Summer maintenance update from the North Pennines and Lake District

A snowHead

Some very useful work has been carried out this summer at Yad Moss. The main job has been fixing new welded gantries to each of the up and down line pylon arms. This should facilitate easier maintenance and inspection of the pylon wheels, cut out switches and fender assemblies and thereby keep the system running more efficiently.

Other jobs have involved replacing some of the wheel bearings, general greasing and replacement of some of the original signal linespan.

The ancient ‘Garron’ tracked vehicle which has sat up on the hill for at least 20 years was finally towed down and scrapped. It never worked properly and it’s good to have finally got rid of it. It was towed down behind the Kassboher during a dry spell.

Other jobs completed or under way include grass cutting, painting and fence repair. We are gradually replacing our chestnut paling snow fencing with a pallet board design which we believe is more efficient in our circumstances.

Over on Raise the Lake District Ski Club has been busy greasing their wheels, painting their pylons and installing a tiny micro turbine to trickle charge their webcam battery. They are also contemplating adding a small photovoltaic array and considering using a heated wing mirror linked to a mobile phone as a method to deice the webcam window!

Last year both Raise and Yad Moss had their first day of skiing on the 19th November. Indeed it turned out to be the first non glacier lift served skiing ….in Europe !!!!! Unfortunately the rest of the season was awful so we are hoping for better conditions this year.

If you are keen, live in day range of the North Pennines or the Lake District and you think the conditions may be favourable, ring the snowlines and come along and ski with us. You’ll have to become a Member of the Lake District club (£23) but can ski thereafter for £5 or £6 a day, provided you are prepared to walk for an hour uphill to reach the lift!. At Yad Moss you can ski for a day as a casual member for £15. Smile

Anyone have any updates about the other Pennine clubs in Allendale, Weardale or Harwood Common?

brian

Peter S, outstanding effort. Come the revolution, I'd install you guys to run Cairngorm !

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Thanks Brian but at Yad Moss we've got our work cut out with a single Poma tow !

I often think its a shame that with the possible exception of Glencoe there are no longer any 'club fields' in Scotland. Its understandable given the historic expansion of the 5 commercial stations but I'm sure there would be a sufficently keen voluntary following had a semi permanent rope tow (or better) been installed on say Ben Lawers 30 years ago. It would certainly be more viable than trying to ski in the Pennines or Lake District these days.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Did it take an hour walk up from the road to the chairlift station at Yad Moss? I thought it was more like a 20 minutes job because it is a stone throw distance from the road. Have you moved the station further up the hill?

Are you guys trying to discourage us not to go there so that you have the lift all to yourselves?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

saikee, Raise is about an hours walk in, Yad Moss is 5 minutes.

Help!!

Summer maintenance update from the North Pennines and Lake District

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