In reply to Rob Exile Ward:
> On a brighter note - did the honeypot of all honeypot walks yesterday - NDG, Stickle Tarn, Pavey Ark, Harrison Stickle then back to the NDG - and although it was heaving there was hardly any litter at all. 20 years ago there would have been a fraction of the crowds but litter every step of the way.
That is encouraging. Certainly here on the Ochils there's currently a fair bit of litter (but not masses) on the main paths - and Dumyat has been in a woeful state ever since the big new path went in a couple of years ago - but thinking back to when I started to spend large amounts of time on the Ochils, in the late 1990s, I'm pretty sure that there was less markedly litter then. Plastic drinks bottles feel like a significant factor in this - they didn't used to feature as part of the hillgoing kit anywhere near as much as they do now, and clearly a fair few people regard them as chuck-away-able on the hill (not that I've ever seen anyone actually do this).
Incidentally, I'm not in the Lakes a huge amount - roughly a dozen or so days per year (and none thus far this year!), but generally I don't seem to have seen much litter there. Could it be that the high number of people - quite a few of them diligent picker-uppers - tends to keep litter levels down?