There are several lovely paths from Heptonstall Road and from the village itself down to the Heptonstall "by-pass". Today Linda H and Stella worked on two of them.
First stop was at the bottom of the lower path on this map. It is much used, and a walker had reported a broken handrail and a loose step, both of which could be dangerous, especially after dark.
We put the step back and mortared it in place for extra fixing. Later in the afternoon Rich and Ken went up to repair the handrail.
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| Dodgy! |
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| Hopefully safe now |
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You couldn't rely on this.
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| But now you can! |
Then we went on to the the higher path on the map. Last week we started at the top and cleared it to about half-way down, where it gets very steep and had almost disappeared. Today we started at the bottom and cleared uphill on the steep section, starting with a fantastic set of steps up from the road. It looks like there may once have been stone steps at regular intervals all the way up. We uncovered quite a few slipped stones which still give useful footholds, and we widened and levelled the path in places to make it more negotiable. It is still a steep descent and I'd probably avoid it in wet weather, but the route is now obvious and is a lot easier than it was.
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| Choked steps up from the road |
Now revealed
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| The dwindling downhill path |
And now a clear route
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The remains of an old step appears...
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| ...and the path emerges |
Our work today was funded by Calder Valley Fell Runners. Thank you.
