Finishing the path at Esk Hause

After several weeks working up at Esk Hause we've now finished the first part of the project. The first section of path has now been replaced with it's improved drainage, and we've also completed the landscaping work.

Landscaping is an essential part of the job and is key to getting the path to blend back into it's surroundings. You can see in the photograph below how it looked straight after building the new path and prior to any landscaping.

Lower section before landscaping

While building the path, large amounts of rubble are generated, and because we were replacing an old path we also had quite a lot of surplus rock to deal with.

In the photograph below, some of the larger bits of rock have been dug into the edge of the path to discourage people walking there, and also to help the path look a little more natural.

Excess rock, and larger bits of rubble have been gathered together and covered over with the soil that was generated while building the path.

Lower section after landscaping

The next photograph shows another section of path before any landscaping work. Again, notice the piles of spoil, rubble and surplus rock.

Upper section before landscaping

After landscaping, the spoil has been shaped to make it look more natural, it has also been seeded to help stabilize things and start the process of turning the waste back into fell side.

Turfs that were removed while building the path had been kept to one side and have now been used in places along the edge of the path to help stop soil falling back onto the path.

Upper section after landscaping

It will still take a little time for the vegetation to completely recover, especially somewhere as inhospitable as Esk Hause. But if you use your imagination while looking at the "after" photographs and imagine the soil areas greened over, you can see the effect that we're trying to achieve. We'll no doubt be carrying some more grass seed up to site in future years to give it more of a helping hand, and we'll post some more pictures later on to show how it's developing.

Rock Art in Great Langdale and Grasmere

No one likes shifting large rocks about more than us Fell Rangers, but that hasn't always been the case...

The National Trust owns and manages several important prehistoric sites in the Lake District. Castlerigg stone circle is probably the most famous. Situated just outside Keswick, Castlerigg is thought to be one of the earliest stone circles dating back to the late Neolithic around 3200BC.

Castlerigg Stone Circle

To the north of Penrith is Cumbria's largest stone circle, Long Meg and her Daughters. On the tallest standing stone is some impressive art-work (known as rock art) consisting of carved spirals and concentric rings. This site is privately owned but easily accessible to the general public.

 

Rock Art on Long Meg

There are known to have been in excess of 75 prehistoric stone circles in Cumbria although several have now been destroyed because of religious beliefs or/and used for building materials. It was believed that a circle was also present in Grasmere but it's exact location is unknown.

Recently one of our keen eyed rangers discovered some new rock art on a rock outcrop just outside the grounds of Allan Bank.

Rock Art at Allan Bank

These designs are known as "cup marks" and are the simplest form of rock art that can be commonly found. Maybe not as impressive as the spirals of Long Meg but nonetheless an important part of our cultural heritage.

 Close-up of the Cup Marks

Over in Great Langdale there are more fine examples of rock art. Copt Howe, also known as the Langdale Boulder is situated just outside Chapel Stile and has a variety of different motifs including both cup marks and concentric circles. It's been suggested that thousands of years ago it was used as a way marker to the Langdale "Axe Factories" on the Langdale Pikes, where stone axe heads were once crafted on an industrial scale.

These axes were of enormous value and were traded right across the country and Langdale axes have even been discovered in central Europe. It is thought by some that one of the uses of the stone circle at Castlerigg may have been for the trading of these axe heads.

In more recent years Copt Howe has become a place of pilgrimage for climbers and boulderers wanting to hone their climbing abilities.

Copt Howe

Another piece of rock art can be found in a small wooded area behind the National Trust campsite in Langdale. Although the views are now hindered somewhat by the trees, this boulder would have once afforded fantastic views towards the the Langdale Pikes once again pointing to the importance of the axe factories in these days gone by.

Boulder behind the campsite

All these sites are well worth a visit and only a few minutes walk from the road. Next time you're in the area why not pay them a visit and stand in the footsteps of prehistoric man?

Repairing the path up to the Esk Hause shelter

Over the last couple of weeks we've started work on this years upland path repairs, with our first job being a section of path leading up to the stone shelter at Esk Hause. It's on the far edge of our "patch" and getting there is a bit of a trek. It generally takes us over an hour to walk to site each day before we even start our work.

The path that we're repairing had previously been worked on over 20 years ago. When this original path was built all the stone was collected by hand from the fell-side, this meant that the selection of rock was fairly limited. Because of this, smaller stone had to be used, the path had to be narrow and there was little landscaping carried out to help encourage people to stay on the path. All this has led to people wandering off the path and causing erosion problems. You can see in the photograph below that this has also produced an increased amount of rubble, which again leads to people not using the path.

Old pitching

It was therefore decided that extra stone would be flown to site by helicopter so that we could widen the path and improve upon the landscaping. As there is now a lack of suitable rock in the nearby area, without the use of a helicopter it's unlikely that we could have ever made these improvements. As part of our work extra drains are also being added to help shed water and to catch any surplus rubble.

Starting to replace the path

By using some of the original stone plus the stone that was flown in, after just a few weeks of work the path is now really taking shape. There's still a lot of of landscaping to do once the footpath is completed but we're progressing along nicely.

New section of path

Being over 2000 feet high we tend to get a real variety of weather. Usually at this time of year the weather consists of strong winds, low cloud and rain (or a combination of them all) and we don't often get to see the sun for long! Even though Esk Hause tends to get it's fair share of bad weather we were still surprised by a recent reminder that winter wasn't quite over. As we approached the work site on the 23rd May we were greeted by a fresh covering of snow. Much of this melted off over the course of the day but there were several heavy hail showers throughout, and the temperature remained low.

 

Unseasonal snow

Footpath repair video

Check out this great new video that was filmed last summer while we were working up on Helm Crag. It nicely explains how and why we do our upland path work.

Repairing the bank on Lake Windermere

As part of United Utilities work on preventing flooding in Bowness-on-Windermere  a new pipeline has been put in place that runs through part of Cockshott Point and out into the lake. In order to do this a section of stone revetment, that helps protect the bank, had to be removed so it was our job to reinstate it.

Before starting work

To make sure everything stays in place we decided to bring in some large "keystones" to create the bottom course. These will help keep the rest of the revetment secure in the event of the lake rising and falling and potentially undermining the bank.

Moving the keystones down the bank

As the water level can rise rapidly after melting snow or heavy rain it was essential that we got these keystones in quickly. To help speed up the process we bought in a mini-digger to dig out the initial trench, move soil around and help shift some of the larger keystones.

Digging the trench

It wasn't too long until we had the line of keystones in place.

Putting in the keystones

With this done the next job was to get our levels right. With four people all working at slightly different speeds across a large section it's quite easy to wander off line a bit. So we set up string lines to keep everything even.

Getting the levels right

The revetment is built up in the same fashion as a drystone wall where a series of courses are created and each stone overlaps that underneath it. In just a few days we were starting to make good progress up the bank.

Making progress

After another day, or so, we reached the top of the bank. To finish the top course we used some good, deep, stones and tightened them to the courses in front.

 

Getting higher up the bank

With all the stonework in the ground it was just a matter of filling in the gaps with soil and seeding over the area to prevent the soil washing out.

 Filling in the gaps

Update: A photo of the work two and a half years later, taken early October 2015...

After some "bedding in" time

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

Sub-soiling on the Helm Crag path

Last year we started work on a section of footpath on Helm Crag using a technique known as sub-soiling. We were helped originally by a group of volunteers on a National Trust Working Holiday and we recently re-visited it with a few of the Fix the Fells volunteers.

The weather was at times bitterly cold and there was continual flurries of snow, but when you've got your head down working it doesn't take too long to warm up.

The fence in the photograph below shows where we finished last year. The plan was to continue the path and put in another bend. Zig-zagging the path like this reduces the gradient and this in turn helps to stabilize the path.

Starting where we finished off last year

The idea is to dig off the top layer of soil until the harder (sub-soil) layer is found. This hard layer is removed, the soft upper layer is put into the hole and the sub-soil is placed back on top of it. The soil layers are basically being inverted.

It wasn't too long until the turfs were removed from the new section of path and the soil beneath them had been dug off.

Digging off the path

The next photograph shows the path with a drainage channel to the left. You can see now how the path is starting to develop. The soft material has been put back in and has been topped with broken rock and the sub-soil, which is the red-coloured material. This red soil compacts down really well and makes an excellent surface.

Topping the surface

By the end of the second day we had completed another section of path and turf lined the drainage channel. We've still got a little bit further to go until we've completely finished this section, so we'll crack on with it again later this year.

The finished section of path