Following on from the Idwal threads and Photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmmhumous/11224162884/in/pool-clubazclimbingcl...
...and having done Snowdon, The Cullin and a few bits in the Austrian and German Alps recently, I have been pondering our attitude to way-markers in the UK.
At the thick end of the wedge, there's the likes of the Cullin.
I'm definitely on the page that you wouldn't want to make the ridge overly accessible to those without the requisite skills to look after themselves up there.
Perhaps a few extra discrete trig points wouldn't go amiss... What with our national obsession for building shrines to the God of the Night Garden:
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/t0msk/3801042091/ differentiating actual cairns from bonus cairns meant that it was a right ball-ache navigating in poor visibility. Then again: As "the most challenging mountaineering journey in the whole of the United Kingdom" it's not exactly a trip down the shops. (Plus you can always just follow the crampon scratches).
At the thin end of the wedge, is where I less sure we've got it right. Where there is a train/cable car up to the top, or Ski runs etc. should we adopt a more Alpine approach? Sign posts, distances, difficult ratings etc? Or, is it just not the British way?
