![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SteallFallsJMT2.jpg\" "\\"SteallFallsJMT\\"")
Steall Falls and the Gorge<\/p><\/div>The Steall Gorge path in Glen Nevis will receive £25,000 towards repairs after it won the public vote in a European competition. The John Muir Trust (JMT) won the Alpine category of the European Outdoor Conservation Association with a massive 48% of the votes.<\/p>\n
The John Muir Trust was competing for funding to undertake essential repairs to the Steall Gorge path in Glen Nevis, Lochaber, which is in desperate need of maintenance if it’s to stay open to the thousands of visitors that venture along it each year.<\/p>\n
Fran Lockhart, the Trust\u2019s Nevis property manager, said: \u201cOver the last two weeks we\u2019ve had a tremendous response from our members, local people and many others across the UK who value this wild place. I\u2019d like to thank everyone who voted for our project to help us win the funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had stiff competition, including a German charity with around a million members, so it\u2019s staggering to have received so much support.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteall Gorge is really important to a lot of people, which is why it\u2019s vital to repair the path and keep it safe to use. This money will go a long way towards covering the cost of the work, and helping to protect the adjacent fragile woodland and montane habitats.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are between thirty and forty distinct paths on Trust land, ranging from woodland walks and coastal routes to upland paths giving access to the summits of seven Munros and five Corbetts.<\/p>\n
The Trust has a policy of carrying out low-key path maintenance on existing paths in order to prevent excessive wear and erosion of the environment, while keeping visual intrusion to a minimum. This year it has recruited specialist staff to work proactively on projects such as the Steall Gorge repairs to ensure maintenance issues are dealt with before they become more serious problems.<\/p>\n
Fran added, “We want to give people the opportunity to walk in and enjoy the wild places in our care in ways that respect and protect surrounding habitats and wildlife. The repairs on the Steall Gorge will reverse existing damage and strengthen spots where there could be a problem in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trust will launch a further appeal to support the repairs to Steall Gorge, and other footpaths later this year. <\/p>\n
The Steall Gorge project beat off competition from 4 other bids ranging from a project to improve biodiversity in Chile, restoration of a walking trail in Germany, and forest regeneration in the Pyrenees. For details of the Steall Gorge walk check out the route description and map on Walkhighlands<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Steall Gorge path in Glen Nevis will receive £25,000 towards repairs after it won the public vote in a European competition. The John Muir Trust (JMT) won the Alpine category of the European Outdoor Conservation Association with a massive 48% of the votes. The John Muir Trust was competing for funding to undertake essential repairs to the Steall Gorge path in Glen Nevis, Lochaber, which is in desperate need of maintenance if it’s to stay open to the thousands of visitors that venture along it each year. Fran Lockhart, the Trust\u2019s Nevis property manager, said: \u201cOver the last two…<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conservation","category-walking-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6617"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23749,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6617\/revisions\/23749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}