Path Work - October (Glencoe)

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.

Before, looking uphill

Before, looking down hill

After, looking up hill

After, looking downhill

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.  

Before

After

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.

Before

During

During

After

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.

Path Work - September (Glencoe)

It will come as no surprise to anyone that September turned out to be yet another wet and windy month.  There were a few days where we got to experience some lovely, dry and sunny moments, but really we're just getting used to working ever so slightly damp and perhaps cold now.  However, this month was a little shorter for me as I took the last week off to go exploring on the west coast.

One definite positive for this month was that we finally got to start the process of working our way back down the Coire nan Lochan path.  It may just be 1 minute off your walking commute each way to work, but, believe me, that makes a whole load of difference.  The heavy rain we've been having had given us a chance to have another look at the sections of path we've already been working on and see if there was any additional work needed that might not have been obvious before.

Water bar

View through water bar

Ditching

Along with making sure we had completely packed all our previous work, what we could see from the rain lead to us adding a stone let just below the big section of bedrock, increasing the height of the hill side revetment beside the stone pitching work I had done earlier, and adding a few more double water bars.

Actually we added quite a few more double water bars, but this should hopefully reduce the amount of maintenance work needed on this path in the future.  

Once this section was completed we started work on the site just below it.  Here the path is particularly steep and this meant that a lot of the surfacing, coupled with the scree that was descending onto the path, was rolling down the path itself.  This wasn't helped by the water that also comes down this section.  Stones were difficult to find here so we had to work out the best options with the tools that we had.  We secured one step riser that had been placed during previous work but was now no longer functioning properly because of erosion on either side of it.  For this additional stones were added on either side to secure it in place and increase the width of the step reducing further movement of surfacing from above.  However, the main work here was adding in some stone pitching with a hill side revetment.  This not only held the path surfacing and scree in place more securely, but is also intended to help lift the walker up the path in a much more comfortable, less steep, and less slippery way.  Another step riser could probably be added here but we just couldn't find the stone to work with.  Unfortunately not uncommon with maintenance work.

Before

After

Before

After

The next section was actually where a small burn crosses the path.  Quite a bit of water comes down here and some work had been carried out previously to channel this across the path quickly.  However, the cobble coming down the burn had blocked part of this and it also looked like a stone had shifted on the raised section, both of which meant water was now travelling down the path instead of off it.  We decided to turn this into more of a water bar style feature, adding stones to raise the raised section further and to protect the bank above this that was beginning to get eroded.  Then liners were then added in a stepped fashion to help channel the water down the slope to the main burn.  These had to be placed directly onto bedrock and the stepped feature meant that the stone below to help hold those above in place even when the water flow is high and strong.  Some stones were also removed from this section which were no longer functioning as previously intended and were now just blocking the flow of water.  Larger stones were also added to the hill side of this section just to hold back some of the coddle that usually comes down with the water.

For our Friday work we went back to the section where we had been adding a number of step rises so that we could put the finishing touches.  These mainly included surfacing and landscaping, but we also added revetments to the downhill side of the path to hold it in place and to allow us to deepen the trench and reduce the angle of the path.  We filled the path with cobble that had come down the scree section and was blocking the path, and then dug quite a good burrow pit to get some lovely surfacing.  All landscaped to make the stone work appear like it had always been there and like the burrow pit had never been dug.

Before

After

After

Before

After

Then we moved further up the path to a section where people had to walk around the outside of a large stone, but where the path was also now beginning to erode away and completely disappear down the hill.  We had thought about adding a revetment to the downhill side of the path to hold it in place, but actually it seemed a lot more logical to just move the path to the upper side of the rock.  Whilst my colleague added some stone pitching below this I removed the bank of the upper side, working down until I reached a smooth and level line for the path to be at.  Any spoil and stones not used on the path itself were then used as blockers on the line the path used to take.  Landscaping was then added both to the blocked section (more is actually needed here and will be finished in October) and to the undercut bank to help strengthen this in the long run, stopping it from collapsing onto the new path line.

I also got the opportunity to do a little bit of work with the contractors I'm currently with at Steall Gorge.  Here a pretty large rock had fallen onto the path, blocking it, and we needed to move it off.  Rolling it off the path completely wasn't really a possibility, so we dug out a section of the bank beside the path and moved it there to act as quite a large blocker / revetment.  More, smaller stones were then added to finish the revetment completely and a step added to make moving through this section a lot more easy.  Surfacing was added to the path to make everything a lot smoother and the usual landscaping added to help stabilise the soil around the stones and make the appearance of work having been done less obvious.

Further down this path was a section where the path was eroding away on the lower side, collapsing into the burn, not helped by the fact that the burn can rise quite high and undercut this section.  For this section we needed to build a revetment which was more like a drystone wall.  I didn't do any of the building in this case, but instead my role was to provide the material needed to do the work, including coddle, soil, and gravel to act as fillers for the wall.  I also cut away at the bank of the hill side of the path to help move the path a little further away from the edge, helping to move walkers off the outer edge helping to reduce the amount of erosion there.

So it may have been a short but wet month for me, but it was still a pretty productive one and we did get some beautiful days (as the picture above shows).  And, as usual, the wildlife didn't disappoint with birds singing even in the worst weather, deer almost always on show, and getting to see these amazing cobwebs in the early, cold, damp mornings. 

The even changing scenery which this ever changing weather brought was also pretty spectacular!