UKC

Please:
1. Pick up a stick, beat bracken away from paths every time you are out walking.
2. Please carry a litter bag and use it - even for those black bags of you know what.
3. Please - kick out drainage gutters on paths so water is diverted away next time it rains.
If 20 million walkers did this on every outing the place would be back to pristine.

In reply to Removed User:

4. Don't walk beside the path because it is nicer. The path will just get wider

In reply to Removed User:

5. Every time you see a cairn, take a stone off it and put it back on the path. It will reduce erosion and save them helicoptering stone in.

In reply to Removed User:
I thought this was going to be about the fire on the fells . Thick cloud of smoke over skidaw and blencathra yesterday afternoon . Driving back from bram last night keswick was covered in a thin blanket of smoke .
http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/latest/Huge-grass-fire-spreads-for-second...

In reply to mike123:
There was also a bracken fire at Rosthwaite that almost got to the houses at Watendlath a few weeks back purely due to the mismanagement of the fells.

In reply to Pedro50:


The path will get wider anyway, because Fix the Fells love big paths.

In reply to Removed User:
Its taking me longer and longer to do a hill walk these days. What with cairn demolishing and picking up other peoples rubbish I am going to end up getting benighted one of these days..
Things are much quicker in Scotland as there is less of both as long as you keep off the popular ones.

In reply to Removed User:

Fair enough, pick up litter and do your bit to keep the drainage working. Highly commendable. But I don't immediately follow your Rule 1 on beating back bracken. I should have thought a good strong bracken growth alongside a path does a lot to concentrate us walkers on the trampled or constructed line, especially when it's soaking wet after rain. Maybe your aim is to help keep paths open where there's a risk of them being overgrown?

And of course the notion that the Lake District is 'pristine' isn't quite as much of a given nowadays as it might have been once. Perhaps you just mean tidy.

In reply to Bob Aitken:
Mean: If you thought there was a right to roam - forget it, bracken is taking over everywhere and stopping free access. It suffocates and kills all indigenous wildflowers and wild grasses, harbours numerous ticks and nasties, stops us wandering at will.
Pristine, just means clean.

In reply to Removed User:


Is bracken not also indigenous?

In reply to Removed User:

from the Oxford English Dictionary (at least one version)
pristine
Adjective
In its original condition; unspoilt:

so not 'just clean'

And bracken is as indigenous as any other wild plant which has been growing in the UK for the last several thousand years, and its host to many insects even if it does harbour some you happen to dislike

In reply to Removed User:
The only point I understand on this thread is the one regarding litter. Water running down a path has never troubled me before and I prefer to walk through the countryside not beat my way through it.

I have to admit though, that the thought of hoardes of walkers beating back the foliage as they make their way along the pathed motorways of the lake district is a humerous image, if only everyone brought along a stiff brush the place would look lovely in no time.

If you wish to make the Lake District pristine then 20 million walkers staying at home would have a better effect than 20 million walkers smashing the place to pieces with sticks.

In reply to Sharp:


Well maybe not, but the object of building drainage into paths, and asking walkers to help keep drains clear, is to prevent gross water erosion to paths, rather than to keep walkers' feet nice and dry.

In reply to Removed UserBwox:


The problem with bracken is that - owing to the grazing habits of sheep - it gets favoured over other plants, and so, in time, completely takes over.

During the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in 2001, it was noticeable in the Peak District how much better other plants were doing in relation to bracken.

In that respect, the 'problem' with bracken in the Lakes is the artificiality of the overall landscape imposed by man - we shouldn't 'blame' the plant per se.