October is the last month in which I carried out maintenance work in Scotland for 2019 as I'm travelling to the other side of the world for 4.5 months (of which the preparation for is !y excuse for the total lack of blog posts over the last few weeks). We were supposed to spend most of this month on the Lost Valley (Coire Gabhail), but, as with most of this year, the weather was not on our side and we spend a little more time on Coire nan Lochan than was originally thought.
The start of October saw us finishing off work we had started in September. Including adding some more steps rises......
.......and finishing off the landscaping and surfacing on the path I had directed further into the hillside as the path was disappearing down the hillside. This included landscaping the last obvious part of the old path line to ensure walkers only used the new path.
There was also a section with an unintended junction where climbers take a path off the main route to get to the near by rock face. The junction was causing that part of the path to erode, so we added a couple of steps and some stone work into the path to help hold it and surfacing into place.
The plan was then to do some work on Lost Valley whilst there was three of us to do the winching, but the weather was not on our side and the sheer amount of rain raised the burn too high for us to cross safely with all the tools. So we headed back to Coire nan Lochan and worked on a lower section of the path where erosion was undercutting some of the steps put in during previous work. Whilst my colleagues worked directly on the fallen steps, I added a couple of rows of step rises and a little bit of revetments to help reduce future erosion which might produce further undercutting.
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We also started work on a section further down the path which we had planned to keep as our end of week job. However, the continued bad weather meant we ended up working a lot more in it as we were kept off the Lost Valley. In this section the existing water bar needed to be turned into a double water bar to prevent the further loss of path surfacing that was disappearing down the bar, and some stone pitching to help deroughen the path and raise the path in a much more consistent manner making it easier to walk on. Stones were particularly difficult to find in this area, which meant this work required all of our best jigsaw skills to make it work.
I also added another step where erosion below a step riser had increased the depth of the step, making it uncomfortable to use. This had led to people walking around this step and causing erosion on slope side of the path. The angle and bedrock meant that I needed to use an interesting, triangular shaped stone to fit into the space. Once the step was finished, the erosion section was landscaped to ensure that walkers line of sight, and therefore direction of walking, stayed on the path.
Then the weather actually came on our side for a couple of weeks (it still rained pretty much everyday, just not enough to prevent us getting to the site) and we were able to get a few days on the Lost Valley. We had been asked to work on a scree section where the path disappears into an area of bed rock and a lot of loose rocks which are difficult to walk on. Most of the days were spent winching heavy stones across as these were needed for the type of work this section required. This is safer tondo with three people, and then the stone work could be put into place with just only two in the team. Winching is definitely a lot easier and quicker when there is three of you.
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Once we had winched over all all the stones we felt we needed, but before we started the work they were intended for, we did some work on the lower section just as the path disappears into the scree. I added two steps to the start of the scree section and then built a revetment on the slope side of the path to try and prevent anymore of it from sliding down the slope and to define the line of the path. This normally requires finding the largest stones we could to bury into the scree, using the weight of the stones themselves to hold them into place as the surrounding ground wasn't stable enough on its own. However, as it was difficult to find a number of large stones here the revetment had to be made up of multiple smaller stones placed vertically against each other and then sandwiched between larger stones, using the combined weights to hold them in place. Using the revetment, the path was curved towards the hill side with the idea that it would snake back a little more before hitting the first section bedrock. Once on the bedrock no path line was needed until the next scree section. Another step was added to the start of the bend and a large anchor stone placed on the right to hold the step in place.
This was as far as we got in this section before the weather, this time quite a lot of snow, forced us back to Coire nan Lochan. Unfortunately that has meant I didn't get to finish this part of the path and it's always a shame to have to leave some work incomplete.
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The last work that I did for the year was on a section of the path where the path's steepness and the erosion caused by path users and water was causing the surfacing of the path to disappear forming a gully. To fix this a number of rows of stone pitching was needing to be added, along with a small revetment to reduce any further erosion and produce an easier walk up the gradient. The stones here were more abundant, but only just and the interesting shapes definitely made for more head scratching decisions. Getting it all landscaped and packed was very satisfying and I was happy to end the year with this piece of work.
Perhaps what was the most amazing part of this year predictably happened on the last day. As we were walking back down Coire nan Lochan at the end of the day we were hit by a very strong distinctive smell. Then, as we came round a corner in the path we saw, about 20m away on our right, a mixed group of deer, including stags, hinds, and this year's fawns. Some of them watched us, but for the most part they carried on as if we weren't around. We even got to see one of the fawns suckle. An absolutely amazing way to end the year.
