Back Leading Again

At last I was back leading with HF at their house near Glencoe. The walking programme has been cut down to one week to reduce the journey times and the need for ferries. We also had three coaches turn up each day so that guests could socially distance on them. In the evening there was no social entertainment like quizzes and you had to wear a face mask unless you were eating or drinking. Also we had to sit in smaller, spread out groups for dinner which was served across two rooms.

No walks talks in the evening. Guests had to read about the next day's walks on a poster. We were around to answer any questions and did a short briefing before setting off on the coach in the morning.

All very strange. It was lovely to be back there leading walks but as a social experience it really wasn't the same as it used to be. Let's hope things get back to normal soon.

 Dorothy and two other guests about to swim in the loch!

It's a Wash Out

Well, I managed the first three days. 26 Wainwrights in three days isn't bad going. Unfortunately the weather was on and off showers day and night. Also, walking with a heavy rucksack takes a lot longer than I'd anticipated. Sometimes it is possible to put the bag down and nip out to a summit without it but this wasn't often. I had a rain cover on my rucksack, a big plastic bag inside and then everything in waterproof bags within that. So there wasn't a problem with keeping my stuff dry during the day. However, when you are putting up a tent that is already wet from the night before, it is inevitable that once you've put it up, the things in it will slowly get more and more damp; including your sleeping bag. I really couldn't face putting on damp clothing and walking for another eleven hours or so. So Dorothy very kindly came and picked me up on day four.

Helvellyn from Fairfield

Answers to a few questions you might ask:

Shouldn't you have expected it to rain? After all, how do you think the lakes in the Lake District got there?

I did expect it to rain and I did expect things to get wet but the actual experience of being unable to get anything dry was worse than I had anticipated.

Will you carry on if the weather improves? 

I think I will try to do all the Wainwrights, but I may not try to do them as a continuous walk.

What about all that time you spent plannning?

Oh, I love planning. I enjoyed every minute.

Did you enjoy the walk?

Yes I did. It is satisfying to set yourself a big challenge and then go out and do it, and for the first three days that was exactly what I did. The shifting clouds and changing lighting were very atmospheric and the scenery is magnificent. I also enjoy just walking and thinking about things. You also spend quite a lot of time 'in the moment' thinking about where to put your feet or what you need to do next to get yourself up, breakfasted and packed up. The trouble is that I also began to think about being dry and comfortable again.

Ullswater and Plaice Fell from Hartsop Dodd

Are you disappointed?

It would have been amazing if I could have done it but I suppose that's because it was difficult. It was just a bit too difficult.

How do you poo?

Once I had put up the tent in an out of the way place, I dug a hole with my trowel as far away as possible from streams. When I packed everything up in the morning, I filled it in and put the grass back on top.

Were you really fit enough?

Clearly not. I did manage three days but my muscles were stiff in the morning and my knees and hips kept giving me ouch messages during the night. It's amazing to see how many fell runners there are.

Wouldn't it have been better not to broadcast what you planned to do?

I don't think good friends feel let down if you haven't met a challenge you set yourself. However, knowing that they want you to succeed does help to motivate you. It's easier to give up if no-one knows you are doing it. So telling people does help to push you.

Were you all smelly when you got home?

Yes!

Was it safe?

I'm not sure it was. I was following a route designed by a fell runner. I had adapted it a bit but occasionally I was going down very steep slopes with 15kg on my back and even with two walking poles you can't help wondering how you would stop yourself if you tripped.

Does the rucksack get lighter as you go along because you have eaten some of the food?

I thought this would be true but the fact that everything was getting more and more damp, seemed to be making it heavier!

Do you really think anyone would really ask all these questions?

You are still reading aren't you?

How do you get water? 

Fast running streams. Believe me, there was no shortage. I did have a pen that emits U/V light to kill bacteria and viruses if I felt there was any risk of contamination e.g. by sheep, but I think I should have also taken a filter. Anyway, I seem to be OK.

How do you feel now?

Camping in the wet makes you really appreciate normal life. I'm so lucky that I can go back home. What must life be like for refugees and other homeless people?

Pete's Wainwright Walk

The Wainwrights are the 214 Lake District hills (known locally as fells) described in Alfred Wainwright's seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells (1955–66).

A while back I watched a film about Steve Birkinshaw running round all the Wainwrights in six days and thirteen hours. He ran about two marathons every day basically. This set a new record. I think it's been subsequently beaten but one of the most inspiring things about the film was all the support he had from friends, family and the people of Keswick.

Many people try to climb all the Wainwrights, just as they try to bag all the Munros in Scotland and this was something I had been considering. Then I thought I could do them as one continuous route by following in Steve's steps. I am not a fell runner but I do like a bit of backpacking and wild camping. I really enjoyed doing the Cape Wrath Trail and it would be good to have another challenge. Especially since I have been unable to do any Walks Leading with HF Holidays because of Coronavirus.

This is not an original idea. In fact a guy called James Forrest is trying to do it in 18 days at the moment. I am planning to do it in 27 days, broken down into five separate backpacking trips. 

1. Rydal to Patterdale (6 days: 1 to 6)
   
2. Patterdale to Keswick (5 days: 7 to 11)
3. Keswick to Keswick (5 days: 12 to 16)
4. Keswick to Nether Wasdale (6 days: 17 to 22)
5. Nether Wasdale to Rydal (5 days: 23 to 27)

I was originally planning to have a hotel or B&B stay in between each leg but Dorothy has very kindly agreed to drop me off and pick me up for all but Keswick to Keswick. I can just leave the car in Keswick for 5 days for that one. Accomodation is awkward at the moment with the pandemic so it's much easier to come home in between and much nicer. In fact we are going walking in Scotland for two weeks after the first two legs.

I don't know if I'll manage it. I was very lucky with the weather on the Cape Wrath Trail. Wild camping is not strictly allowed in England but so long as I stay up in the hills, out of the way and leave no trace of having been there, I should be OK.

You can see the route here:

Drama in La Palma

On March 5th, Dorothy and I got up at 2:30 am to drive to Manchester Airport. We parked our car and flew to La Palma in the Canary Islands for a holiday and two weeks of me leading walks for HF Holidays. It seems like a very long time ago now and yet it is only 2 weeks. Of course we wondered if we might get stuck there due to Coronavirus or that the whole trip might get cancelled but we didn't really think that either would happen.

In the first week, the weather was fantastic - hot, sunny and so different from the seemingly endless rain we have had in Hebden Bridge. La Palma is so varied with volcanic ash and lava in the south and lush laurel forests in the north. We walked past papaya, avocados, lemons, oranges and lots of bananas. We gazed down into a volcanic crater from a 1971 eruption and we went up to 8000 feet above sea level to where some of the best observatories in the world are located.

Banana near San Andres

Roque de los Muchachos

Unfortunately Dorothy slipped 50 yards from the end of the penultimate walk and seemed to have sprained her ankle. The coach driver dropped us off at Santa Cruz General Hospital and they x-rayed it. There was no break on the x-ray so they strapped it up and we got a taxi back to the hotel. The hotel happened to have a wheelchair that she could use for a couple of days.

On Thursday, one group of guests went home and the next group arrived. Mike, the other leader and I met them at the airport which is only 10 mins drive from the Parador Hotel where we were staying. Dorothy abandoned the wheelchair and managed to come out and do some painting with the walking groups on the first two days by using the service bus and, the next day, by being dropped off by our coach at one of the lunch spots.

The weather was a little cooler than it had been the week before - quite nice for walking. Meanwhile, far away from our little island, a lot more people in Spain and elsewhere were becoming infected by Coronavirus. On Friday 13th (I am not superstitious - I gave it up in case it brought me bad luck), two Italians who lived on the other side of the island were tested positive following a trip home to Italy. Sheila, our evening speaker was advised by the local government not to attend a 'public gathering'. So felt unable to give the excellent presentation about La Palma that I had listened to the week before. Also the film at the Volcan San Antonio Visitor Centre that we visited was no longer being shown for similar reasons.

We enjoyed our walks through the laurel forest and the banana plantations on Saturday and in the evening we had a trip to the capital of La Palma. As he dropped us off in Santa Cruz, our coach driver told us that the only other excursion he was going to be allowed to take us on was back to the airport. Spain, including the Canary and Balearic Islands was going into a kind of lockdown. We thought we might at least be able to go for a walk from the hotel the next day but while we were eating breakfast on Sunday morning, we were informed that the hotel would be closing at 12 noon on Monday and that until then we would be confined to our rooms. Dinner would be room service only!

Parador Hotel and Gardens

We set up a WhatsApp group and I asked HF Holidays to fly us home a.s.a.p. They responded brilliantly. We were booked onto flights to London Heathrow via Madrid departing 2:30 pm the next day. The hotel manager did actually allow us to leave our rooms and walk in the gardens so long as we did it in small groups. The Parador hotel chain is state owned and they wanted them cleared of guests so that they could potentially be used to help people infected with Coronavirus.

Other Brits were moved to another hotel by Tui, who they had booked their holiday with, and were expecting to return on the original flight the following Thursday. Some people had booked independently and were left scrabbling around trying to find alternative accomodation. So we were very pleased to be with HF who even paid for a minibus to take some of us back to Manchester Airport and others back to Gatwick.

The next day Dorothy and I went to Calderdale Hospital and they x-rayed further up her leg. She had a broken fibula! She is now in a very nice Fracture Boot. If it had been correctly diagnosed in La Palma, we might not have been able to fly back for quite a while! I can't help feeling that we left one of the safest places in the world but it is good to be home.

Winter Hillwalking - HF Holidays and Plas y Brenin Collaboration

Last week I drove up to Alltshellach, the HF Holidays Country House near Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands, to help out with a new venture that will hopefully prove to be successful.

Plas y Brenin (PyB) are normally based in North Wales and offer courses to develop coaches, instructors and leaders in adventure sports like climbing, hiking, biking and canoeing. In the winter they take over Alltshellach and offer Winter Mountaineering courses from there.

This year HF Holidays advertised two separate weeks of winter hillwalking where the walks were led by Plas y Brenin instructors. It was one of these that I went to help out with. I'm not qualified to take groups out in winter conditions - I am only a 'Summer Mountain Leader' but I could offer an easier walk each day in the valley and advise on how an HF Holiday normally works.

I organised some evening activies - a quiz and a game of skittles, PyB provided a couple of lectures and there was a local food evening. There were no takers for my walks! Everyone wanted to get up into the snowy mountains.

As it turned out, the first couple of days were a bit of a damp squib as we were hit by Storm Ciara. It wasn't practical for anyone to go too high, as winds were gusting at up to 80 miles per hour! Nevertheless people did get out for walks.

Later on in the week there were lots of heavy snow showers and this resulted in a good covering of snow. Because no-one chose my walks, I was able to go out in the snow with one of the groups. We got to the top of Beinn Dorain and practiced lots of winter skills like ice-axe arrests, wearing crampons and understanding the implications of the way the snow lies on the mountains.

On the last day the sun came out and we could see Ben Nevis, Schiehallion and the Paps of Jura, all in their winter plumage. Marvellous.

Meall a' Bhuiridh

Binnein Mor and Na Gruagaichean from below Stob Choire a' Chairn

The lower slopes of Beinn Dorain with Ben Nevis in the distance

Camping Byelaws in the Scottish Highlands

Three years ago Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park introduced byelaws to restrict camping in tents or overnight stays in campervans. The reason was to deal with "inappropriate toileting, littering and irresponsible use of fires".

This meant that, between March and September (inclusive), in the area around Loch Lomond, to comply with the byelaws, you needed to camp in one of several designated locations and pay a fee. These locations did not have any facilities. In fact, at many of them it wasn't really practicable to put a tent up because there was too much vegetation or it was too boggy.

Attempts to stop campervans from parking by the road, fell by the wayside [Very witty! - Ed] because under the Road Traffic Act vehicles can be parked up to 15 yards from the carriageway for 'reasonable purposes'. This makes sense because drivers should not be forced to keep driving when they are tired.

Although there were lots of photos, no evidence was ever produced to show that it was people who wild camp that were responsible for the litter, poo, fires etc. The photos were of cheap popup tents and empty bottles probably used by a group having a boozy outdoor party.

Have the byelaws improved the stuation? No. The byelaws have been enforced in an arbitrary and unfair manner and there is still a huge litter problem. This is because campers were not really the problem in the first place. People throw litter out of cars and flytip. Instead of concentrating resources on managing litter, Loch lomond and Trossachs National Park employees are too busy making sure people take out camping permits.

One of the most worrying aspects of all this is that it is the thin end of the wedge. Because of Scotland’s access legislation, the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, you are allowed to wild camp in the countryside so long as you stick to the Scottish Outdoor Access Code and behave responsibly i.e.

• Take responsibility for your own actions
• Respect people's privacy and peace of mind
• Care for the environment

Already, there are suggestions that similar byelaws may be imposed along the route of the North Coast 500. Parking charges may be introduced. Concepts like 'Freedom Camping' are being introduced that conflate wild camping with stopping by the roadside.

There is no doubt that there is a problem that needs to be addressed but the way to do it is to provide proper facilities. The Friends of Loch Lomond and Trossachs have set out what they think needs to be done:

• A more joined up approach should be taken to tackling litter issues including more frequent litter clearance at busy weekends and during holiday periods;
• More and larger bins should be provided at busy locations throughout the National Park as exhortations to take litter home in isolation of other measures simply doesn’t work;
• Implementation of the same policy for the A82 on Loch Lomondside as exists along the A9 in the Cairngorms National Park where litter bins are provided in every layby and emptied regularly;
• More rigorous enforcement of litter fines as part of a wider effort to change people’s bad habits and attitudes in relation to discarding litter in the countryside and alongside road verges; and
• More hard hitting litter education campaigns on topics such as single use plastic, recycling and the impacts of irresponsible litter disposal in the National Park.

If people are to be asked to pay to camp, they should be provided with proper facilities as happens in the rest of Europe. People are only pooing by the roadside because they can't find a toilet.

The way to change people's habits is to offer them a better alternative, not impose bans which they will try to find ways to circumvent.

You can keep up with what is going on and even get involved in campaigns at the excellent parkswatchscotland website.  As the introduction says:


"Our two National Parks, the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, were created for the people of Scotland. This website has been set up to help ensure that Scotland’s two national parks deliver the aspirations which led to their creation.

Unfortunately, all is not well in our National Parks. Visitors are being treated as a problem, instead of the Parks’ most important customers. Great swathes of land continues to be degraded by unsustainable land management practices with all the implications that has for wildlife. People who want to live in the Parks face multiple challenges, including access to housing and well-paid jobs.

We live in a world where the powerful, and the bureaucracies that serve them, are increasingly unaccountable and serve their own interests. National Parks are no exception to this and increasingly operate like the worst Local Authorities with small cabals taking decisions in secret.

If our National Parks are to live up to their ideals, to enhance the land, enable people to enjoy it and promote sustainable development they need to be democratically accountable. This will only happen if there is pressure from below, from those who at present may be consulted but then ignored, and new mechanisms are created to enable debate and resolve conflicts where they exist."

Scottish Hilltracks

I'll start by saying how amazing the Highlands of Scotland are. They are wild and beautiful and this is why I keep going back there. However, all is not well and it's connected with land ownership.

According to a report produced by the Economic and Social Research Council, 27% of the privately owned land in Scotland is Sporting Estates. This constitutes 43% of the Highlands and Islands. As you can see from this image taken from the report, of the 218 Estates, 66% are owned by absentee landlords.

For years now, unsightly roads have been appearing all over the Highlands. Landowners claim that these are for agricultural purposes and no doubt they sometimes are, but often this is just a way to avoid the need to get planning permission. To quote from a report produced by the LINK Hill Tracks Campaign:

"The Campaign has reviewed location plans for many tracks claimed to be for agricultural use which, when cross-referenced to OS maps and aerial photos, clearly show the presence of grouse butts, thereby raising concerns as to their likely primary use. Claims of agricultural use can also be made when the more likely purpose is deer stalking, potentially illustrated by the following statement which was noted in sales particulars for the Ledgowan estate near Achnasheen in Wester Ross. 'Accessibility to the majority of the hill ground has been transformed by the construction of a network of hill roads. This significantly expands the scope of the stalking to enable those of all levels of physical fitness ...'"

The report includes many pictures, including one of mine (below) showing just how unsightly these tracks are and many are constructed so badly that they are damaging the ecosystems by causing water to run off the land faster causing even further damage as in Glen Falloch.

Sign by track at Drumochter urging walkers to help conserve the countryside, photo taken June 2017

Another reason for constructing a hill track is to allow for the construction of run-of-river hydro schemes. In 2010 a new feed-in tariff was introduced. This meant that you would be paid to generate your own electricity. At the time you could get a better return on your capital by investing it in a small hydro scheme than you could by putting it in the bank. Once the work is done there is a dam up in the hills and a buried pipe that leads down to a small building with a turbine in it.

In order to build the dam you need a track to get the machinery up to it and to maintain it and the pipeline. The feed-in tariff was scrapped in April 2019 but produced what the BBC described as a 'gold rush' for hydro power. If you joined before it closed your payment was index-linked for 20 years!

Considering the environmental damage, do these mini hydro-schemes make sense. Clearly they make business sense for the landowner but do they make sense for the rest of us? The run of the river schemes that I am talking about generate less than 5 MW of electricity. You can search the Renewable Energy Foundation Database to see how much power all of the Scottish Commercial Hydro Schemes smaller than 5 MW collectively produce. The result is about 154 MW.

The average UK home uses about 3.5 KW. So this powers about 44,000 homes (1.8% of the homes in Scotland). Most hydro hardware manufacturers quote design lives of 25 years - not that long. Wouldn't we be better off using tidal power?

"The crown estate and Scottish government are behind a £4 bn project to build a number of tidal power sites around the Orkney islands and the Pentland Firth, expected to generate the same amount of power as a nuclear power station. That's 1.2GW of green energy - enough to power up to 750,000 homes.

Some estimates have suggested that a combination of tidal and wave power from the area could produce up to 60GW of power. That would represent 10 times Scotland's annual electricity usage. Other studies suggest one-third of the UK's total electricity needs could be met by tidal power alone."

Have these landowners really been converted to using their land for green electricity? If you do use your land for deerstalking or grouse shooting, that subsidised track is very handy!

There is a campaign against these hilltracks. You can read more about it here. Disappointingly, in June 2019, MSPs voted against including new hilltrack legislation in the Planning Bill. It won the support of Green, Labour and Liberal Democrat colleagues, but SNP and Conservative MSPs joined forces to vote against the changes.

You can help by taking photos of new tracks or tracks of concern and sending them to hilltracks@scotlink.org or sharing the photos on social media using #HillTracks. Also, if you live in Scotland, you can write or speak to your elected representatives in the Scottish Parliament and/or your local authority.

If you would like to read more about this, read this article by Helen Todd of Ramblers Scotland. I'll quote some of it below:

"Why do we need stronger laws?

Environmental damage: We're seeing vehicles tracks that cause permanent scarring to landscapes, including SSSIs, rare habitats and important peatland environments.

Industrialising the countryside: Tracks are creeping further and further into Scotland's wilder areas, industrialising special environments and impacting on people's outdoor experience. This includes vehicle tracks bulldozed near the summits of popular Munros.

Bad build quality: Due to the lack of oversight, construction standards are often poor. This results in 'rubble' tracks that wash away during heavy rain, deep banks that are too step to re-vegetate and inappropriate materials including visible plastic piping.

Democratic deficit: Perhaps the biggest issues is fairness. These tracks symbolise the abuse of privilege by many landowners. While ordinary people need to apply for planning permission to build modest extensions to their houses, tracks are being bulldozed up mountainsides causing permanent scars with no public oversight.

Tracks can have several uses, and we completely acknowledge that some can be useful for mountain-biking and walking – although sadly many have been built over the top of existing narrow, low-impact trails, including historical routes.
However, the current system offers no opportunity for the public to weigh up the pros and cons of potential new tracks."