UKH

Scafell Pike on a sunny Bank Holiday can be more manic than the cities people left to get there. As increasing numbers flock to the fells, has the Lake District become a victim of its own popularity? Is this any longer a place to visit for those who value the peace and freedom of the open hills? Look beyond the headlining summits, says Matt Poluton, and there's still space for everyone.

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Very good article. I agree there are still plenty of fells you can go to and get solitude. I guess a lot of the problems now are with the infrastructure - parking, volume of traffic on narrow roads, etc.

Totally agree! Plenty of fells to get some solitary picturesque walks, just finding parking etc. Great piece Matt.

Yes and no.

If I relocate the question to Eryri just because I am more familiar with the mountains in the area it could be said Yr Wyddfa is too busy. However if you choose carefully say Arenig Fawr, Rhobell Fawr and the Rhinogydd you could go up to the summits everyday and stay up there most of the and seldom see a sole.

It is good to see people out however it does cause issues with litter and erosion so it can be a double edged sword.

More parking just encourages more cars. Perhaps better to focus on improving public transport?

yes , but if you are in traffic you are traffic haha. 

A thoughtful article which I definitely agree with.  Couple of questions -

1.  Is the National Park actually quite content to funnel the majority of walkers towards a few honey pots and provide the paths, the parking, the loos etc to cope, leaving the rest of the area relatively unspoiled?  An example would be the walk around Buttermere.  It has a path good enough for a pushchair, a large and expensive car park and expensive loos.  It is signposted from a long way away and many books give it as a suggested walk.  There are other places to walk that seem far less advertised.

2.  Has the popularity of vans added to the burden?  Once the hostels, B&Bs and campsites are full, it puts a natural brake on the footfall.  If another layer of visitors turn up in vans and park in laybys, does this add to things?  Are there people who purchased vans who naturally feel the need to make the most of their substantial outlay, so visit the Lakes when they would have otherwise stayed at home?

I've no evidence for either but it has crossed my mind.

Last time I tried to visit the lakes on the train, it was cancelled and I had to go home from Preston (or wait an unknown time for a rail replacement that at best got us to Windermere long after the last bus out), for me just usable would be an improvement

Colin Kirkus wrote that he was glad that most people flooded to a few popular places, as it left most other mountains empty for him to enjoy

The difficulty of articles such as this is that they may become successful. Honeypotting can be a good thing.

I've not visited the Lakes for maybe 25 years but similar articles could have been written then and I remember hearing people moaning about overcrowding when I first started to visit back in the 1970s. Are then any reliable data on visitor numbers both in the valleys & on the fells ? Does the National Park collect information that could quantify any changes in visitor pressure ?

As ever, I'm unconvinced that a post on a climbing website, or even an article in a Sunday paper, is going to have much impact on the 100,000 people a year who go up Scafell Pike for the most part because it's the tallest mountain in England and one of the small number that most normal people have heard of. As Matt says in the article, there are reasons that some hills become honeypots and those reasons aren't likely to change in a hurry.

Something i witnessed a few years back

Such a hypothesis doesn’t stand scrutiny, yes you are correct in that a lot of people choose their outings on the basis of limited awareness, hence the Sniwdon, Scarfell, Ben Nevis syndrome.

You are wrong in the sense locations like the Fairy Pools and Neist prove that all it takes is that awareness to be skewed by modern social media, and a hitherto obscure location can be swamped.  UKC and articles in it are part of that social media paradigm, the more spots are mentioned the greater the risk of them being picked up and promoted, changing them dramatically. We have seen that time and again in our own little sphere; some bothies, CWT, many munro such as An Teallach, obscure tops such as Sgurr Nan Stri and more.

Great article Matt. I agree there are some places it can feel crowded and as a local that has grown up in Cumbria and has been going up the hills for over two decades, my attitude tends towards the idea that these people are on 'my' hills. I need to remind myself as you say, that if you're in the traffic you are the traffic. Next time i find myself cursing the tourists that keep our economy afloat, I'll use my knowledge of the fells to go to the quieter places and leave the masses to Wasdale and Skiddaw!

Too busy? I think that is quite the understatement. We live on the west coast of Cumbria and have given up on the Lakes altogether after many decades of walking. It's become more of a theme park than an area of natural beauty. Perhaps it should be renamed Walley World?

Unfortunately the great outdoors is now becoming an environmental disaster due to it being big business and the Lakes unfortunately is taking one heck of a walloping because of it. Let's face it Matt, you whether intentionally or not are helping to drive this. Articles sell advertising space for companies to cash in. Your very article is suggesting to people that there are still pockets in the Lakes that can be filled up so please don't stop coming. We have irritating comedians protesting about sewage in Windermere unable to see the root cause of the problem is them and the overpopulation caused by the runaway explosion of tourists. There was a silly person dressed as a mermaid towing an inflatable poo around Lake Windermere during the Kendal Mountain Festival (20000 visitors). No wonder it's full of crap!

Unfortunately the vast majority of people in the UK need to be led. They need bandwagons. The outdoors is the latest sell. There's VW/Ford Transit Custom vans everywhere stuffed with paddle boards, road bikes, Speedos for wild swimming, cool over engineered clothing fit for the Himalayas and god help us... electric mountain bikes. Hopefully this fad will eventually burn out and the Lakes will recover. Until that time comes ironically the fells have never had so many sheep on them.

Welcome to the UKH party, Matt. I'd agree, the art of route-selection is becoming more and more essential to master.

As you say, even over-favoured summits have under-favoured approaches; it's good to remember there are 360 degrees in the circle. 

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/logbook/r/index.php?i=1407

Have to say my thoughts on this have changed since an accident means I am now one of those people who needs the easier terrain, lower level paths with proximity to reliable parking and facilities I can be driven to. To anyone else I 'look' able-bodied but that is far from the case.

I'd love more public transport but realistically for anyone like me it's just not an option - by the time I've got there I'm too fatigued to do anything else. 

Really wish we could stop talking about the easy 'tourist' paths with so much scorn. There is a good reason a lot of us need them.

Yes, some people can visit on less busy days, but isn't the ability to be free on a random week day for most people a massive privilege? 

If you're visiting, you *are* a tourist.

Wainwright's your man. He hated hoards of punters tromping all over his beloved fells. Well, maybe if you hadn't written a whole series of guidebooks Alf ...

I first started visiting in the 1970's. We went a few times in Winter. There was almost no traffic (we got the train) and many shops were closed. Most of the honey pots were deserted. We walked between various Youth Hostels, or camped and spent the evening in a pub. On recent visits in January everywhere was open and places like Keswick were almost as full as in they are in summertime. 

Just be patient, another couple of more traditional Cumbrian summers and the influx will move on to the next cool fad.

There will be a glut of cheap used vans and quiet fells to enjoy.

2 words - Mungrisdale Common

Virtually nobody would walk over this totally unremarkable flat bit of land if it wasn't for being a Wainwright. The irony that he is himself the architect of a significant amount of the erosion to his "beloved" peace & quiet has not been lost on me.

Thanks for your encouraging words, I could do with a van for tip runs.

Unfortunately I don't think the trees will grow back at Bowness Knott car park..... It's maybe a good thing as I do love a bleak pay and display car park in the middle of "Wild" Ennerdale.

You missed out mentioning the Synges, lots of opportunity there to avoid all those hordes of Birkett hunters 😁

Sgurr na Stri?  Really?  I'm surprised by that.  If it were roadside I'd fully expect it to be rammed, but it's hardly 'easy access'.

I'm worried about how these kinds of articles encourage overcontributing - at least five new ones registered today! What about the erosion?

The fells are too busy although you can largely escape the hordes in winter. Saddened to see recently the profusion of pointless piles of rock (cairns) all over the place with usually a twee pebble precariously perched on top. Why can't human beings just leave things alone for once?

On the weekend of the late May bank holiday in 1989, I can recall BBC news carrying an article imploring people not to go to the Lake District because it was 'full'.  I suspect that on any weekend between March and September there'd be more people there now than were there that weekend 35 years ago, and the carrying capacity of the region won't have increased that much.

I sometimes think the place would be better with ticketed access only for some valleys.

T.

Yes, the erosion of my trust...

The main issue in my opinion is that everyone has a vested interest in using the lakes for their own relatively narrow reasons. Sweeping generalisations ahead but...

Locals want to protect their community from the ever rising tide of tourism, yet often find themselves reliant on the very industry that is eroding "how things were".

Outdoorsy types want it to be an "unspoilt" playground all to themselves, for the most part at least.

Day trippers visiting Windermere want to see a big Lake, maybe a tearoom and not get mud on their shoes.

Farmers want to continue overgrazing and maintain a totally manufactured landscape under the guise of "natural / wild land".

Wealthy second home owners are gradually gentrifying the area without contributing much outside of a few weekends a year. 

The national park authority has a bi-polar problem of both preserving and promoting the national park.

The only thing that is certain is that the lake district is taking a hammering from every possible user and it's damaging the very reasons people come. I used to scoff at the prospect of closing some of the valleys to traffic in summer but having visited other places with car free areas, I think it's perhaps not such a bad idea.

This is a really interesting subject - but also an odd one in the sense that somehow from my visits to the Lakes, it doesn't feel that busy. I'm trying to work out why this might be! I did have a day on Dow Crag a couple of summers back when our main objective was Eliminate A, but there were a number of teams on it and waiting to start. We did Murray's Route in the morning, other teams on routes around it, but not on it. Then in the afternoon we did Eliminate A with no one else on the route. Last time I climbed on Gimmer there were plenty of other teams out but again we didn't have to wait for routes. But I more often go on my own for easy winter climbs, scrambles and walks. I last did Striding Edge last March (in very wintery conditions). I chatted with skier on the summit Helvellyn but otherwise don't think I saw anyone all day - went up Nethermost Pike East Ridge over to Helvellyn and down Striding. That was a rare mid-week day though as I wasn't in work due to industrial action. Back in October I walked up the Scafell's in lovely autumn sunshine all day, and a Sunday. I came in from Cockley Bridge up Moasdale, Eskdale and scrambled up Cockly Pike Ridge, again, I didn't see anyone until getting on to Ill Crag and walking over to Scafell Pike. The summit was pretty busy but as soon as I went down to the Mickledoor it got quieter, then no one else on Lord's Rake, a few people on the summit of Scafell then again not a single soul as I dropped down to Fox Tarn, the Great Moss and out down Moasdale. I've been on Brown Cove Crags when there have been plenty of other winter climbers there, but never not done a route I wanted to because of other parties on it, so even in fleeting winter conditions it's not necessarily that busy. Same for Red Tarn Face as well. It's odd, it is such a busy place but it's still super easy for it to not feel that busy somehow.

No one has mentioned that more people may be holidaying in Britain due to the cost and / or environmental impact (travel emissions) of going abroad. I think this trend will continue. Trouble is, our tourist infrastructure isn’t designed to cope with this. Not enough public transport, car parks, toilets and cheap campsites, particularly for campervans.

Personally, I haven’t been abroad since the start of Covid, partly for environmental reasons, partly because I just can’t be bothered with the extra hassle of going abroad and partly because there’s so much great climbing to do at home (loads of great crags I’ve not yet been to in the Lakes and loads of great routes still to do on crags I’ve already visited). Keep wondering if this year will be the year I’ll venture to the Alps but this hasn’t happened yet. 

Timing plays a signifiant part. I've done Crib Goch twice in the past year or so A perfect winter days 2 weeks ago and an equally perfect sunny early evening in early summer before that - both midweek and both times I only met one other person on it. 

"How things were...".

That's an interesting concept in the Lakes. Do we mean when there was  widespread rural poverty, punctuated by brief periods of lead or slate mining? Small numbers of wealthy mine owners with a much larger number of poor itinerant workers living only to their late 20s due to the conditions? Subsistence farming for the majority?

Or, do we mean the arrival of trains, the wealthy on tour and the few very wealthy villa builders around Windermere? In the meantime farming of course was probably easy, well paid and provided plenty of jobs for everyone, maybe? Visitor numbers were sensible,  and in any case, most stuck to the areas around the railway and were happy to stroll around the lakeshore of the town, parasol in hand.

It's easy to merge a whole range of "things were much better then" type ideas to bemoan how things are now.

We are in the Lakes regularly and have been going there since the early 80s. Busier? Maybe in Glenridding on a sunny Saturday in July, maybe on the shore of Wastwater with all the vans fighting for pole position? However,  walking up Glaramara from just about anywhere? No. Even Blencathra away from Sharp Edge or Halls Fell (Doddick is wonderful too), not busy.

The visitor numbers being over 10% lower since pre covid times is a clue too.

Is the place perfect, absolutely not, but it's pretty darn lovely and friendly and varied and those who live there have chosen well.

Everyone is just visiting. Whether it's for a weekend, a month, 80 years, we're all a dot in the story. This is why as I've thought about it more I realised I don't necessarily understand this firmly held belief that 'locals' get some kind of additional weight to their opinions by default. It just doesn't seem to be disputed that taking the opportunity to live or buy property in a national park entities you to enhanced voting rights without question.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with it, just find it odd that it's so undebated, ingrained and assumed that that's the case.

This would be another article, the notion of being "local". I've often wondered. You go back far enough, everyone arrived from somewhere else. Without a clear definition, it's not a word I like to use nor do I accept it if someone else uses it. Were just lucky (or unlucky!) to be where we are and we shouldn't arbitrarily decide for ourselves who else has a right to be there so we can have a rant online.

Impractical idealism. We have democratic structures, where local input is part of that and that seems fair to me given the greater constraints of living inside an NP. These structures are also subject to democratic change.

Slightly dramatic to avoid the lakes all together because there's more walkers... I live in Cumbria and it's rarely a problem other than the honeypots or driving in summer, but living in Cumbria you can pick and choose when to head out. I go out most evenings through summer after work and I won't see anyone, even in Langdale for example. Glass half full...

The work people like Matt Staniek are doing to bring awareness to the problems United Utilities are causing regarding sewage in Windemere and around the lakes is a good thing. Yes more people adds more sewage but United Utilities dumping it in Windemere is the problem here, not the fact humans need to poo. The silly persons job dressed as a mermaid clearly did the right thing as you've remembered it and wrote it here.

Electric mountain bikes have helped many people I know get back out on bikes enjoying the lakes where otherwise they couldn't, because of illness such as cancer. Without an electric bike they wouldn't be able to ride.

Agree with you on the van camping however most places to stay in the lakes are expensive for what they are. An article on UKC is hardly going to drive a significant amount of more people to the lakes, yes Tiktok is driving more people to locations such as striding edge and sharp edge which puts a burden on mountain rescue teams but that's slightly different than a UKC article. Maybe we should all just stay at home and be negative about everything.

An interesting topic, but the article just goes: "An errant hair blew across my face as I slowly ruminated on whether or not the Lake District was busy... Or whether, in fact, this was all a perception created by being in a queue up the Catbells. Fortunately, this passing attempt at thought was immediately dispelled, like so much hot air, upon reaching a somewhat quieter vantage point."

There are serious problems to deal with, but more people wanting to get out in the fells is not one of them. It's great that more people want to get out! What we need for the area is:

1. more infrastructure, especially parking and loos for tourists, but also infrastructure investment for local people
2. viable and affordable public transport (n.b. £2 buses scheme was enormous for the area, but not enough, especially with rail is disarray)
3. more investment in conservation efforts
4. less sheep farming
5. sustainable economic development for local people (not a reliance on tourism, which always leads to unequal and unjust development)
6. affordable local housing and a crackdown on second homes and Air BnBs.

A few people on Catbells or Striding Edge is nowt compared to climate catastrophe, collapsing biodiversity and growing social inequality.

Allocation of entitlement to vote needs to be uncontroversial and objectively justifiable...

One way would be to allocate votes (or fractions) by the amount of time they spend in the Area. If you never venture out that is 1 vote, if you come for 8 hours once a year that is 0.001 of a vote.

I suspect that for most people that information is already 'there'.....(given our phones propensity to collect information).

Perhaps a correction could be added for amount of money spent within the park as a proportion of income, or absolute. Then people will have something to discuss 🙄 .

I don't think irritating comedians and silly mermaids have contributed much to the eutrophication of Windermere, but they are at least trying to do something about it.  What about you?  How responsible are local people, especially those who make their living out of tourism?  Perhaps there's a chronic lack of investment in basic infrastructure from local, regional and national institutions, while blaming the visitors on which the local economy is based.  Wishful (and, I have to say, rather selfish) thinking that everyone should just go away won't fix anything.

Quite.  At least shaming water companies into taking responsibility for dealing with waste water and sewage, and the Environment Agency and local government into monitoring water quality and taking some enforcement action would be a bandwagon worth jumping on.

Really though? Weren't the national parks also created for those who can't afford to get to them every weekend? 

I was going to say something like this, back in 2022 I will never forget I went up Snowdon twice in 6 months, once with a friend and once on my own (both times via Crib Goch) and both times we had the summit completely to ourselves, both days the weather was fair. I remember thinking the first time "wow this is a once in a lifetime treat to have the summit to myself", then the second time I was like "ok maybe there is some trick to this".

As you say, it's all about timing. You can have the most popular places to yourself if you can be flexible with annual leave and happy to wake up before dawn. And if you can't do those you can always pick quiet mountains.

Well, this article has certainly encouraged a lot of new members to UKC...

See the 'Suggest me best tool for photo editing' thread (2122 Monday) for a possible explanation:
https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/photography/suggest_me_best_tool_for_phot...

If you're sad about the lack of trees in the lake district direct your ire at the sheep (and the farmers and subsidies that keep them there) not the car parks.

There are pockets of beautiful forest in the lake district but most of it is artificially barren land. The first time I visited the lake district (maybe about 12 years old) I was blown away by the scale of it and the views. No though, I'd rather go for walk in the Chilterns than up a treeless sheep factory 

So the title should read "Are the Lakes too busy with Fell Runners because of FB Influencers"...?

I am caught in the dichotomy of loving the open sweeping views, and being horrified by the lack of biodiversity in the upland environment. However dealing with this requires political will and ultimately money.

And there's no need to be amongst crowds in the Lakes, pick the right spots and/or the right times and there won't be many (if any) around.

Or six people independently planning to take the same cliched photograph.

There does seem to be a phenomenon of honeypot landscape photo spots (probably a social media thing), though this would certainly be one of the remoter ones.

Not according to this:

"Only second time in a hundred odd summit camps that I've seen anyone, so quite a shock. Put a smile on my face though that six Polish guys living in England had made it to the right place at the right time, far off the beaten track, even if they had taken all the least sloping spots"

And I like the photograph.

Ah, ok!

Mark's or the one everyone takes? Or both?

They aren't (and shouldn't be) exclusive, there is always a complex relationships between councils and parks ... or are you suggesting residents are completely disenfranchised for the greater good?

There are plenty of lovely walks in the Chilterns! 

I was being a bit tongue in cheek when I linked that photo, should have added a 😁

Espresso round, schedule, what's that all about, I just go for a wander, and even on a bank holiday I find solitude in the fells, with no difficulty.

Espresso round <walks off muttering >

And what are those of us who prefer cappuccino or lattes supposed to do. Absolutely no provision has been made to supply us with a suitable circuit.

Maybe the Ambleside Ale Trail would suit you?

Ye gods, what a weird circuit. Hardly touches Ambleside but I can see the opportunity to sample several hostelries between there and upper Langdale before drunkenly deciding to go up them there hills, sobering up a bit but deciding to top up in Grasmere before remembering that you've left the car all the way over in Glenridding.

Actually, thinking about it, this is quite a challenge if the idea is to quaff a pint in each suitable location (*) but still have got your alcohol level suitably down by the time you get back to the car.

(*) that means one in Ambleside, one in Grasmere, etc. Not one in every ale selling establishment that you stumble past.

If you think the lakes are busy you should take a trip to Skye! Christ it was so much busier then I expected

The more folk that can have the opportunities we have for the lovely places,  the better.  There are still unlimited places to be alone.

Scafell Pike on a sunny Bank Holiday can be more manic than the cities people left to get there. 
 

What a load of tosh.  
 

I have been visiting the Lakes since 2013 to go walking in the mountains

 I go slightly out of season, usually just before or after the May Half Term, although last year I went in July a few weeks before the summer holidays. I have never found any of the mountains to be crowded. Even when i did Scafell Pike , on a Thursday,  and Helvellyn on a Friday (not in the same year) it was quiet going up and quiet coming down, maybe a few folks on the summits, but if you wait your turn you can usually get a moment where there's no-one around to get a photo from the summit. 

In fact the only time I have seen almost too many ppl was on Catbells, and that was only a temporary inconvenience as by the time I had reached High Spy they had all melted away. I suppose my luck is that I'm happy to take a route less trodden to reach a summit.  I did Skiddaw from the north, Pillar from the west, and Blencathra via Sharp Edge. 

If you keep away from the main paths and main carparks then the mountains can be quiet.  

That said, I've been recently walking in the Southern Uplands, if you want peace and quiet then Scotland south of Edinburgh is the place to go. 

When you say "local people", what exactly do you mean.

People born there.

People wealthy enough to retire there.

People who have moved there to work out of nessicity, possibly in hospitality.

People who have chosen to work there as a life style choice.

I am not sure being "local" gives a particular moral prerogative, in a national park, which is theoretically a resource for anyone to chose to access.

I don't disagree, but I think you're being obtuse. Let me put it a different way: there are people who live in the area, and their diverse needs must be met.

For example, where are the mythical "levelling up funds" for Cumbria? Tory Mark Jenkinson won his West Cumbria seat on this promise. So wtf is he doing for West Cumbria, one of the most deprived areas in the country? Apart from being a part of a party that has no problem with making money out of murdering and disabling and orphaning children in Gaza and Yemen, claiming that people swap food parcels for drugs and "virtue signalling" about how transphobic he is, he has done absolutely nothing except happily act as a loyal stooge when required. He'll be parachuted into a different, safer, seat at the next election. Absolute scum and Cumbria deserves better. The question now is: what is Labour going to offer that is in any way different?

Another obvious issue is housing: we have a housing crisis across the county, and it is particularly hard to find a house in Cumbria - partly due to competition from wealthier incomers. Rents in Kendal are ridiculous. Building a significant amount of council housing that cannot simply be bought to be turned into a second home/Air BnB would be really helpful.

These are just a couple of examples which hopefully speak to the broader issues of Cumbria, rather than seeing its development simply in the narrow terms of "overcrowding", traffic, "honeypots" and path erosion.

Precisely because it is a national park, that is a vital resource for the entirety of England, Cumbria should be prioritised for funding. But, that funding should come with plans for holistic and equitable development, not just ways of managing tourism slightly better.

I am not being obtuse, at all, just highlighted that a concept you have chosen to frame the issue, "local people " is much more slippery than you would like. An uncomfortable truth for you in this case is that the local people have chosen to vote Tory, oh dear. Furthermore, the issues of west Cumbria, are not really those of the NP, which is being discussed here.

Also, quite a few  West Cumbrians, are in favor of coal mining and nuclear power, which i suspect you are not. As to the prices of rental properties in Kendal, that is market forces, but as a starting point where exactly near Kendal are you going to build all this social housing?

"Local people" can be a slippery slope... But, I'm not intending it in any nativist or nimby manner: clearly we should be able to address the needs of all (though not necessarily simply their desires/preferences). A single mother and a wealthy retiree both need good roads, a gp service where you can actually get an appointment and for their area to be prospering rather than declining.

The increase in housing prices is not simply "market forces", as though these were something like gravity or weather. They are the result of policies that have led to the wealthiest having enormous amounts of spare cash during a stagnating economy and at a time where vested interests have slowed down house building. They are also due to other policies, e.g. selling off council housing or failing to regulate the rented sector.

Of course, all this has a bearing on the NP. Your question about where will these houses be built is an example of this. So are plans, e.g., for ziplines on the basis that this will bring jobs (it won't, or not enough) or expanding telecoms or investing in conservation. The right sort of development is needed: not just development that benefits landlords.

And, yes, dirty industries like weapons and coal need phasing out,but not in a way that leaves thousands of West Cumbrians unemployed and angry.

Transport and public transport is another obvious key overlap between the NP and local interests.

I told you thay you were being obtuse!

The local MP is furiously spending levelling up money on patching and resurfacing roads during weather which makes the work effectively useless. It's chaos. More money is being spent installing telegraph poles to spoil the views that tourist come here for.

All so he can boast about how much he has spent in his re election brochure.

What’s the deal with the new telegraph poles? They’re sprouting up all around where I live.

I am led to believe it's the stopping of analogous phone lines and universality of access, it is also why applications for phone masts in places like Langdale are popping up. They are for Fibre cables. That could all be bullocks, but I read it on the internet 

The same applies to any touristic destinations. Even New York or Venice have quiet streets. The good thing with tourists is they are predictable, and on the whole 'lazy'. So, avoid Times Square and San Marco, and don't follow the latest vlogger's advice, and you will be fine.

An after-dinner walk back to the hotel through an empty Piazza San Marco is just incredible.

Likewise, sunrise from the top of Gable and a wet, windy, dramatic day on Catbells. These busy places aren't busy 24/7 - we just need to pick our moments.

Of course there are quiet times, places and conditions. However the typical visitor is bound by work, weather preferences and accessibility.

You wrote:"The national park authority has a bi-polar problem of both preserving and promoting the national park."

I think the Ntional Parks nationwide need to focus on the preserving and stop promoting. All the visitors coming, partly due to the promoting, are helping to spoil and not preserve the parks.

So the communities who live in the parks and benefit from the employment which comes from the visitors are not to be preserved?

I don’t think we are all from cities and so what if we were unless you live on the pike you are a tourist and part of the problem too …

Completely agree gone are the days when you didn’t have to promote every move you make on socials and have a trendy commercial name for everything .. glad I was never part of this scene 

Fourth generation, as a minimum. 😉

I suspect Sgurr na Stri will have, like a lot of hills, become busier over the last 25 years - it's featured in a lot of discussions around the best Scottish viewpoint and presumably that will have attracted the attention of interested hillwalkers and photographers.

I might have seen a picture on a Scottish Mountain calendar, or seen a mention on OM forums before I first visited in 2006 - can't remember now.

Rather broader question is - what's wrong with that? The po-faced secrecy culture proponents reference places like the Fairy Pools and they're right - social/broadcast media can create interest that changes the character of places for the worse. Muriel Gray and her Munro Show may have led to a lot more interest in Scottish hillwalking - I think that's a good thing, with some downsides (nothing is ever wholly positive).

The old Bothy Culture "keep it secret, only tell a select few" is deeply ingrained in some, I can't be bothered with it. In hill terms the Honeypot hills will be heaving, generally along the limited, popular routes (usually SMC/WH in Scotland). The huge majority of folk never stray from the hills and routes that are well-kent and have some recognition factor with their friends and family. 

With a deeply unfit, unhealthy UK I'd rather see more and more folk outdoors exercising even if it means my experience isn't quite as good (but in reality I'll just stick to off-piste routes and off-piste hills safe in the knowledge that they will never be popular).

IIRC the bothy culture was more of "don't advertise" If they were so secret, I would never have used most of the ones that I did, although a few people did take it too far.  I remember someone in EUOC who would not divulge the location of the Crossburn wigwam. (Before it appeared on a Harvey Mountain Marathon map) Can't say I blame him, when I did visit it had by then been well and truly nedded.   He went on to push the Andes a fair bit mind.

Another bothy tale from my first stint with EUOC.  Even Ryvoan was not so well kent then, one meet a few of us got off the meet bus and then worked out a way of sneaking off to it without a large number following us. I think about five of us in a couple of independent parties met up on the walk in. (One of those meets when you were glad of a roof, long before they named the storms)

Even today there are places left unlocked with the condition that they are not advertised. Not MBA maintained though.  I'd happily discuss them  personally, but never here and as for YouPube.......

As someone who has done decades of walking in the Lakes.  You (and I) are part of the problem, if you believe there is one.  Its very easy to label other users of the national park as 'tourists' whilst forgetting that the vast majority of us are also tourists.

The good old days of Wainwright promoting the fells, eh ?

Fwiw - last autumn I climbed Dow Crag from Seathwaite, Scafell Pike from the Great moss, Coniston Old Man from Coppermines and the Langdale horseshoe. Only the last was in poor weather, but on all of them I barely saw a soul. The Lakes is probably less busy than I was expecting when I moved here three years ago.

its called fibre , they put it on poles instead of underground , Scotland has gone mad on it

 !!!  Senseless 

Whilst I completely agree on coal, do you really think that if the UK phased out having weapons, Putin's Russia (for example) would think: 'what a fine example for us to follow, and not; oh good here's another weak country we can now bully like Georgia, Ukriane, Moldova...'?

But much more cost effective, and less damaging, than thousands of miles of trenches.

Plenty of places in the Lakes to go that aren't Scafell Pike.  Just as there are plenty of mountains in Wales that aren't Snowdon.

The Howgills in particular tend to be fairly quiet, as do the western fells other than Scafell Pike because they take an extra hour and a half to get to from places south of the Lakes compared to the likes of Langdale.

I understand your point. But, we make colossal profits out of undermining peace around the world: an estimated £11 billion in 2019. These weapons are not even being used by us, nevermind making us safer - that's a fallacy. Most of those weapons are going to places like Saudia Arabia, which we have sponsored in creating a horrific humanitarian disaster in Yemen. And we see how that has actually led to the withdrawal of human rights abuser Saudia Arabia and the empowerment of the group we now call the Houthis - who have been able to attack and block shipping. So much for global security!

We are actually one of the biggest arms traders in the world, and not only should that be a source of shame, but it is also often on the edge of illegality or else illegal.

Of course, divesting from a multi-billion pound trade that is bound up with the politics of global conflict is not an overnight thing. But, the horizon orienting our direction of travel should be one of peacemaking, rather than of fueling and profiting from mass death. If we cannot agree on that, we're in trouble as a species.

Western fells? Wainwright would have done several revolutions (if he hadn't been cremated) over your misplacement of England's highest 😁

Plenty of areas in the Lakes emptier than the western fells.

"With a deeply unfit, unhealthy UK I'd rather see more and more folk outdoors exercising even if it means my experience isn't quite as good"

The unfit, unhealthy UK is perhaps that way more because people refuse to move by their own power in their daily lives not because they don't go up hills. 

People in the UK are unfit and unhealthy because they don't take exercise not because they don't take part in a particular exercise?

Thanks for the insight!

Think I'll stick with my original statement...I'd be happy to see more people outdoors exercising regardless of how that affects my personal experience. 

For the record I'd also rather see more people engaged in active travel, lower smoking rates, lower alcohol consumption and healthier food choices. No single one of those would, alone, be transformative either.

Promoting them is a requirement included in the legislation that created national parks, so they can’t just stop wholesale. 

Your profile says you live in Croydon, so it feels like an odd choice of words to complain about visitors “coming” to national parks and spoiling them. Making a >500 mile journey to climb in Ogwen, one of the busiest and most touristy parts of Eryri, definitely makes you one of the visitors.

The NPs were set up not just to preserve but to provide outdoor recreation opportunities.

There is a line of argument that they were created as sacrifical honeypots to avoid a wider right to roam.

Thinking back to when I first started going up mountains, in the 80s, most of the first ones I visited were the famous peaks by obvious routes. As I spent more time in the hills, I started visiting less frequented ones and, when I did/do go to the Snowdons and Helvellyns, trying to use less popular routes or going at quieter times. I guess this is pretty common and would be shared by many on here.

I wonder then whether what we are seeing in the most recent concentrated overcrowding of some routes is just the effect of a sudden surge in the number of novice walkers/mountaineers brought about by lack of other options during Covid and the relatively recent phenomena of social media promoting climbing a mountain as a cool thing to try. If so, over the next few years many of these will lose interest and those that do persist will spread out, as we have. Whilst there will always be more newbies joining, it will revert to a more steady state. 

In any case, I think more people participating in outdoor activities is a good thing - I just hope that after that first experience queueing on the PYG track, they learn to map read and get sufficient experience and kit to be independent and (reasonably) safe as they explore other places.