Footpaths and tools: 30-10-2018

A close to home day for the NCVs.

This week's blog has been written by NCV Osian.

The NCVs stayed in Pately Bridge this week. Resident expert tool sharpeners and equipment maintainers, Jan and Phil were joined by a willing apprentice in the form of Will. So, there would be three working hard around the wood burner in the barn while the remaining volunteers chomped at the bit to get out into the cold wet weather to carry out a mish mash of tasks around Pateley Bridge’s footpaths.

Jan the man reigned supreme....

...over minion Will.

But then a man who can design and knock up a

 bespoke rack for hand axes deserves to be Kin Pin.

First up was a small quick task to clear some gorse from a footpath high above Pateley Bridge near the old quarries. Graham had the gauntlet thrown at him, literally, to start a fire suitable to burn wet gorse. He fulfilled this task admirably and threw in an extra feature; enough smoke to almost overcome the remaining volunteers cutting gorse 30 yards away. During the gorse removal a long lost set of stone steps were uncovered.

By NCV standards a minuscule affair.

The hidden steps start to make an appearance.

The NCVs soon had everything under control.

After a tea break augmented with Audrey’s flapjack (Thank you Audrey!), the team moved on to overgrowth clearance and path maintenance on the footpath above Quarry lane.

Tom was glad to escape the passive smoking 

environment he had experienced lower down.

 Lunchtime was spent enjoying the views, courtesy of improved weather,

 of Nidderdale and confirming it is the Knaresborough castle 

Ravens with the Yorkshire accent

 (via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf42vpQMJ9o). 

 After lunch, the roving footpath team got back into the cars to squeeze through the narrow gap between stone walls and precipitous drop to find and repair a step on a semi-mythical footpath somewhere on the top Wath road. 

Question, how many NCVs does it take to replace one footpath step? See photo below for answer.

Just mind that lump hammer Graham - 

Osian needs those fingers for tomorrow.

The team were very proud of what they achieved with the limited materials available.

With the step repaired, the roving NCVs headed for base to check on the tool maintainers who had done an excellent job, as always, of cleaning / sharpening / lubricating assorted tools. Will even manged a spot of cleaning and drain clearance.