Finishing off the Elterwater path

Our other job last week was to finish off the path on Elterwater Common that we'd started back in March with rock collection. We'd got as far as putting all the pitching and drains in and replacing one of the bridges, but we still had another two more bridges to complete, as well as all the gravelling and landscaping.

Finishing off bridge Number Two

It took us around a day to replace two bridges and get the path ready for the gravelling, which left us one more day to put down all the gravel, landscape the path (to help it blend in better with it's surroundings) and tidy up.
By the end of the first morning we'd shovelled out, and put down 4.5 tonnes of gravel (which we collected from the nearby Elterwater quarry), we used our petrol power barrows to get the gravel to the less accessible areas of the path. This left us with an afternoon to re-seed around the path and make the area look more presentable.

 

Shovelling the gravel 

By the end of the day the path was looking great and given a few more weeks of decent weather for the grass to grow it should look even better still!

A few more photos of our work on the Elterwater Path can be seen by clicking here: TwitPic

Bridge Building on the Elterwater Path Project

Everybody that goes walking will have had to deal at some point with the problem of crossing water, be it a tiny trickle or a raging torrent, many times this involves a leap-of-faith or very nimble footwork, more often than not  resulting in wet feet.

Many of the paths we repair also include techniques for crossing water, and for the Elterwater path project this has involved constructing three wooden bridges.

Now although path work in general is not an exact science bridge building requires an element of precision. The process can be broken down into three stages:

Stage 1: Construction of solid bridge foundations in this case revetments along either side of the river.

Stone revetment for bridge

Stage 2: Installation of the bridge beams ensuring that they are horizontal, this requires the use of a spirit level, a simple but often under rated piece of equipment. This stage sounds simple but requires a lot of ‘messing about’ to get everything level, square and solid so that it doesn’t rock about when you stand on it or turn into a slide when wet.

Levelling bridge beams

Stage 3: Attaching of the bridge treads ensuring that there is a small gap between each one to ensure that water can drain off easily.

The final touches

 Certain bridges would include hand rails, but that’s a story for another time.

Collecting Rock for the Elterwater Common Path

Over the last few days we have mostly been involved in some low level footpath repair work on Elterwater Common. The path in need of our attention had some remedial work done a few years ago that had slowed down the rate of erosion but since then the path has begun to deteriorate again. It was therefore decided that we should give the path a full overhaul which will involve a slight re-routing, the addition of some stone pitched sections, improvements in drainage, and replacing the old bridges.

Once a specification had been written detailing exactly what work would be required we had the problem of  sourcing some rock for the repairs. As there was no available rock nearby, we were forced to look a little further afield. The best site with an abundance of suitable stone was at Raise Beck a mile or so outside of Grasmere.

Over at Raise Beck, our first job was to gather the rock into small piles that would be accessible with our petrol driven power barrow.

 Nic starts gathering stone

Next the power barrow had to be manouvered to the rock piles and the stone put into it. Some of the larger pitching stones were too heavy to be lifted in so had to be rolled on top of another rock to gain enough height from where they could be rolled into the barrow, which is generally harder than you’d imagine.

  Loading up the power barrow

To get the rock from the barrow into our trailer we had to drive the barrow up a set of ramps into the trailer, from where the rock could be removed. After five or six barrow loads we were ready to transport it across to Elterwater.

  Filling the trailer

Once at the Elterwater site, the trailer could be unloaded and the stone moved to where it was needed on the path.

 Rolling the rock to site 

This involved rolling the rock (carefully) out of the trailer and then moving it down the path to the sections where work is being carried out. Each trailer load, from gathering to moving the rock to it’s final resting place took around two and a half hours, with about one and a half tonnes of rock in each load. So now we can crack on with the job of  repairing the path.