Path erosion on Bla Bheinn
There will be an open public meeting at the Broadford Hotel on Skye, on Wednesday 12th March from 7pm with a short presentation at 7.30. The JMT would like to hear from as many people as possible and it will also be a chance to find out about the plans for Bla Bheinn and other nearby hills.
Chris Goodman, the JMT’s Footpath Project Officer says, “The path work will be carried out to protect the hill environment, the spectacular scenery and the joy of being in wild places. It’s felt that the acute erosion on Bla Bheinn is only detracting from the experience of going there as well as on the ecology of the area. But we also feel strongly that introducing man made features into the path is also changing the hill going experience for people and reducing the feeling of wildness. It’s a judgement call as to when to intervene but we feel that it’s inappropriate to heavily engineer paths in remote locations.
“That’s why any decision to introduce man made features into a path which is otherwise unbuilt is not a decision taken lightly. The proposed work has had a great deal of thought, not only about whether it’s absolutely necessary, but about how we can adapt standard techniques to make the work as minimal and as naturalised as possible. I don’t enjoy walking up heavily engineered formal paths with flights of stairs and when I speak to many hill walkers that’s exactly the response I get from them too. The work will be carried out by specialist contractors.”
On Bla Bheinn it’s a 290m stretch of the path from where it crosses the Allt na Dunaiche and climbs into Coire Uagneich that is the main focus of the repairs. This is now a 6-7m wide gully and the plan is to define a meandering path up through this damaged zone. There will be approx 100m of pitching (stone steps) within this in numerous short sections to break it up. The pitching will be built with large weathered boulders and designed not to be too formal or regimented. There will also be several water bars and cross drains for drainage as well as turf ditching and landscaping of some of the bare ground.The aim is to keep the line as natural as possible (ie. not straight) with a minimum of built features. There will be a considerable amount of bare ground still left after the work but if this is protected from trampling and water damage it will get a chance to slowly revegetate.
There will also be a few minor repairs to the 2km of path below this on a few sections which are deteriorating and one small bit of work above where the path takes a sharp right at the mouth of the coire and first climbs onto bedrock.