Ten years ago The Snowdonia National Park, The Countryside Council for Wales and The National Trust formed a partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government into which they pooled their resources and know-how.

With the support of matched funding from the EU, the Snowdonia Upland Path Partnership (SUPP) was established. Now, 44 kilometres of paths have been restored or constructed, 4.5 kilometres of stone walls repaired and 13 hectares of trampled adjacent land put into sustainable management. The work has been directed at the areas of greatest need and pressure - namely Snowdon, Cadair Idris, the Carneddau and Glyderau. On Tuesday 10 June at Electric Mountain, Llanberis the organisations will gather to celebrate what has been achieved during the last decade.

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Upland footpaths need constant attention to support the ever growing army of mountain walkers. Most of these paths started off as routes between communities, as ways to market or access to and from mines – they had a commercial purpose and as such were maintained by the people who used them. Nowadays just about every journey is recreational – cars and roads have obviated most of the original needs and have increased the flow of people into the mountains.

Heavily used paths, subject to extremes of weather, will eventually break up and become muddy, ugly scars on the landscape. Left unchecked the problems become worse until large chunks of the mountain, with rare species of plants, get washed away. This innovative project has restored many of Snowdonia’s most cherished landscapes.

Walkers can see and feel the benefit of ‘stone pitching’ on the steep sections and aggregate based techniques on the more gentle slopes. Stone pitching is a bit like building a submerged dry stone wall for people to walk on top of, strong and enduring, requiring minimal maintenance. Aggregate sections are excavated trenches filled with compacted stone and finishing materials that blend in with the area. Aggregate paths cost between £20 and £40 per square metre whilst stone pitching costs between £75 and £125 per square metre.

The engineering challenge of working up mountains in hostile weather is compounded by the pressure to protect the integrity of underlying geology – it’s not a case of any old stone will do, many sites have strict conservation status. 300 tonnes of stone had to be airlifted up Cadair Idris.

A great achievement has been the construction of a route on Snowdon at the “intersection” between the Miners track and the Pyg track. In this case, the route is up a scree slope of continually shifting rock with heavy water flow and approximately 120,000 people walking on it each year.

During the second phase of the project the scope was extended to include some lowland routes and in some instances, such as Dol Idris on the Minffordd side of Cadair, they are now accessible to wheelchair users.

Fisherman’s Walk along the banks of the Glaslyn Gorge needed restoring with the re-opening of the Welsh Highland Railway - the old railway track was no longer an option. “Negotiating a way around the massive stone buttress was a real challenge and the team worked out a solution based on dry-stone walling techniques” said Alun Hughes the SUPP Project Officer. “One of the great things about the project has been the degree to which the pool of skills and techniques has grown over the years. At times the learning curve was quite steep! As for the partnership it has been of great benefit opening up channels of co-operation well beyond the footpaths.”

A key requirement of any project such as this is the degree to which it supports employment and the local economy. The work has been undertaken by 29 people across 6 teams under the guidance of the Project Officer and support of the partner organisations. Of these, 16 were additional jobs and have gone on to set up their own businesses or moved into related roles in countryside management.

Improved paths undoubtedly make Snowdonia an even better place to visit and the number of walkers has risen by 18% over the past 5 years.

Whilst celebrating the achievements of the last decade the main cloud on the horizon is the end of the current EU funding which means a 50 per cent reduction in the resources available. The work that has been started needs to be continued against the background of ever increasing visitor numbers and relentless weather. Snowdon enjoys 5 metres of rainfall each year, a trickle can fast become a destructive torrent and the essential task of maintaining drains needs regular attention.

Looking to the future the partners are exploring options for additional funding and hopefully they will succeed. 'One thing that has been a great success has been the power of the partnership, definitely a case where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It would be very useful if we could build upon and extend the partnership with other interested organisations. Partnership has been a path to success' commented John Morgan, area manager for The National Trust.

On behalf of Snowdonia National Park Emyr Williams, Director of LandManagement said,