Winter Work

This week's countryside blog comes from the Upland Ranger team based in the South Lakes area. 

When the team are working in the Fells a question we often get asked is:
"Do you work up here all year round?"
The answer to this is that we don't and this blog is about what we might be doing when we are not tackling erosion in the Fells of the Lake District.

We do spend much of the year in the Mountains and during the months between the clocks going forward an hour and until they go back again we expect to spend nearly all of our working time up in the Fells. This period is sometimes referred to as our "Fell Season".
 

Upland Rangers in their natural habitat during the "Fell Season"
(Taking a break before starting working on Striding Edge)

Outside of this "Fell Season", due to the shorter days and weather conditions, it isn't practical or safe for the team to stay in the Fells and we move onto work in the lower level Countryside. We call this our "Winter Work" programme (although it does include parts of Autumn and Spring too).

In general the team will help with anything that our Ranger colleagues in the South Lakes ask. There is never a shortage of lower level countryside work and we can find ourselves in high demand (it is not unheard of for our Area Rangers to "fight" for our time).

The examples below, from this years "Winter Work" programme, give an idea of some of the types of work.

We often work with rock and some dry stone walling is a common activity. There are always plenty of wall gaps to repair and we sometimes do some slightly more formal work too.  

Building a Dry Stone Retaining wall for a raised bed at Wray Castle

Another recent task, also using stone, has been some Slate-edged pathway.

A section of Slate-edged path at Wray Castle in progress

A common task in recent years for our Woodland Ranger is building tree cages to protect young trees.  This year has been no exception. 

Tree Cage under construction
(A nice winter day & a Wetherlam backdrop)

We might repair or construct countryside furniture such as gates, stiles and benches.  

Installing a new Bench at Wray Castle
(Donated by a family with connections to Wray Castle)

The finished Bench

We might also work in other areas of the National Trust where help is needed. For example the recent floods didn't affect our South Lakes area as much other parts of Cumbria and we have provided some support in other areas.

Helping clear a flood damaged fence with volunteers near Ambleside

Each year we usually help the Steam Yacht Gondola team winch Gondola out of Coniston Water and set up the frame to cover her for Winter repairs.    

Steam Yacht Gondola winched out of the water

The work we get involved in can be very varied and the examples above are a small selection based on recent months. Our team could be called on to help with any work needed in order to look after the countryside.

At this time of year we don't completely neglect our upland work and weather permitting we try to fit in some maintenance days. We also have an upland work party with the Fix the Fells Volunteer "Lengthsmen" at least once a month.

A Work Party on Browney Gill with the Fix the Fells Volunteer Lengthsmen
(A fairly grim day, we've had a few of these recently)

We also need to think about preparations for the forthcoming Fell Season and usually need to consider rock for our projects. There is seldom sufficient rock close enough to the paths we are going to work on and we may need to fill "heli-bags" so rock can be lifted to site by helicopter. This needs to be done in the early months of the year so it is ready for when we return to the fells. Carrying the heli-bags up to rock collection sites is often quite a good warm up for the main event of actually filling them.

On route to fill "heli-bags" with Rocks
(Image from 2013, we haven't started rock collection this year yet)

A bonus at this time of year, due to the shorter days, is that the light can be quite striking especially early morning or late afternoon as the sun rises or sets. A couple of recent examples are:

Sunrise along Windermere as the team started work at Wray Castle

Late afteroon light looking along Coniston Water at the end of a working day

If you would like to know more about the daily work of the South Lakes Upland Ranger team they can be found on Twitter @NTLakesFells or for more about Fix the Fells follow this link: Fix the Fells 

Posted by: Nick, Upland Ranger

Crest is Best

This week's countryside blog comes from the Upland Ranger team based in the South Lakes area. 

"Crest is best" is a catchy little phrase that was introduced to the team recently by Richard Fox, Fix the Fells Ranger for the Lake District National Park Authority. This phrase nicely sums up the approach we would ideally like walkers to take on two upland paths that we have been working on over the last few years.

The projects in question are Swirral Edge and Striding Edge, two iconic routes to the summit of Helvellyn. These have been joint projects and we have worked alongside both the Western and Northern teams.

The main year for the work on Swirral Edge was 2013, although we have been back each subsequent year to continue the work.

 

April 2013: On route to fill heli-bags with rock for the Swirral Edge project

April 2013: Western team looking down at Swirral Edge
  Will the snow clear in time to start the project......

April 2013: The snow did clear in time - helicopter lifting rock to Swirral Edge
"Squirrel over Swirral"

On Striding Edge we started the actual project work in 2014. We continued the work this year and currently expect to return each year to carry out further work.

June 2013: Initial visit to Striding Edge to plan project for following year

April 2014: Waiting on Helvellyn & hoping the cloud will lift .........

.....it was worth the wait. Helicopter now moving rock to site for Striding Edge project

The key reason for the work we have been doing on these sites is erosion, the underlying problem that drives all of the work the upland teams do.  The erosion is damaging to the upland habitats and also unsightly. In addition material that gets washed down into the lakes and rivers below is damaging to those habitats.

The focus of our work has been some particularly bad areas of erosion that had developed on the sides of Swirral and Striding edges and also multiple routes on Helvellyn headwall at the end of Striding Edge.  These areas had been deteriorating with some becoming very unstable. In places these routes also seem more difficult or dangerous to negotiate than the actual arêtes.

Our challenge has been to stabilize the ground and prevent further erosion and hopefully give these upland areas a chance to recover. 

We have used several techniques which have included using additional rock to stabilize parts and to disguise side routes.  We also carried out work to make any preferred routes clearer and easier to follow to try to stop walkers straying into problem areas. 

June 2013: Working on side route erosion on Swirral Edge with the Western team

August 2014: Working on Helvellyn head wall with the Western team

June 2015: Working on Helvellyn head wall with the Northern team

Various other landscaping techniques have also been used to remove side route erosion along with specially mixed grass seed to help the vegetation recover and stop further erosion. 

BEFORE: Section of side route on Striding Edge with work in progress....

AFTER: Striding Edge side route section after re-profiling & turfing

In summary, we believe that “Crest is Best” for a number of reasons, including:
-  the crest is rock and can withstand the repeated footfall of many visitors without an erosion problem occurring
-  the erosion is both damaging to the upland habitat and the lakes and rivers below
-  the sides routes aren’t necessarily safer as they are unstable and, in our experience, some of these routes are more challenging/dangerous than following the arête
-  there are rare flora in places on these edges and on Helvellyn headwall; the more people spread out the greater the potential damage to these

Based on the team's experiences, if people want to enjoy walking Striding or Swirral edges we suggest choosing the day carefully.  They are not nice places to be on wet and/or windy days and, even though we know the edges quite well, we would save the challenge for another day.

These projects have become favourites for some of the team members, the locations can be very atmospheric. To conclude this blog here are a few favourite Striding Edge images:

 

If you would like to know more about the daily work of the South Lakes Upland Ranger team they can be found on Twitter @NTLakesFells or for more about Fix the Fells follow this link: Fix the Fells 

Posted by: Nick, Upland Ranger