[Closed] Trail Vandalism Jenkins Cragg above Ambleside 🙁

No way! Ah man, that's spank..

Oh no 🙁 Loved that trail.

A great blight of our age 🙁

It's hopless for walking too, I can walk on a gravel path in a city centre. Bikes will come down at higher speeds increasing conflict

As a wise Glentress trail fairy pointed out, that is supposed to weather in for a year or two, and nature will give you your trail back.

In the meantime, you may have to share your trail with other people.

😉

Glad we got to ride that before it's been sanitised. Fun little track 🙁

Its not all the way up but they could be coming back for more I think they got the FP and BW mixed up!
[url= https://c6.staticflickr.com/6/5671/30728676341_24294f9100_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c6.staticflickr.com/6/5671/30728676341_24294f9100_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/NPouUv ]Untitled[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/nzrich/ ]Richard Munro[/url], on Flickr
That plaque is not on the BW but on the FP at the bottom and they merge further on up!

So from an eroded mess to a well built path that will last. Its not just for you - its for horses and walkers as well

That's rubbish!

🙁

Who do they do this for? I guess I naively think, as a keener walker myself who has no interest walking up a santised path, that most other walkers would take the same view

So from an eroded mess to a well built path that will last

That as maybe, but aesthetically that's a butt ugly path...!

I'm sure I've ridden that in the past.

They've properly ruined it.

It would be nice if their was a consultation before they smoothed out paths/bridleways.

Bollocks!

Is that someone walking down on the left of the original photo?

Regardless, looks reasonable to me - a much more accessible path designed for the many not the few...

gutted to see this...

The DCC disease has spread to Cumbria

🙁 I've ridden that, it was ace.

Grrrrr. Awesome and easily accessible descent ruined, what a shame.

Yep give it a couple of years and that track that has lasted hundreds of years will have a nice big groove down the middle of it.
It will be ruined and require constant maintenance from the council (if they can afford it.)
Bloody stupid.

Who's the masked vigilante?

Pish.

Well the original "eroded" path has been like that (natural rocks and roots) for as long as I can remember so why the sudden need to "improve"? I presume the roots are still underneath and we'll see them again soon....
In fairness though, does this mean it is now possible to ride all the way up going to Troutbeck?

So from an eroded mess to a well built path that will last. Its not just for you - its for horses and walkers as well

And a waste of money!

Have they left any of the rock exposed higher up?

Oh, that's heart breaking. I'm so very sorry.

Anyone who thinks that is a well made surface that will last probably needs to have a geology/geography lesson..There must be a better approach to path/bridleway construction than that?

Have they left any of the rock exposed higher up?

It does look like they've created a gravel drainage channel. Be interesting to see how well it lasts if the weather is in any way similar to last year.

That's just spoiling what was a lovely natural walking / fell / mtb trail 🙁

YOu can see in the top pic where the erosion has been spreading as people walk / ride further and further off the original route in an attempt to avoid the rough eroded surface. it looks to be many yards wide eroded mess.

The path construction looks very like the trails at glentress and in many other places which typically grown in the verge over a year or two as people no longer go wider and wider and last for many years.

That looks unbelievably cack.
I'll never be riding it, but I feel really sorry for everyone who's ridden it in the past and is now faced with that.

got to be honest, jenkin cragg is 1 mile from the center of one of the busiest places in the lakes. things like this are always going to happen.
people drive 2 hours to walk in the lakes, park in ambleside, walk 5 miles round the town, sit in a cafe for the rest of the day, then drive home.
loughrigg is also a prime example of this.
not nice but life goes on.

This year, I've spent a week riding in verbier in the alps and a week in the Pyrenees.

No one there feels the need to do this sort of thing to trails. Trails are for all and they're shared, but the people who use them know what they're like and use them as they are.

This micro managing of our lives gets bloody silly in this country.

The rock slowed riders down especially when wet as you had to pick a line usually around walkers, there is a footpath which runs down beside the BW that is where that crap should have been laid. Now starva merchants will hoon down that and there will be conflict! 🙁

It was only an eroded mess in the sense that any Lake District track is an eroded mess. It was solid bedrock, not that wide, easy to walk up, and as Rich says, had the effect of not allowing riders to simply blast down.

A couple of winters will see a lot of that washed out leaving a combination of bedrock and loose gravel.

I nearly rode the original a couple of months ago but went elsewhere instead. Gutted I didn't now,

Isn't that the bit which already has an "improved" alternative option anyway? So this would be gravelly and steep rather than gravelly and gradual which, you would imagine, would be what those looking at increasing access etc would be more interested in.

oh FFS. We rode that earlier this year. What a crying shame.

It might be just a few miles outside Ambleside but I really find it hard to believe that even elderly walkers come to the lake district to walk paths that look like they belong in a city park. The attraction is that it's a wild rocky landscape.

There will come a point when Ambleside stops being an MTB destination - over the years I've been riding there more and more of the sections that draw me to the place get trashed in that way. We've just come back from a Basque MTB trip where a most of the trails are "walking" paths but even on the edge of tourist towns they don't feel the need to do this to them.

So from an eroded mess

It was stable. i've ridden that at intervals over about 15 years and I don't remember it changing significantly. It was eroded, not eroding. I don't see why that's a problem

That woodland looks perfect for putting in some new lines. What's the official opinion on that and could that be something to be explored with the bodies concerned?

Making the countryside bland, boring and safe in the name of 'progress'. I thought local authorities and their ilk were struggling from a supposed chronic lack of funding, but it seems there is plenty of cash available to Wal Mart the countryside. There are so many other better ways of spending cash than this vandalism.

DCC have even given up pretending, someone posted a few weeks back about a nice track that had been destroyed with road planings - just around the corner from some roadworks. Effectively council-driven fly tipping!

I'm writing to the Tibetan government. I've always fancied climbing Everest, but I can't be arsed with the danger and difficulty, so I'm requesting a flat cinder path to be laid to the top so I can get up without having to put down my selfie stick at any point.

There will come a point when Ambleside stops being an MTB destination

Yep, that's the plan. It certainly is according to the DCC model.

what you have got to remember is that the authorities dont see places as 'mtb destinations. they want the honey pots (ambleside, keswick, grasmere, coniston and such) full of weekend car visitors, paying for carparking, filling the shops and cafes, filling the bnb places.
they dont care about a minority like mtb riders.
paths will always have to be maintained and upgraded. the paths up skiddaw and helvellyn being 2 obvious ones, walna scar another. the closer you are to these places the more the upgrades are going to be.

mybe try not riding near the busy lakes places?

Oh my god. I've just got a little bit of sick in my mouth. I...I...I'm going to cry.