This week we started working at Scott Gate Ash Quarry, way up the hill behind Pateley Bridge, a task that will take three or four weeks. The footpath leading upwards from Sparrowhawk Farm - a scene of former work - is in poor condition and we are the group to do something about it.
Twelve hardy volunteers met in poor weather with our leader, Paul, North Yorkshire ranger, Catherine, and Shona, one of her colleagues from County Hall who was allowed out for the day. We walked up the hill to the start of the path. This takes more energy than you might think.
Breaking news from the BBC: NCVs perplexed as their leader disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving only his boots.
Various miniteams worked on:-
- discovering the old stone path under the mud
- lopping brambles and wild roses to clear the path edges
- digging a new drainage channel alongside the path
- fixing boarding to define new steps
Work gets under way at the top of the hillside.
Sites for the steps are levelled and brambles are cut back.
The gang start to use their carpentry skills and turn planks of wood into steps.
No two steps are the same shape. Each one is bespoke.
These two were made a little further up the hill.
Fortunately the rain stopped while we had our lunch break and it was good to see Ruth who had climbed up to meet us after a few weeks of enforced absence.
Lunch outside the nearby barn -
everyone ignores the pleading looks from the equine neighbours.
(A second lunch site was established at the bottom of the hill for readers wondering where the extra NCVs were.)
More of the same work was done after lunch.
Having dug a superb culvert the girls decided that it needed
to be 3 feet further over - actually it was just an excuse to play
in the mud a bit longer.
An impressive bit of excavation.
The 'top of the hill' gang proudly stand by their newly made steps.
All that is needed now is the gravel.
The story will continue next week. Will it be as muddy?
Angela
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