Snowdon: Call To Respect Mountain
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58283816
Yes, Snowdon is busy
But… there are solutions that none are prepared to visit.
Wales Outdoors a good while back made the decision to not deliver the National Three Peaks Challenge on a weekend, due to visitor pressure, even though we limit that event to a group of four plus one leader. It’s all about the clients experience on the hill for us.
Wales Outdoors at about the same time made the decision to not visit the honeypot mountains at weekends for day long walks despite scheduling in events on a Saturday and Sunday being financially more beneficial for us.
With regards to Snowdon, Wales Outdoors choose to ascend mid week only by the least walked route, meeting just a handful of people along the way, until the summit que of course.
This is what what we do. We’ve taken action to minimise our impact on the mountain environment whilst still sharing that same environment without our clients.
Oh! And Wales Outdoors also refuse to work with charities in the Great Outdoors. And this is the problem that those like John Harold of the Snowdonia Society refuse to tackle. Again, this is of detrimental financial benefit to Wales Outdoors but we put our money where our mouth is!
Charity events, bringing large numbers of people who are not usually out and about on mountains to mountains for a race or a challenge walk is WHOLLY DISRESPECTFUL. It is disrespectful to both the environment and infrastructure but also to other users of the area. It’s dangerous too.
Think on that idiotic charity 10 Y Fan - They rock up to Pont ar Daf Car Park and occupy it for 24 hours, having their clients walk up and down, music playing from phones, inappropriately dressed, yes you guessed it, ten times. It takes up to 24 hours. Now, what if you were a visitor from far afield or overseas and this was your one chance to walk Pen y Fan… Well, you wouldn’t get into the car park and if you did manage to find a spot your ascent and descent by the main route would be a far from pleasant experience. Disrespectful!
I therefore call on people like Mr Harold to stop talking about the erosion and the maintenance (that needs to be ongoing in any case) and to refrain from bringing in wild camping into the mix but that he and his colleagues focus on the large events that really bring nothing to the area. Name and shame them. Write to charities and in the first instance ask them to stop what they are doing. Ask providers like Wales Outdoors to focus on midweek use of the hills and to leave the weekends to day trippers and weekenders.
These are simple solutions and I believe would within the matter of a few months, solve the problems being discussed in the BBC article.
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