NEWS: Mend Our Mountains Launches Biggest Fundraising Drive Yet

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 UKC/UKH News 10 Sep 2018
Mend our Mountains logo, 4 kbToday sees the start of a huge fundraising drive as the Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million campaign seeks to raise £150,000 through crowdfunding.

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5
 dominic o 12 Sep 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

This is well worth checking out - support this vital work in our high places AND get great free stuff! What's not to like? 

2
 kaiser 12 Sep 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

happy to help with some £

Well done and Thank You to the people who do the real hard work laying those stones!

 

1
 DavePS 13 Sep 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

... leave our mountains alone and stop trying to build ugly roads up them! 

We don't want our National Parks turned into Disney-fied theme parks. It may be a good way for the National Parks to generate more money but as we are now finding, inviting unprepared or inexperienced walkers up these manicured paths into the mountains is causing a lot of issues and destroying the natural beauty at the same time.

15
 Offwidth 13 Sep 2018
In reply to DavePS:

Nonsense, the people go anyhow. Mend our Mountain proposed paths will cut the erosion and the visual mess using local experts on already incredibly busy and badly eroded routes.

More discussion here:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/mending_mountains_or_maximising...

 

Post edited at 17:14
1
 Simon Caldwell 13 Sep 2018
In reply to Offwidth:

The Fix the Fells part of the project doesn't cut erosion except in the short term, as the paths are badly constructed with outward sloping steps that encourage the formation of new parallel tracks as well as channelling water down the path to accelerate new erosion. It would be nice to think that the extra money could help them do a better job (as they manage to do in Scotland) but I suspect they'll just carry on doing the same, but with more "preventative" paths being dug on unworn tracks just in case there's erosion in future.

1
 DavePS 14 Sep 2018
In reply to Offwidth:

>"Mend our Mountain proposed paths will cut the erosion  ... "

so following that logic, we should bolt all popular climbing routes too!?!

 

 

Post edited at 08:52
8
 Ian W 14 Sep 2018
In reply to DavePS:

Are most of our most popular routes not already bolted........

2
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

I appreciate why this is done, but Cadair Iridris is now ruined IMHO on the minifford side, with the excessive scree and pavements that have been placed over the past couple of years.

I do wish we'd look at how the Austrians, Spanish lay down their paths, far more comfortable and pleasant.

Less pavement, I cannot enjoy a walk in the Peak District due to the paving, so stopped going there a few years ago.

2
 ERB 14 Sep 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

Maybe some of these so called charities should chip in with all these challenges they encourage people do.

 galpinos 14 Sep 2018
In reply to distressedbogger:

> Less pavement, I cannot enjoy a walk in the Peak District due to the paving, so stopped going there a few years ago.

Apart from the pennine way, where are the pavements? I spend a lot of time running in the Peak and have no trouble avoiding "pavement", in fact, I think I'd have to actively hunt it out?

 

In reply to galpinos:

I couldn't agree more. In fact, I can't actually think of the last time I ran on pavement in the Peak?!

Maybe this comes down to poor route choice? It's similar to such sweeping generalisations as the Lakes is always busy. Whilst it almost certainly is if you go to the wrong place...

 ChrisBrooke 14 Sep 2018
In reply to Rob Greenwood - UKClimbing:

> I couldn't agree more. In fact, I can't actually think of the last time I ran on pavement in the Peak?!

I ran the Edale Skyline route last year and thoroughly enjoyed the 'pavement' section over Brown Knoll. It was loads better than wading through knee deep squelch. A big thumbs up from me

In reply to ChrisBrooke:

Ha, I was actually going to say that in my original post - paving has definitely improved certain sections of the Peak that's for sure! 

 Simon Caldwell 14 Sep 2018
In reply to ChrisBrooke:

I ran the Edale Skyline race last year and was disappointed to find it is now a trail race rather than a fell race. Parts of it are more like a high level park run.

 ChrisBrooke 14 Sep 2018
In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Fair enough. I didn't do the race, just ran the route for fun, with no-one else (more or less) around. For me that section was a pretty welcome 'rest': fast, flat and easy going. Much more inviting than the bog of eternal stench that it bisects, although I appreciate some people are into that sort of thing.

In reply to DavePS:

Fux the fells is the biggest example of institutionalised vandalism in the Lake District. There is a huge and passive silent majority who disagree with building stone staircase, using mini-diggers, destroying virgin periglacial scree for materials. People don't cause erosion, water does. deal with the water as in the Alps. Humans can not walk down pitched stone paths, they need to walk down gravel, that's why the original paths were only 3 feet wide, now all paths are rapidly becoming 10-12 feet wide and the problem is kicked on rather than being solved.

 

There is no culture or heritage for pitched stone paths in the Lake District except in one or two places for fell ponies.

DC

7
 drolex 14 Sep 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

The comparison between paths in the Peak and paths on the continent made by some is totally irrelevant. The terrain found in the dark peak is unlike anything you could find in Austria or Spain and the climate is incredibly different - I don't see how applying the same recipes could work.

It's something to sanitise a path in the Pyrenees and a complete different issue to stabilise a path through a bog where water is constantly pouring.

 profitofdoom 14 Sep 2018
In reply to ERB:

> Maybe some of these so called charities should chip in with all these challenges they encourage people do.

Sorry but is that a pun on chippings/ stones/ pavements on the new paths?

 drolex 14 Sep 2018
In reply to Dave Cumberland:

> There is a huge and passive silent majority...

Ah yes the silent majority. They don't express their opinion, but their opinion is very well known.

>  People don't cause erosion, water does.

Hmmm okay. So the paths are formed naturally then, and not a problem surely?

> deal with the water as in the Alps.

The terrain and amounts of water are not really comparable though.

 

 

1
 Offwidth 14 Sep 2018
In reply to Simon Caldwell:

I said above that best practice in UK path building needs better promulgation in MoM.

Your Edale skyline example is dumb though: you might enjoy wading in mud but endlessly trudged human generated bog will be washed away in a few decades, those paved areas allow the peat and surface binding plantlife to recover. Some of the busiest areas of the High Peak have completely transformed in the last decade due to the intervention of the NT and very much for the better. The most improtant needs now in my view are to push back against the obsession for maintaining grouse moor and ensure any enclosures have enough stiles over the fences to maintain free roaming access.

1
 Offwidth 14 Sep 2018
In reply to Dave Cumberland:

Don't be an idiot Dave. Rapid Lakeland erosion clearly happened  where people walked not where water ran and was terrible in many places before the path building even started. I agree mistakes have been made, especially in the Lakes and poor water management on the paths is part of that, but please stick to challenging that, not the need for improved paths (or this silent majority twaddle: the silent majority simply don't give a shit).  A small number of activists like you who care enough to complain and lobby are the ones improving practice and stoping bad ideas, backed by a bigger but not huge minority.

1
 deepsoup 14 Sep 2018
In reply to Rob Greenwood - UKClimbing:

> I couldn't agree more. In fact, I can't actually think of the last time I ran on pavement in the Peak?!

There are a couple of bits I pass over fairly regularly, around the back of Redmires Res, along the ridge from Alport Castles back towards the A57 and up on Derwent Edge for example.  They're ace. 

It's not compulsory to use them though, if it's dry or you really want to squelch through the bog there's nothing stopping you stepping off to one side and going parallel to the path a meter or two away.  As long as the desire to wade through the goop remains a fairly um..  niche interest, the paths will still work to reduce erosion and make the walk/run/ride more pleasant for everyone else.

Oh, incidentally -  I was up on Win Hill yesterday and there was a helicopter flying laps to fetch a lot of heavy looking white bags from the top of the hill down into the Hope valley.  What was going on there, anyone know?

 Simon Caldwell 14 Sep 2018
In reply to Offwidth:

No need for insults, this isn't facebook

In reply to drolex:

Torrential rain and resultant land forms are much more severe in Alps/Dolomites - just look on Google Earth at the fans. Show me any in the lake District apart from the Wasdale Screes. Even the 2015 floods only created very small landslides which on a World scale are wholly inconsequential.

DC

In reply to Offwidth:

> Don't be an idiot Dave. Rapid Lakeland erosion clearly happened  where people walked not where water ran and was terrible in many places before the path building even started. I agree mistakes have been made, especially in the Lakes and poor water management on the paths is part of that, but please stick to challenging that, not the need for improved paths (or this silent majority twaddle: the silent majority simply don't give a shit).  A small number of activists like you who care enough to complain and lobby are the ones improving practice and stoping bad ideas, backed by a bigger but not huge minority.


No need for rudeness. That was a rambling response, not sure what you are getting at apart from the obvious points on which you agree with me. You bet mistakes have been and still are being made. There is a large rump of people who do not wish to walk up and down staircases (because you can't when wet or icy). You want a staircase - buy a semi-. Wholly inappropriate for the Lake District.

DC

 Offwidth 14 Sep 2018
In reply to Dave Cumberland:

What I'm getting at is there are simply too many people in some areas for the landscape to cope. It is not possible to avoid staircases on such busy but delicate paths: you either stop the people (how?) or build the staircases. My other point is, if you are going to build a staircase please try to do it right. 

In reply to Simon Coldwel

Dont insult our intelligence on the real positive changes on those old Peak boggy moorland paths and I won't insult you

 ERB 14 Sep 2018
In reply to profitofdoom:

Should have read it back lol.

 


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