Way back in March, before Spring had sprung, when it was still wet and very windy and some patches of snow still lingered in the high moorland gulleys. Peak District MTB volunteers spent a few hours on a Thursday doing some bridleway maintenance on the Mam Tor to Greenlands bridleway.
In some ways it was perfect weather; it had just stopped raining after quite a heavy downpour and the sun was (mostly) out. This showed us where the water was running and where new drains where needed.
We’d worked on this bridleway quite a few times over the years (going all the way back to 2009, under the auspices of Ride the Peak), so didn’t need much time to discuss methods or approaches, we just put the shovel to the gravel and motored on. The main work was reinstating the curving chute, which had a deep ‘V’ notch in the bottom from all the recent rain.
After clearing out and adding more drains on the lower section before the gate, we headed over to the Hollins Cross to Greenlands bridleway. Here we rode what we dug last summer, and made a few minor tweaks to what was otherwise working excellently.
The climb back up the ridge to Mam Tor made for a nice photo, with the sunlit Hope Valley as the backdrop, but in reality it was an exhausting slog into a very strong headwind. A few more puddles presented some final spade welding opportunities on the trail at back of Mam Tor.
So with that rose-tinted recap of the our last Hope Valley dig day half a year ago, you can consider this the official ‘call-to-arms’ post. As we’re now about to finalise and announce our next Hope Valley-centric dig day dates for the Autumn and early Winter season. These dates will be Thursdays, during the day (we normally start at 10:30). They’ll be plenty of old ‘favourites’ and an incredibly (/fairly) exciting new trail to be work on too…
If you’d like to get involved in the Hope Valley centred digging, email james@peakdistrictmtb.org
The next Roaches maintenance day is Sunday October 20th from 9am.
For more info email dan@peakdistrictmtb.org
