Ski Club of Manchester Manchester Tree Planting

Reporter: Jen Bridgeland

The day dawned cold but dry for the first ever SCoM tree planting session and turned into a glorious sunny, blue sky winters day. Perfect weather for a day out in the beautiful Peak District National Park.

We met up with Nes and Damian the Peak District Volunteer leaders for our briefing — plant trees, don’t have any accidents!

Our first mission in the morning was to improve the biodiversity of an existing plantation by planting ‘whips’ (small unbranched bare root trees grown from seed) of a selection of nativespecies trees — hawthorn, oak, cherry, alder and birch.

We then took a walk below the stunning Stanage Edge escarpment to our second location, where we ate our picnic amongst the bracken.

Then planted more trees and also checked some that had been planted last year and replaced any that had not survived either because of the weather, ground conditions or a hungry animal.

We even channelled our inner Iain Macintosh and found a geocache, well done Dave, which we signed on behalf of SCoM.

Thanks to everyone who took part, a good time was had by all, thanks to Nes and Damian from the Peak District National Park, and thanks to the committee and club for the donation towards the cost of the trees.

One small step towards a more sustainable club, helping to maintain the snow and conditions for the sport we love. More similar stuff being planned.

Why are we doing this? See Protect Our Winters UK