The title might sound ambiguous, but at the moment i'm talking about the incesent need to build "roads" up mountains. I went to snowdonia over the weekend and the thing that always depresses me is the paths, gone are the small winding, difficult paths (although there are still some), replaced by the gravel pavements winding all the way up the mountain. One of the best examples is the Miners and PYG track up Snowdon, both now consist mainly of 6-8 ft wide graded gravel paths, with stone steps up anything remotely steep. The sort to path that wouldn't look out of place in an inner city park and could easily take a ford fiesta up a large proportion of it (although I do admit the base of the Miners track does go to a shed so it may have been designed to do that).
It drives me nuts, they stick out like sore thumbs and remove any challenge, which I guess is why they are there, like so many parts of the "wild" in the uk it needs to be accessable by the "flipflop brigade", those people who decide they want to amble up Snowdon, or along a desolate stretch of coast with just their flipfolps, jeans (or skirts...) and handbag. These people have no idea what to do in bad weather, and even if they did they wouldn't have any equipment, but instead of learning how to do it, we need to make it completely safe for them to do it anyway... Huge swathes of the desolate beauty of the UK are now being taken over by long winding gravel tracks and it's ****** annoying. Yes I know there is a case for repairing tracks (although most of the repairs seem to be repairs on the man built sections, not the natural pieces), but there is repairing a track... and building a path... There is so much concrete up Snowdon now the "repairers" may as well build a proper road up, they certainly have enough ton builders bags along the paths for it...
Sorry, I know it's a bit of a pointless rant but it really annoys me that so many empty areas are now being destroyed by these monstrosities, which are a double edged sword, as the easier and more path like they get the more people go up them. For example walking along even the "desolate" areas of the SW coast path it's difficult to find a stream without a wooden/steel bridge over it, or concrete paving slabs around, yes it's a shame if you are old or one of the flipflop brigade and can't walk on that bit, but if you can't swim you don't jump into the deep end of the pool either do you?
/Rant
It drives me nuts, they stick out like sore thumbs and remove any challenge, which I guess is why they are there, like so many parts of the "wild" in the uk it needs to be accessable by the "flipflop brigade", those people who decide they want to amble up Snowdon, or along a desolate stretch of coast with just their flipfolps, jeans (or skirts...) and handbag. These people have no idea what to do in bad weather, and even if they did they wouldn't have any equipment, but instead of learning how to do it, we need to make it completely safe for them to do it anyway... Huge swathes of the desolate beauty of the UK are now being taken over by long winding gravel tracks and it's ****** annoying. Yes I know there is a case for repairing tracks (although most of the repairs seem to be repairs on the man built sections, not the natural pieces), but there is repairing a track... and building a path... There is so much concrete up Snowdon now the "repairers" may as well build a proper road up, they certainly have enough ton builders bags along the paths for it...
Sorry, I know it's a bit of a pointless rant but it really annoys me that so many empty areas are now being destroyed by these monstrosities, which are a double edged sword, as the easier and more path like they get the more people go up them. For example walking along even the "desolate" areas of the SW coast path it's difficult to find a stream without a wooden/steel bridge over it, or concrete paving slabs around, yes it's a shame if you are old or one of the flipflop brigade and can't walk on that bit, but if you can't swim you don't jump into the deep end of the pool either do you?
/Rant
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