Backwell Environment Trust

The Geology Trail

 The trail, constructed in 2014, is around 350 metres long and runs along the base of some of the fantastic limestone cliffs to be found in this part of the woodland. The first and last sections have been relatively straightforward, but it was the bit in the middle, close to the cliff faces, that have required the full engineering skills of the trusty BET volunteers. 

We decided to start the trail in the middle, so if we ever felt we couldn’t overcome some of the more challenging technical problems, we could always simply walk away and no one would be the wiser!

The problem was that some sections of the trail had to be constructed on a very rocky, steep slope so the only real solution for us was to attach metal cages to the rock faces, fill them up with many tonnes of rock and then put the trail on top. Although this took a long time to do, I’m very pleased with the finished result as it’s now quite difficult to see the sections of trail that would once have been in thin air just a couple of years ago.  

The Geology Trail branches off the Fern Way close to the start/end of that trail.

One word of warning though.... the trail does have some short, steep sections and you may need a head for heights on the more ‘challenging’ middle section!

The route of the trail is shown on the updated BET Map.

A slideshow of photos taken during the formal opening of the trail can be found here: Opening Celebrations - Oct 2014