A mountain with meaning
Castle Crag has always been important to me; it was where I first met an Upland Ranger and decided this was the job for me. It is also important to the nation. It was gifted to us all, under the protection of the National Trust, in 1920 by Dr W H Hamer & family as a memorial to 2nd Lieutenant John Hamer and the men of Borrowdale who died in the First World War; some of these men may have even quarried here before the war broke out, a sobering thought.
On the subject of remembrance, I’m sure that 2018 is a summer that we will remember for years to come, I cannot recall a time where the landscape has been so parched. Working on Castle Crag during the heatwave has felt like somewhere between working on a roof and quarrying.
We began by completely dismantling the worst section of the wall; making sure we were extremely vigilant when moving stone as we were building above a steady stream of outdoor enthusiasts.
Getting to grips
We couldn’t believe the amount of stone that came out of the old wall; one of us had to be constantly shovelling scree off the path, sending clouds of dust circling around us and covering us to a point where people genuinely asked if we were miners.