Wind and Snow

It may be Easter but spring hasn't yet arrived, in fact recent heavy snowfall and strong winds have made for 'interesting' conditions in parts of the Lakes recently; this is what Luke encountered on his 'commute' to work...

It took a little longer to get to and from work at the weekend. I crept along the road with one eye looking ahead, and the other on the amazing snow formations built up against the hedge.

Crazy shapes created by the strong winds and light snow, can you see the face?!

Blowing snow is the Meteorological term for any loose snow lifted from the ground surface and suspended by strong winds to a height of 2 m (6 ft.) or more above the surface.

Drifting snow is only raised from the ground surface by the wind to a height of less than 2 m (6 ft.) creeping, rolling and bouncing above the surface.

The snow which is being blown about may deposit as snowdrifts.

Snow tsunami.

The two photographs below were taken at the same spot along the hedge. One on the way home in the evening and the other in the morning the next day when the sun was coming up.

Not so droopy...

Droopy!

The view opened up as we drove from Grizedale visitors centre to Moor Top. The definition of the dune-like landscape was enhanced by the shadows cast from the rising sun.

Grizedale Moor Top.

Happy (chilly) Easter!

post and photos by Luke, Upland Footpath ranger

Ranger Recovery Services




Final few feet to the top, Hawkshead Hill

As you may have notice, this week there was a just little bit of precipitation! Wednesday morning bought about five inches of snow to Coniston and the surrounding area, and with it came the adventures of trying to get up even the smallest of slopes without a four wheel drive.

Even the rangers made a tactical retreat at lunch time, but not before we got involved in the recovery business for a bit.

The  picture above is a guy that very nearly made it. He had got to within ten foot of the top of Hawkshead hill, and no further.  We did get him to the top; all he had to do then was get down the other side!  

These ones are of one of the rangers, Sam, towing one of our holiday cottage visitors out of the Claife Estate woods.


Recovery agent, Mr Sam Stalker

Out of the woods at Trees holiday cottage, Claife

Although it did cause mayhem, it was rather pretty and it just goes to prove that as a ranger your never a hundred percent sure what the day will bring.

Sunset from High Cross

Massive goalposts!

What have massive goalposts got to do with woodlands I hear you ask.......

In the South Lakes woodland we are often moving large loads of timber around which means large machines, either our forwarder working in the woods or timber wagons collecting timber and taking it to sawmills around the country. Where extraction routes pass under power lines we use goalposts to warn drivers so they don't crash into powerlines with their timber cranes and black out large parts of the Lake District!

Craig cutting a pipe.

In this case we had to use large concrete pipes to hold the uprights as we couldn't dig holes because of bedrock.

1-0 to the rangers, Goalposts finished.

The heavy snow a couple of weeks ago brought down a lot of branches mostly from oak trees which meant that the whole ranger (and footpath) team split up to clear up what we could from roads and footpaths, even with all that manpopwer it still took 2 full days and the forestry team are still dealing with loads of braches stuck or hanging up trees.

Damage to an oak on the shore of Windermere.

With all the melting snow becks have been very full and in some cases have flooded.  One of our farm tenants asked if we could do something to stop his fields flooding and getting covered with gravel from the beck.

 

Sycamore tree diverting the beck across the field.

An afternoon spent with a chainsaw and mini digger solved the problem (we hope!)  We cut one of the offending limbs back which allowed some gentle digging to deepen the beck, the material we dug out was then used to create a bank to stop the flooding across the field.

Digging out the beck.

 

Work finished hopefully the beck will stay in its channel.

 

Richard Tanner

Ranger - Woodland

Hit by snow but avoiding bullets!

So far this winter, apart from one really bad Friday, we’ve not had too much heavy snow to contend with. That’s generally good news – it might look nice but it makes doing any practical work difficult. So we were pleased that the most of one of our snowfalls had melted off for a recent hedgelaying day out with the South Lakes Conservation Group. It was still a bit chilly for one of the group’s scotty dog Hamish though, who spent most of the day perched on a rucksack to keep his little paws warm.

Hamish admires the view from his rucksack seat

We weren’t so lucky with the snow when we came to look at the work for the project at Blea Moss (see the 25^th January entry in this blog) with the upland footpath team. A heavy fall had covered the ground meaning we found ourselves in the slightly surreal position of looking at path work when we couldn’t see the path! Luckily, the path team had written the specification for the job in better - less snowy - weather so we were able to get a good idea of what needs doing.



Footpath workers in the snow, a Cumbrian version of gorillas in the mist?



Blea Tarn looking very wintery indeed

Perhaps the most unexpected part of this job is the target shelter. Erected in the second world war, this is a large rectangular metal barrier on the hillside that was used for target practice by troops. Seems reasonable until you realise that someone had the job of hiding behind it and then popping out to see how accurate the shots had been, before radioing the results back to the trainees. It’s a historical oddity and becoming an attraction in itself, but the feet of all the people heading over to look at it are eroding the hillside.

The target shelter, looking remarkeably robust after all these years

This summer though we’ll be beavering away with volunteer groups to put a proper path in to the shelter, along with some information. If you’re up the Little Langdale valley, keep a look out for us – we’re just glad the target isn’t in use anymore!


post and photos  Rob

Winter Wall Gaps

The Upland Footpath Team are mostly working in the lower parts of the countryside of the South Lakes at this time of year. The weather and the shorter daylight hours mean that it is not possible (or safe) to spend all of our time working on upland footpaths in the fells.

Repairing gaps in dry stone walls usually forms a large part of our winter work. We have lots of woodlands with dry stone walls as boundaries and gaps appear for various reasons, such as trees or branches falling on them. It is important to maintain these walls to keep the sheep and cattle in adjacent fields out as they can be damaging to the woodland.

One of the wall gaps, re-building has commenced....

Nearly finished... Sarah & Luke finishing off the wall

It is not all wall gaps and there is plenty of variety to our winter work, the team go wherever their help is requested.  Examples include hedgelaying with a volunteer group, installing field gates, emptying cattle grids and drainage work on lower level paths.

Hedgelaying with volunteers near Coniston this week

The upland paths still get attention in the winter and we try to do some maintenance at least once a week.  This usually means walking a path route and emptying the drains, clearing the 'pitched' stone path surfaces and generally checking the condition of the path. This is known as a "drain run".
We timed a drain run up Dollywaggon Pike perfectly last week as we escaped misty weather in the lower valleys and enjoyed some of the nicest weather so far in 2013.

"Views" at Tarn Hows, near Coniston

Slightly better views near the summit of Dollywaggon Pike

The weather recently has been quite variable and at the start of this week it snowed.
The surrounding countryside was very picturesque but it does make our work more difficult.

Tarn Hows in the snow this week

Post by Nick, Upland Footpath Ranger

Snow and bird hotels

Just outside the office door - Coniston Water

 Let it snow......

First challenge of the week….try to get to work! Like a lot of the country, the South Lakes was blanketed with the first snow of winter.