Major work on Coast to Coast trail - Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority

National Park Rangers have begun laying a nearly two-mile long flagstone path across peatland in Birkdale, as part of works to make Alfred Wainwright’s ‘Coast to Coast’ route a National Trail.

It is the biggest single project ever undertaken by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s ranger service and is expected to take until early next year to complete.

The reclaimed flagstones have come fresh from a mill demolition site in Preston. Having been hauled by tractor and trailer to remote Birkdale, between Kirkby Stephen and Upper Swaledale, they were airlifted the final few hundred metres from the road to the fellside path. A helicopter pilot dropped pallet loads of flagstones every few metres (above).

Now a small team of three rangers are laying the flagstones

People are still able to walk the route during the path construction. One couple from the Netherlands, Karlyn and Rorik, volunteered to have their picture taken as Area Ranger Michael Briggs laid out markers on White Mossy Hill.