Pitching on Bosley Cloud 19 August 2012

Four volunteers turned out from our group and met up with 5 from the Congleton volunteers and spent some of the day working on the grit stone trail towards the top of Bosley Cloud.

We spent the day working on "pitched" grips or gutters - lines of stones fitted together diagonally across the path designed to direct rain water off the path.  This stops  water collecting on the path and running down hill - so preventing erosion.  Unfortunately not all walkers / cyclist recognise the long term advantage of having these structures and attempt to remove.  Others walk round the end of them or force their way through the vegetation making new parallel scars, sometimes known as a braided path.  The stones we were working with were quite manageable - though some of the structures were finished with larger stones / boulders on the ends - to encourage people to stay on the established path.  The work had been described to us as involving moving boulders but it turned out to be nowhere near as heavy as we had feared.

It started raining shortly after lunch and the weather forecast was poor for the afternoon - so we finished what we were doing and walked down to the cars.  In the event it has stopped raining by the time we were ready to drive off.