so won't be too intrusive.

Filling bags for the Gowbarrow job

Thankfully we had the use of a mini-digger so it wasn't long before we had all the bags filled with gravel and ready to be flown. Now fingers crossed that the weather is a bit more onside during the helicopter lifts next week.

The bags filled and ready to be flown

Moving materials to site

After all our exertions filling bags with rock over the last few weeks, we were ready for the arrival of the helicopter to move them. Usually as soon as the helicopter is booked you can guarantee that it'll rain, the cloud will drop or the wind will really pick up or even a combination of these things. This time we were lucky, we were forecast a whole week of settled weather and there was hardly a cloud in the sky all week.

Our first helicopter lift involved moving fencing materials over to Stickle Ghyll. As we are due to replace the fencing around the plantation on the left hand side of the ghyll, and since the helicopter was available we thought we'd take advantage. All the materials were carefully bundled together and flown up and we also had a few 20kg bags of grass seed flown up for re-seeding bare areas around the path.

Preparing the fencing materials

The next lift took place in Easedale, flying the bags of rock that we had previously filled over to the path at Helm Crag. The drop site was a tricky one as it is fringed by trees which means an extra long sling had to be used so that the helicopter had plenty of clearance while placing the bags in position.  Using a longer sling makes it more difficult for the pilot to drop the bags as accurately, and also increases the likelihood of getting tangled up in the trees.

The lift went on well into the evening but we managed to move everything to site and given the awkwardness of the drop site the pilot was spot on with where he put the bags.

Moving rock at Helm Crag

Our final lift was at Aira Force, where we flew in bags of slate for a section of stone footpath that we'll be working on later in the year and also several bags of gravel for resurfacing works.

Once again although there's a lot of tree coverage in the area the lift went extremely well and the materials were all moved to site in just a few hours.

Preparing for the Helicopter lifts

Over the last couple of weeks we've been getting ready for the upcoming helicopter lifts. Our main footpath repair project this year is on Helm Crag where we'll replace a few sections of old pitching and also repair some areas of path that have started to erode away. We'll be reusing any rock that we can but to complete the job we worked out that we would need an additional 88 bags of stone to be flown to site by helicopter.

First we had to carry the empty heli-bags to our rock collection site. Although the bags may not appear like much in the photo below they're certainly not light. So it's a bit of a slog walking up to the collection site with plenty of "calf burn" on the steep sections.

Carrying the bags to the rock collection site

With (arguably) the easy bit done it was time to collect up some rock. Each rock is carefully selected and depending what we need it for (pitching, drains or landscaping) we'll gather different types of rock. All the rock is rolled downhill until there's enough rock gathered together to fill up a bag.

Collected rock ready to be bagged

With the rock all gathered together the next job is to fill the bag. The larger stones are rolled into the bottom of the bag and the smaller ones then rolled on top of them. We try and keep lifting to a minimum as the majority of rock that we use is too heavy to safely lift. Each bag when filled weighs just over 800 kg.

Filling the bags

Although 88 bags may sound like a lot, in previous years we have filled well in excess of 100 bags and have had much further walks to get to the rock collection sites. So this years bagging was relatively painless...except for one trapped finger!

With all the bags filled all we had left to do was put out our warning signs and set up a diversion. We put all the signs out a few days before the lifts to give people prior warning about potential delays and any diversions. If we can reduce the number of people in the area of the pick-up and drop sites it makes things much safer which in turn makes our job much easier. 

We're now all set for next weeks helicopter lifts. Our lifts are planned to take place Monday 21st May to Wednesday 23rd at Helm Crag, Aira Force and Stickle Ghyll.

Putting out the signs

Helicopter Lifts in Langdale Valley

It was a long week for the fell rangers last week. Our annual helicopter lift was booked in and 200 bags of stone each weighing approx 1 tonne were ready to be lifted to the paths that we are working on this summer.

The weather had been beautiful the week before (it actually felt like summer), in fact it was nice Monday and Tuesday last week, when bags for another footpath team where getting flown. Then Wednesday arrived. We were all ready, the signs had been put out (to inform walkers of possible delays) and our new shed was ready to be flown to it's new home for the next 6 months.

Signs all ready to go out

Unfortunately the weather gods didn’t read the script and after an eventful 7 bags were flown on Wednesday morning, the weather closed in.

As one member of the team said "it’s like the gates of hell" when the weather is bad in Great Langdale. For the next three days we sat and we waited, we were buffeted by high winds and drenched from heavy rainfall. There is only a certain amount of times you can play eye spy before you start going mad. We did however have our Area Ranger to keep us entertained, for those of you who know him, and I’m sure there are a lot in Ulverston, he does like a good chat. By Friday though, even he admitted that he didn’t have anything more to say.

The helicopter, ready and waiting

So as the week drew to an end it looked like we would be coming in on Saturday, not the best time to be flying bags around, as the paths are much busier at the weekends, but needs must.

We arrived at work on Saturday with much speculation about what the weather was going to do (it didn’t look good). Again we sat waiting. Then at about 10:30 AM blue sky, yes for the first time in 3 days blue sky. The pilot jumped out of his vehicle and said "I think this might be it lads". It was. After 3 days and two hours sat in the vehicle we were off. Mickleden was our destination we had 100 bags to fly to the Rosset Ghyll path.

Helicopter Lift in progress

The weather cleared and we had a hugely successful day flying all our bags, as well as 30 bags for another footpath team onto the summit of Pike of Blisco.

Collecting Rock for Footpath Repairs on Stickle Ghyll

Well it’s that time of year again when we need to collect rock for this years footpath repair projects. Traditionally the bulk of our footpath work takes place between March and November with each season normally commencing with the collection of rock to carry out the necessary work.

Although we use different methods for getting rock to the work site, including hand winches, petrol winches, power barrows and physically rolling the rock by hand, the majority of rock these days is moved by helicopter.

Of course before the helicopter can move the rock we need to fill the bags. This comes from a suitable site on the fell as near to the work site as possible and simply involves us selecting and ‘handballing’ the rock into the bags.



Filling helicopter bags with rock

For anybody whose interested in facts and figures, on average each rock we put into the bags will weigh about 100kg and each bag when full will weigh between 800 and 1000kg. We’ll each fill about 10 bags a day depending on how far we’ve got to walk to reach the rock collection site. On Stickle Ghyll we’ve filled 102 bags, which took 3 days, this included carrying all the empty bags to the site.

Lunch time



Job done!

Bag filling at this time of year does have its drawbacks, other than it being physically hard, the weather can change from one extreme to the other. This week we had a day of sunshine and summer-like temperatures followed by 2 days of rain with a maximum temperature of 5°C.

The worst weather we’ve experienced was blizzards with temperatures below zero with a wind chill nearing -20°C, we literally had to prise the rock from the frozen ground.  At times like this lunch lasts about 10 minutes!

Filling bags in -20 degrees Celsius



Filling bags in the snow