Mend Our Mountains: seventh project for 2024 - Haytor Rocks, Dartmoor

Mend Our Mountains Articles
14 Aug
8 min read

The BMC’s Access & Conservation Trust (ACT) is pleased to announce a seventh project within the Mend Our Mountains campaign for 2024.

Haytor Rocks, one of Dartmoor’s most iconic granite tors and a popular rock climbing site, will benefit from a £10,000 grant to support the repair of footpath erosion at its base and on popular walking routes between other local tors.

Ranger Stuart Hooppell from Dartmoor National Park says, “Haytor and its neighbours, Saddle Tor and Rippon Tor to the south-west, attract thousands of visitors every year, with over 75,000 vehicles in the nearby car parks. The areas around the base of Haytor and on the paths to Saddle and Rippon Tors have become denuded of vegetation due to footfall. Vegetation loss and soil erosion has been further accelerated by rain and surface water run off, creating gullies. Without repair works these bare areas will become larger and the gullies deeper."

Footpath erosion at the base of Haytor will be repaired

Ranger Stuart continues, “This autumn, the BMC’s ACT funding will help us commence the repair of 1,880m of path using 200 tonnes of growan (fine granite stone with a percentage of soil) and 20 tonnes of granite slabs. Keeping walkers and dogs on these new, clear, durable paths will protect ground-nesting birds and livestock from being disturbed. Trenches and cross-drains will redirect surface water and exposed, unvegetated areas will be infilled back to their original height.”

BMC Senior Policy & Campaigns Manager Cath Flitcroft says, “It’s important that our Mend Our Mountain campaign supports this project to repair the erosion caused by footfall from climbers and walkers at Haytor Rocks. There is no doubt that these works are vital to the preservation of the landscape and enjoyment of the area’s climbing and walking by BMC members and the wider public.”

Nearby on Rippon Tor, eroded footpaths will also be restored

What’s Mend Our Mountains?

Mend Our Mountains is an award-winning campaign from the BMC’s Access & Conservation Trust (ACT) which has raised a total of £1.4 million since its creation in 2016 to repair Britain’s hills and mountains. Since then over 50 miles of fragile footpath has been restored for future generations and 544 miles of upland has been repaired - the equivalent length of over 67,000 double decker buses!

This is the seventh Mend Our Mountains project the BMC’s ACT is supporting this year. The other six include:

1 Funding an Access Officer for the Cotswolds AONB

2 Supporting the Fix the Fells rangers in the Lake District

3 Restoring paths on Roseberry Topping, North York Moors

4 Making the footpath to Chanctonbury Ring, South Downs, more accessible

5 Replacing Cressbrook Mill footbridge, Peak District

6 Multiple Get Stuck In volunteer footpath repair events with the National Trust in the Lake District, Snowdonia and Peak District

Support Mend Our Mountains

Path repair is a surprisingly costly business. Working in remote locations with complex equipment and adverse weather conditions makes rebuilding trails an enormous and expensive challenge.

£5 buys a pair of work gloves

£50 buys five garden skips for moving soil

£250 fixes approximately one metre of footpath

£1000 flies ten bags of stone to an inaccessible mountain location

Did you know?

Simply becoming a BMC member supports BMC Access & Conservation Trust projects like this, plus you get all the benefits that membership offers, including these and many more:

£15 million Worldwide Combined Liability Insurance

£10,000 Personal Accident Insurance

Quarterly member-only magazine, Summit

15% off Cotswold Outdoor, Snow+Rock and Runners Need

BMC Travel Insurance

Join the BMC

Cotswold Outdoor Discount

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