Finishing off the top Section of path at Mickleden

Over the last couple of weeks we've been finishing off replacing the old and steep section of path at Mickleden, and landscaping the newly built path to help it blend in with it's surroundings.

With all the pitching now completed and the drains in place, we got on with roughing up the edges of the path with left over stone to make things look a bit more natural and also to encourage people not to wander off the path and create another erosion problem.

Moving a stone into position to help reduce corner cutting

Flat sections off the path were also made less attractive to walk on by digging holes and putting in smaller stones, that had been dug out while replacing the path. These stones were covered over with the soil that had been removed from the hole and the turf placed back on top, to create bumpy areas. This also helps to tidy up the area, rather than leaving a lot of left-over waste material around the worksite.

Once this was done we put down some grass seed and fertilizer. Though it's a little late in the season there's still a good chance that much of the seed will lay dormant over winter and sprout next spring. We'll come back and check it's progress in 2012 and if required put more seed down over the next couple of years.

The completed path, with freshly seeded areas

With the main section of path now finished we've moved on to some work lower down the path. We're mostly replacing sections where the steps are a bit too high, either because of the way the path was built, or because the ground has now eroded away since they were put in. Once we've finished these last few sections it should make for a far more pleasant walk down.

Replacing one of the short sections of path

Continuing the work at Mickleden

Since working with the National Trust volunteers on the Working Holiday, we've continued to replace the old section of pitching at Mickleden, making it more user-friendly by re-aligning the path, adding some bends and reducing the height of the steps. We've now almost fully completed this section and it's really starting to take shape.

A section of the almost finished path

You can see in the image below, with only a few metres left until the path is finished, how it now winds it's route through the landscape. The bank of soil that can be seen in the distance, between Pete and Leo, shows the original line of the path. By adding a series of bends, rather than taking a more direct route, the gradient is greatly reduced making it much easier to walk down.

 

The path, showing the new line and the old route

With the path being on such a steep slope, during heavy rain there is a lot of surface water that if left to it's own devices would run straight down the path and likely cause damage. To help address this problem, we arranged a day with the Fix the Fells volunteers to build a turf drain across the slope. This feeds the rainwater into a stone drain that is built into the path, which then sheds it out of the way.

Volunteers digging out a turf drain

Over the next week, we'll get the last few sections joined up, cover over much of the soil with turfs, and re-seed the whole area around the path and between the pitching. Providing that most of the seed germinates (we'll put some more down next spring/summer if it's required) by this time next year you'll hardly know that that the original route ever existed.

National Trust Working Holiday at Mickleden

Over the last week we've had a group of volunteers on a National Trust Working Holiday helping us out with some path repair at Mickleden. We had a group of ten, who were all stopping over in accommodation at the National Trust High Wray Basecamp, four miles outside of Ambleside.

On the first day we had to carry all the tools up to the work site, so we shared out mattocks, shovels and crowbars between everybody and headed up towards Rossett Ghyll where we would be working for the rest of the week.

Volunteers starting work on the first day

The group was split into pairs, and each pair given a section to work on, and with four staff at hand it meant we could give everybody plenty of help and guidance. The first day is always the hardest, as it takes a lot more digging to get the first course of pitching in the ground, and the stones you start with are always deep ones. By the end of the day everyone had made a good start and had their first few stones in place.
As the week went on everyone started to get the hang of things and began to get more of an eye for how the stones should fit together.

The path starting to take shape

Unfortunately, as is becoming usual for August in the Lake District, the weather didn't remain dry throughout the week and there were lots of heavy showers about. Even on Tuesday when the weather was particularly bad, everyone remained in good spirits and kept up the good work.

Working hard through rain, and shine

By the end of Thursday everybody was making good progress and several of the sections only needed another course, or two, to join up.

Not much further now...

On the final day we managed to get each of the sections joined and most of the landscaping completed too. Everybody had a really good time, although a few people had said it was much harder work than they'd imagined it would be. As with previous years the standard of work was fantastic.

A job well done!

Replacing old pitching at Mickleden

A couple of weeks ago we made the decision to have a break from our work on Stickle Ghyll and move our attentions onto the Mickleden project.

The section we are working on is an area that had been previously pitched in the 1980s, when the path was very badly eroded. As the path was originally repaired before the use of helicopters for moving stone to site, all the rock would have been gathered by hand from the fellside. Due to this limitation, the stone used wasn't always ideal, meaning the resulting path was steep, straight and with numerous large steps, making it uncomfortable to walk down. This has led to people stepping off the path and walking alongside it, which has once again started to cause problems with erosion. As it is a common complaint, especially with some of the older paths, that the steps are too high, we decided to address the issue.

Pete levering a stone into position

Although the path had massively improved the damage being caused to the fell, we decided that we could now fly in a few extra bags of stone and make it more user-friendly. There are often constraints that mean steps need to be a little higher than would be desired, such as the gradient of the path and any underlying bedrock or boulders. So to take some of the gradient out we have decided to re-align the path and put in some bends, meaning the steps don't have to be quite so high.

 New pitching in place, with old path to the right

Where possible we are reusing sections of the original path and mixing it in with the new rock. We have saved all the turf that has been dug off and this will be used to landscape the old path, meaning it should blend in with it's surroundings much more quickly than if it was just seeded.

Herdwick Sheep

Perhaps the main influence on the Lake District landscape is that which is exerted by upland hill farming. It's hard to imagine that without any human intervention by grazing with sheep or tree felling, many Lakeland valleys would be densely wooded up to the higher fells.

Cumbria has two native sheep breeds; the Rough Fell, which tends to be more common around the Shap fells to the east of the County and the Herdwick which is distributed over much of the central and western Fells.

Herdwick ram

Both native breeds are considered threatened by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) as over 75% of their population are found within a radius of less than 20 kilometres. This makes them extremely vulnerable to disease epidemics such as Foot and Mouth and Bluetongue. The most at risk of the two breeds is the Rough Fell which is listed as Category 2, Endangered.

Rough Fell ram

Although the Herwick is commonly seen around the central Lake District fells, it is listed as a Category 3 breed, which is classed as Vulnerable. The Herdwick is believed to have become established from a flock of 40 sheep that were washed ashore from a Norwegian ship that was wrecked off the Cumbrian coast in the tenth century, but nobody really knows for sure.

The Herdwick is an extremely hardy breed and can survive up on the high fells throughout the winter. Sheep owned by different farms remaining mostly separate due to their ability to become heafed (or hefted). Heafing is when individual sheep return to the area of fell where they were weaned as lambs. So if a lamb is brought up on a particular area of fell it will, by and large, remain in that area without the need for any fences.

When first born the lambs are very dark brown (almost black) in colour and as they mature firstly their faces start to become paler.

Herdwick lamb

The main body of the sheep also becomes lighter over time and at the age of around one year you have what is referred to as a hogget, or hog. 

Herdwick hogget

Eventually the hoggets lighten even more in colour to the characteristic grey fleece of the sheep that is most commonly encountered. The fleece these days is worth very little, though it is extremely hard-wearing so is excellent for making rugs and carpets and can also be blended with softer wool to make it more suitable for knitting.

Freshly sheared Herdwick ewes

Herdwick meat and woollen products are now much more widely available from farm shops and specialist retail outlets around Cumbria, so next time you see some why not give them a try?

All photos credited to K. Burrows

Work Continues at Stickle Ghyll

Over the last few weeks we have been steadily working our way higher up Stickle Ghyll. The section that we are working on has proved to be extremely challenging, as much of the path has become so badly eroded all the soil has now gone and it's right down to the bedrock in many areas. Where the bedrock isn't actually showing it is often just below the ground, right where you want to build the new path! This makes it extra difficult to repair the path as it usually means that the bedrock has to be chipped out with either a crowbar, or sledge hammer, and the path has to be adapted to fit around any underlying rock.

Typical section of bedrock

The photograph above shows one such section. You can see the bedrock to the right of the photograph and if you look more closely you can see that it stretches right across the path too. What you can't see is that it is also about 30cm (or less) below the current level of the path.

Because of this underlying rock the left hand side of the path had to be built up with large boulders, so that the path could be properly tightened between them, and the bedrock that can be seen on the opposite side of the path. Without these large stones, the path would have just been sticking out of the ground, perched on the rock below, and would have quickly fallen out. In addition to this, even more care than usual was put into the selection of each pitching stone. As not only had the path to be suitable to walk on, it also had to fit around the bedrock underneath the path.

Section of completed path



Now this section of path is finished you'd never know the full extent of the bedrock. If the path had been left unrepaired it is likely to have eroded right down to the underlying rock and people would have tried to find an alternative route around it. This would have made the erosion damage much worse, and also made any future repair work even more difficult.

Looking out for Mountain Ringlets

This time of the year is a wonderful time to see a wealth of different insect species while you're out enjoying your walk. A wide variety of dragonflies and damselflies inhabit the becks and tarns including the impressive Golden-ringed Dragonfly, the Large Red Damselfly and the Common Darter.

 Large Red Damselfly

On a good sunny day, if you wander into any taller vegetation a bit further off the beaten track, there's also a good chance of disturbing moths such as Yellow Shell and Green Carpet or possibly Map-winged Swift, whose larvae are closely associated with bracken roots.

 Map-winged Swift

While walking the fells it's also possible to see a good array of butterflies, including more common species such as the Red Admiral and Painted Lady at lower altitudes and as you gain a bit more height, less well known butterflies like the Small Heath (probably the most common butterfly on the higher fell) and the Mountain Ringlet.

 Small Heath butterfly

The Mountain Ringlet butterfly is a rare and incredibly under recorded species. It is found on mountainous slopes dominated by Mat-grass, at an altitude of between 500 and 750 metres, with the Lake District being to the far south of it's British distribution. The Mountain Ringlet tends to fly close to the ground and will often disappear out of sight as soon as the wind picks up, or the sun clouds over. The best period to see this butterfly is from mid-June until late-July.

Mountain Ringlet

Whenever we are out and about during June and July if we happen to stumble across one of these rare butterflies we always record it's whereabouts and forward on the information to the Cumbrian Biological Records Centre based at Tullie House in Carlisle, here's a link to their excellent website http://www.lakelandwildlife.co.uk/

This year, to try and gain a bit more knowledge about the Mountain Ringlet's abundance, distribution, and habitat preferences Butterfly Conservation are running a survey, and they could do with as much help as possible. If you fancy taking part in this years Mountain Ringlet Survey, have a look at the website of the Cumbria Branch of Butterfly Conservation or download the information sheets below:

Mountain Ringlet Information

Mountain Ringlet Surveyors Notes

Mountain Ringlet Record Form