Rocks airlifted for Helvellyn repairs: Malcolm Pithers reports on a pounds 30,000 operation to repair the badly eroded footpaths on a popular Lake District mountain

HELVELLYN's summer welcome of fleeting sunlight, lashing hail and swirling mists did not deter the hardy walkers and a lone fell runner.

They peered down from the 3118ft summit of the popular Lake District peak, distracted briefly by the clatter of helicopter blades. Two army Gazelle helicopters swung low over the mountainside, their pilots carefully seeking out the weathered footpath line which snakes its way to the top.

Members of Six Flight of the Army Air Corps based at RAF Shorebury in Shropshire, were busy airlifting rocks onto the mountainside last week at the start of a project to halt collosal erosion. Helvellyn is blessed, or cursed, depending on your point of view, with being the most accessible of mountains, at least on its western side.

What was once a slow trickle of walkers making their way up past Brown Cove Crag and Combe Gill to the top is now a regular flood. Not even the mixed weather deters people these days and if anything it encourages more people on to the hills.

In the past 12 months about 125,000 people walked the route from Swirls car park which is a relatively easy way to the summit. In one week alone last November 3,000 people, all logged by an electronic counter, scaled the mountain on the western side.

One problem is that people can park their cars just off the main A591 Keswick to Windermere road and begin their climb straight away. Not so for the more serious or more experienced walkers, who approach Helvellyn from the east and Striding Edge.

North West Water has provided pounds 30,000 for the repair work which will take many months to complete. Volunteers and people who have been unemployed for more than six months will be working on the project throughout the summer, using stone pitching methods to repair the paths. Pitching is an ancient technique laying hard-wearing stone-faced pathways.

Purists may be a little put out these days to see what amounts to 'cobbled' walkways to the summit. But without them the condition of the ancient right of way could only deteriorate.

Martin Norris, the area manager for Lake District National Park covering Helvellyn, said that the mountain was suffering from its popularity. He said: 'Something has to be done, and the only way we could move large amounts of rock and stone for people to lay the paths, was by using the helicopters.'

Major Stuart Slade, the flight's commanding officer, said that about 200 tonnes of rock would be ferried on to the mountain by the end of their operation.

One temporary benefit for walkers was a brief respite from the roar of low- flying jets bursting across the open fells. The RAF agreed to halt low-level sorties in the area until the airlift of rock ended.