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."

My Carbon Footprint

Considering that I have taken six European return flights this year I was wondering about my Carbon Footprint.

There are various websites that calculate this for you. I chose co2.myclimate.org as the site is easy to use and they don't seem to have any obvious axe to grind. They also explain how they have worked things out.

Adding up the six flights, I have generated about 4.4 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide.

What percentage of my overall carbon footprint is this?

• Driving the car for a year is about 4 t. 
• Living where I do and following my lifestyle is about 8.1 t and
• Breathing for a year is about 0.3 t.

This means that my overall carbon footprint this year will be about 16.7 tonnes of which 26% is flights.

According to myclimate.org, if I:

• Always travelled by public transport, cycled or walked (saving - 1.8 t)
• Never flew (saving - 4.4 t)
• Only eat vegetarian food (saving - 1.2 t)
• Very rarely bought new products, clothes or decorative items (saving - 0.2 t)
• Moved to an energy efficient building (saving - 1.6 t)
• Only took quick showers (already doing it)
• Wore a pullover in winter when I am at home (already doing it)
• Stop breathing (hang on a minute - don't include that!)

I could reduce it to 3.3 t

If I don't make these changes, can I offset 13.5 tonnes of Carbon?

The most popular ways of offsetting are:

• Replacing fossil energy sources with renewable energy or by promoting energy-efficient technologies.
• Contributing to social, ecological and economic development projects.
• Purchasing Carbon Credits

All of these are discussed in this interesting article at ethicalconsumer.org or here at responsibletravel.com.

So would it help if I stopped flying? Errr. Not really. No.

1) HF Holidays would send a different walks leader
2) The plane would fly anyway
3) We'd still be heading for a Climate Catastrophe

Stopping the Climate Catastrophe won't be done by carbon offsetting or a few people flying less.

We need to:

• Shift to renewable energy sources like tidal power
• Provide free public transport as an alternative to driving and flying
• Stop destroying forests for intensive agriculture
• Create protected areas in the oceans in which sea life can flourish
• Encourage people to appreciate their environment and enjoy walking (already doing it)

 Isn't that a bit of a cop out though? You are willing to recycle your waste and you don't drop litter. [Ed.]

I guess I'm willing to do things that are easy to do but not things that would have a big impact on my life like becoming a vegetarian or not flying. If there was a genuinely easy alternative, I would use it.
 

Visitors from Misato

I have recently become Treasurer of Hebden Bridge Walkers Action. Yesterday we were visited by seven representatives of the town council of Misato in Japan. They came to Britain to find out about Walkers are Welcome towns as they are planning to set up something similar in their home town.

At the weekend they attended the Walkers are Welcome conference in Kirby Stephen and stayed in Otley before coming to visit us in Hebden Bridge. They came here because Hebden Bridge was the first Walkers are Welcome town. They were welcomed by the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of our local Town Council, HebdenRoyd. There was a discussion and an exchange of ideas followed by coffee and cake.

Visitors from Misato with the Mayor

Walkers Action then accompanied the visitors on the bus up to Heptonstall. After a quick look around the historic village we walked back down to Hebden Bridge for Lunch in the White Lion.

Hebden Bridge Walkers Action have signed a Memorandum of Friendship with Misato in which we agree to support each other to:

• Encourage towns and villages in our respective countries to be "Welcoming to Walkers".
• Offer local people and visitors excellent walking opportunities.
• Promote the health benefits of walking.
• Increase participation in walking.
• Encourage the use of local transport.
• Ensure that footpaths and facilities for walkers are maintained, improved and well signposted.
• Encourage appreciation of the local countryside, landscape, cultural heritage, and ecology

It was wonderful to meet people from Japan who are as enthusiastic as we are about these objectives.

Derwentwater and Munrobagging III

Since my last post, I have had two weeks at HF Derwentwater leading Guided Walking and a week at HF Glencoe leading Munrobagging III. The weather was pretty wet in the Lake District although there was one memorable day when I took 21 people to the top of Scafell Pike. The cloud was drifting around but we got some good views. Very satisfying.

Descending from Scafell Pike along The Corridor Route

On Munrobagging III there was, thankfully, less wind than we had on MBI and MBII (see previous post). 11 people signed up for MBIII, which is a fair sized group on fairly challenging walks. They were good walkers and we made good progress.

My general approach is not to walk too fast but not to stop too much either. Ideally you should be able to keep up a conversation without getting out of breath, although sometimes this isn't possible if it gets very steep. I like to stop for 15 minutes for elevenses, 20 minutes for lunch and to have a short break on the way down to give weary knees a rest. We might stop occasionally for a drink, or to look at the view, but I try to walk slowly enough to allow everyone to keep up, so that we don't have to keep stopping to let people catch up. I like to keep the same pace going all day and just shorten or lengthen my stride to deal with uphill or downhill slopes or awkward terrain. Again - this isn't always possible.

If people want to walk a bit faster and go ahead, that's fine - so long as they don't get too far ahead. A couple of minutes is a good rule of thumb but they need to bear the following in mind:

1) Do they know the way?
2) Is the rest of the group in sight?
3) By getting ahead, are they putting pressure on the people near the back to rush? This can be very demoralising if you are at the back of the group.
4) What would happen if someone had an accident? Could we easily get the group back together to manage the incident?

We had a particularly memorable day when we walked from Elleric in Glen Creran to Glencoe, via Beinn Fhionnlaidh and Sgor na h-Ulaidh. This was the first time I had done the walk with a group and perhaps it was just a bit too big a walk as we got back an hour late. However, the memorable aspect was the cloud inversion. We spent nearly the whole day in cloud except for when we reached the summits, where we emerged into the sky above the clouds and looked out at all the tops over about 950 metres sticking out of the clouds. Incredible!

Beinn Fhionlaidh and Ben Cruachan from Sgor na h-Ulaidh

Ben Nevis, Aonach Mor, Grey Corries, Bidean & Sgor na h-Ulaidh from Beinn Fhionlaidh

Descent from Sgor na h-Ulaidh (The Hill of the Treasure!)