Renewing England's High Footpaths
Climbing New Tracks on Scafell Pike, England’s Highest Mountain
Jun 28, 2008
This has accelerated, in recent years, as a result of the huge numbers of people who accept the Three Peaks Challenge, and try to climb the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales in a single day.
Scafell Pike, the Lower Track
The Scafell Pike ascent usually begins at the National Trust car park at Wasdale Head. It follows a rough track past the Brackenclose mountaineers’ hut and up the slope alongside a rushing river. Crossing a tributary, it then climbs more steeply up a long gradient known as Brown Tongue.
In the past, the route followed the crest of the slope, which became extremely eroded, to such an extent that, in 1988, the National Trust began a process of repair and renewal. With assistance from soldiers of the British Army, including Himalayan-born members of the Ghurkha Regiment, the eroded areas were grassed over and re-seeded. Large rocks were ferried by wire cable from other parts of Scafell, and a virtual staircase constructed, parallel to the previous track.
The new trail was officially opened in the early 1990s and now runs for several hundred steep feet up to a large, shallow depression in the mountainside, known as Hollow Stones. The line of the original track is obvious from the incongruous colouring of its vegetation.
The Upper Reaches
From Hollow Stones, the track swings left toward the ridge between Scafell Pike and Lingmell. Here, the natural erosion by water meant that the surface did not lend itself to a similar method of repair, so a heavy earth-moving vehicle was lifted in by helicopter, and used to dig a channel that could be built into a sturdy rubble track.
The final few hundred feet to the summit climb over bare rock, which is hard enough to withstand the continual wear and tear of hundreds of thousands of feet each year.
The Summit
The view from the summit is perhaps not the very best in the Lake District, but it is extensive, reaching from the Pennines in the east to the Irish Sea in the west. It takes in, on a clear day, the Isle of Man and the Scottish Galloway hills. And in the foreground are the valleys of Wasdale, Eskdale and Borrowdale, and the high peaks of Pillar, Great Gable, Skiddaw, Helvellyn and many more.
Future Repairs
Separating Scafell Pike from its neighbour, Scafell, England's second highest peak, is the deep saddle of Mickledore. The path from Hollow Stones to Mickledore, an alternative route to the summit, has become seriously eroded. It is due to be repaired during the next three years, as part of a ‘Fix the Fells’ project, organised by the National Trust, Natural England and the Lake District National Park Authority.
With a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £160 000, rocks will be brought here by helicopter from distant sites where their removal will have minimal environmental consequences. The use of helicopters frees up the trail builders to concentrate on the construction work, and though costing around £400 per hour, is less expensive over the time scale of the entire job.
The cost of mountain footpath repair works out at approximately £1000 per metre, but is necessary if the growing numbers of visitors to the Lake District are to continue to enjoy climbing the highest mountains in safety.
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