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All over the country - Lake District, Peak District - councils are doing this sort of shit:
I thought we were skint? It's a fucking joke. It's complete vandalism
Snowdonia path sparks environmental vandalism claim by walkers
Some walkers say works to improve a route are "alien", but the national park say they are essential.
www.bbc.co.uk
I thought we were skint? It's a fucking joke. It's complete vandalism
dysfunction
FH is my second home
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All over the country - Lake District, Peak District - councils are doing this sort of shit:
Snowdonia path sparks environmental vandalism claim by walkers
Some walkers say works to improve a route are "alien", but the national park say they are essential.www.bbc.co.uk
I thought we were skint? It's a fucking joke. It's complete vandalism
wow that's just mad 😞
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This is what they've done at Pin Dale in Derbyshire - they say they're going to remove it - but they're not going to pick up every bit of broken toilet in the building rubble they've used. The first two photos in that are before and after shots.
Cave Dale is next - a SSSI and part of the limestone way - as a walker, biker and occasional horse rider I cannot see any reason to do *anything* - no repairs are required. The whole point of "wild places" is to get away from maintained paths. To feel free from mechanisation.
These paths are much more dangerous - mountain bikers pick up much more speed (because A) they can and B) if they don't they'll be bored shitless because all of the technical challenge has been removed). They also can't break as effectively because the surfaces are loose - so it's the perfect storm of shitness.
I could cry for what we do to our most beautiful places.
Gwadien
Uneducated Northern Cretin
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All over the country - Lake District, Peak District - councils are doing this sort of shit:
Snowdonia path sparks environmental vandalism claim by walkers
Some walkers say works to improve a route are "alien", but the national park say they are essential.www.bbc.co.uk
I thought we were skint? It's a fucking joke. It's complete vandalism
I wonder if the reason why is because we're skint.
Needs maintenance, some council pleb found a cheaper solution.
Tom
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Some of the paths I use occasionally in the Peaks are in such poor condition that people take a different route around them. And then those routes get worn. So people go further around them. And so on.
Putting a hard-wearing surface down that won't wash away should reduce damage to such areas. As for mtb'rs going faster, that's on them. If you're going to ride on a bridle path, be respectful. Don't be a dick.
Putting a hard-wearing surface down that won't wash away should reduce damage to such areas. As for mtb'rs going faster, that's on them. If you're going to ride on a bridle path, be respectful. Don't be a dick.
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There are sympathetic ways that don't spoil the look and feel of the natural environment. It's the concreting and gravelling I'm objecting to. These are sheep paths in the first place - and hundreds of year old mountain passes that were walked - that we've trashed with mechanised diggers and dumper trucks.
As for MTBers going fast - I will indeed, but not all will. You're a big fan of "structural solutions" - because relying on voluntary behaviour doesn't work. The "structural solution" to this is to do sensitive remedial works using natural materials in the boggy places where trail widening is happening - and preserving the rest.
That way the MTBers will naturally massively reduce their speed (and increase their enjoyment) because there's technical challenge. Walkers, of which I am one, regularly, will enjoy the more natural look and feel of the historic environment (it's literally the reason people visit - because it's a wild place. Not fucking manicured.)
In this case they've trashed the environment built a fucking motorway. It's fucking disgusting. We're a cunt of a race. We have methods that we could easily have employed. But we didn't.
Tom
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Actually we've trashed them with too many people walking along them, and [in the Lakes] too many sheep grazing and flattening the ground. And too many deer, because no predators. In the Peak District many of the paths are a good 12 inches below the soil, because that many people are using them.
And e-mtb bikes aren't helping either, with their ability to tear ruts in the ground. Concrete and gravel is just rock - natural materials. The mountains don't give two shits about that. But I guess some people don't like how it looks.
It's a three foot wide gravelly path on a gigantic mountain. In twelve months time it'll be bordered by gorse and small grasses, you won't see it from afar. But if it still offends you, there's plenty of other paths to use.
And e-mtb bikes aren't helping either, with their ability to tear ruts in the ground. Concrete and gravel is just rock - natural materials. The mountains don't give two shits about that. But I guess some people don't like how it looks.
It's a three foot wide gravelly path on a gigantic mountain. In twelve months time it'll be bordered by gorse and small grasses, you won't see it from afar. But if it still offends you, there's plenty of other paths to use.
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Yeah. Spoken like a true roadie.
Edit: To engage a little, there's not "plenty of other paths". Not here. We're talking ages old mountain passes. Bwlchs between peaks. There is only one natural path for many of these.
Turning them into roadbike friendly grey scars through the landscape - much wider scars - is unnatural idiocy that completely transforms the feel of an area. It's one step away from building a single track road. And considering in this case the Carneddau are the largest expanse of unbroken by road mountains in Wales, I don't think effectively putting almost-roads through them, when we had perfectly serviceable footpaths with a few widened areas where people have tried to avoid bogs is a rational solution.
Edit: To engage a little, there's not "plenty of other paths". Not here. We're talking ages old mountain passes. Bwlchs between peaks. There is only one natural path for many of these.
Turning them into roadbike friendly grey scars through the landscape - much wider scars - is unnatural idiocy that completely transforms the feel of an area. It's one step away from building a single track road. And considering in this case the Carneddau are the largest expanse of unbroken by road mountains in Wales, I don't think effectively putting almost-roads through them, when we had perfectly serviceable footpaths with a few widened areas where people have tried to avoid bogs is a rational solution.
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Tom
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If they're boggy and leading to erosion beyond the normal bounds of those paths, they're not perfectly serviceable. They're knackered and need to be repaired. I still don't see what the problem is with using gravel on a mountain. It's literally a big piece of gravel with a thin covering of soil.
If you don't mind me saying so, you're beginning to sound like one of those people who complain when a muddy, often flooded path between farm fields is upgraded to have a sealed surface. "You're ruining the countryside" they cry, forgetting that farmland isn't countryside.
If you don't mind me saying so, you're beginning to sound like one of those people who complain when a muddy, often flooded path between farm fields is upgraded to have a sealed surface. "You're ruining the countryside" they cry, forgetting that farmland isn't countryside.
Wij
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@Tom, @dysfunction, @Yoni. I went up there this weekend. I figured there was no point in me arguing my point from a BBC article. It's better if I've got direct experience and I thought maybe I would be eating my own words if I'm overreacting to a news article.
Trail up from Crafnant on the as yet untouched side. As you can see, big lumps of natural stone, well worn path. The majority of the path is like this, with some man made hand-planted stone path at the beginning from the other side of the valley.
Further up the valley. Large portions of the path are generally like this. About a foot to a foot and a half wide. Wet. Stony. I couldn't take pictures of the worn and widened boggy bits - because they're not there any more.
Much of the wet bits were about this wide - six inches to twelve inches. Encroaching plants and rocks - and often exposed bedrock. On the boggiest bits there would be multiple paths - walkers trying to avoid the bogs - but never widening to four or five feet (otherwise the repairs wouldn't cover the widening). Widening is natural when things are wet - but this is a good shot to demonstrate the "feel" of the majority of the track. The solution to widening generally is get some big rocks up there to act as stepping stones and then walkers choose the stepping stones - and the widened path restores itself when the plant life grows back.
Four to five foot wide - I knew this section well - they've bulldozed the rocks at in the middle of the (six inch wide heather-lined) path and flattened it out all under this shale.
The path is much wider than any "path widening" due to walkers along it's entire length (otherwise you'd see bog either side of it - and here was an area of bedrock too. They've buried it
The path is much wider than any "path widening" due to walkers along it's entire length (otherwise you'd see bog either side of it - and here was an area of bedrock too. They've buried it
And here's a big grey scar through the landscape. From six inch wide path, with spot widening in the boggiest areas, to manufactured, bulldozered-and-dumper-trucked fully 4 or 5 sometimes 6-feet wide "motorway" that neither walkers nor bikers enjoy for it's entire length.
Every single person I spoke to was utterly disgusted - including the four people I met who live at the very end of the path in this converted Church in Capel Curig (one of whom walks the path every single day and was in literal tears when I spoke to him, such was his anger). It's no more "accessible" (which is the National Park's excuse) because the section of path they've worked on is preceeded by parts of the path that only able-bodied people can get to. As is quite right for a wild mountain path (there are plenty of paved, accessable areas - walks around lakes in the area, etc. etc. - stuff you can push a pram around if you like.
But to do this. To widen a six-inch wide path. To turn it into a motorway. I cannot understand a mind that can condone this.
There are volunteer groups in the national park. Groups of people who'll literally lump a big boulder on their back and walk it to a spot if necessary - and repeat the same over many trips. THAT is what was needed to repair the boggy areas that were widened - maybe twenty feet, here or there, so twenty stepping stones, a couple of times.
Instead - big wide motorway - that bikers now roast down at speed (because what the fuck else are they going to do? It's fucking boring?).
I was also told that they now have a problem with MXers - when they've never had it before. The section of the path in question wasn't fun enough for MXers (or maybe too challenging). And now it's attracting them (that and the news coverage). We got passed by a group whilst we were there. My mind boggled.
For the record - I've ridden this path maybe thirty times in the past 5 years - I've been walking it long before then. I've known of it's existence since I was about fifteen when I'd been kayaking in the area and we took a day off to go walking and went over to Crafnant from our campsite near Capel Curig. It's one of my favourite little passes in Snowdonia.
Every single person I spoke to was utterly disgusted - including the four people I met who live at the very end of the path in this converted Church in Capel Curig (one of whom walks the path every single day and was in literal tears when I spoke to him, such was his anger). It's no more "accessible" (which is the National Park's excuse) because the section of path they've worked on is preceeded by parts of the path that only able-bodied people can get to. As is quite right for a wild mountain path (there are plenty of paved, accessable areas - walks around lakes in the area, etc. etc. - stuff you can push a pram around if you like.
But to do this. To widen a six-inch wide path. To turn it into a motorway. I cannot understand a mind that can condone this.
There are volunteer groups in the national park. Groups of people who'll literally lump a big boulder on their back and walk it to a spot if necessary - and repeat the same over many trips. THAT is what was needed to repair the boggy areas that were widened - maybe twenty feet, here or there, so twenty stepping stones, a couple of times.
Instead - big wide motorway - that bikers now roast down at speed (because what the fuck else are they going to do? It's fucking boring?).
I was also told that they now have a problem with MXers - when they've never had it before. The section of the path in question wasn't fun enough for MXers (or maybe too challenging). And now it's attracting them (that and the news coverage). We got passed by a group whilst we were there. My mind boggled.
For the record - I've ridden this path maybe thirty times in the past 5 years - I've been walking it long before then. I've known of it's existence since I was about fifteen when I'd been kayaking in the area and we took a day off to go walking and went over to Crafnant from our campsite near Capel Curig. It's one of my favourite little passes in Snowdonia.
Maybe you'll still think I'm a drama queen. But I really don't agree.
Either way. I actually cried.
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It's a bit silly and I don't expect you to delve deeper than some random on Twitter jumping on the bandwagon (because he clearly didn't delve deeper either) but it's not like they're talking about owning the colours - it's only a gimmick to earn royalties from NFTs traded on their own platform.
Wij
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That doesn’t make it sound better.
I wasn't trying to make it sound better or worse... just pointing out that you'd gleefully hopped on some random on Twitter's "omg lol now they want to own colours" bandwagon when the reality is nothing of the sort (and you can see by how far he missed the point by his subsequent tweets).
Tom
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Big untidy farm on flattened and ecologically dead land, with an ugly fence, and you're bothered about some rocks.
DaGaffer
Down With That Sorta Thing
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That looks like a village to me.
Hmm, its not really getting "back" to anything is it? There wasn't a road and now there is one. I have no views on its necessity, but it is ugly as fuck.
Tom
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Go back in a few years, it'll be grown over at the edges, dirtier, and much less of an imposition on a landscape that frankly, has been changed by centuries of people interfering with it. You can see the land down there has been stamped flat by decades of fenced-in livestock.
If it were asphalt coated by chipseal I think I'd agree. Or flexipave. But it isn't, it's just small rocks. Objections are purely aesthetic, unlike the farms it'll make zero difference to the area's ecology.
If it were asphalt coated by chipseal I think I'd agree. Or flexipave. But it isn't, it's just small rocks. Objections are purely aesthetic, unlike the farms it'll make zero difference to the area's ecology.
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It's not a fucking farm. It's a nature reserve and mountain pass in a national park.
I'm the one that owns a farm.
Honestly Tom, if you can't manage to put yourself in other people's shoes sometimes, why do you expect anyone to bother seeing your (important) cycling issues from your POV?
How do you justify a mile long road, where twenty feet of stepping stones was all that was required?
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The pic is one side of a mountain path - up between two peaks. I used that to illustrate what the path sort of looked like across it's entire length - because I couldn't take a picture of the path on the "road" side -because it's not there any more.
But the road isn't through "ecologically dead farmland", but a nature reserve and Site Of Special Scientific Interest.
The upland grassland is fenced off to prevent livestock damage and, well, it's a SSSI - so all the stuff that goes with that.
But scraping up swathes of that SSSI, mounding it up at the side and building a road where a 6 inch footpath existed is clearly "safeguarding" to some folk.
Gwadien
Uneducated Northern Cretin
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The pic is one side of a mountain path - up between two peaks. I used that to illustrate what the path sort of looked like across it's entire length - because I couldn't take a picture of the path on the "road" side -because it's not there any more.
But the road isn't through "ecologically dead farmland", but a nature reserve and Site Of Special Scientific Interest.
The upland grassland is fenced off to prevent livestock damage and, well, it's a SSSI - so all the stuff that goes with that.
But scraping up swathes of that SSSI, mounding it up at the side and building a road where a 6 inch footpath existed is clearly "safeguarding" to some folk.
But the point is that the British countryside is all pretty much human construction - none of is it is really natural, because even though they're banned now, sheep have been there long enough to cause the damage in the first place.
But yeah, I do get your point that they're ruining it, but there must be an environmental argument for why they've done it, otherwise why would they?
I'd imagine it's to keep people on that path and discourage people from leaving it, thus making a highway rather than lots of smaller paths that are more damaging.
They sure didn't splash out on it though.
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You got it right in your very first post - public body has money to spend, council-type jobsworths don't give a fuck, inadequate legislation - so they "upgraded" over a mile of path in a SSSI (rare plants etc) instead of doing spot-upgrades, because they're logistically harder to plan for, require better skilled personnel and instead they can send a few fuckwitts up with diggers and say "job done".
He pivoted pretty quickly from not running ads because he didn't want to make money out of the game to selling it for 7 figures. It'll be behind a paywall as well, it's just a matter of time to decide which clone will become the dominant free alternative.
Aoami
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He pivoted pretty quickly from not running ads because he didn't want to make money out of the game to selling it for 7 figures. It'll be behind a paywall as well, it's just a matter of time to decide which clone will become the dominant free alternative.
Everyone has their price! I did wonder about hosting costs once it became more popular though.
DaGaffer
Down With That Sorta Thing
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He pivoted pretty quickly from not running ads because he didn't want to make money out of the game to selling it for 7 figures. It'll be behind a paywall as well, it's just a matter of time to decide which clone will become the dominant free alternative.
NYT said:
No doubt ads will be coming though. Can't say I blame the guy; if someone was offering me seven figures for my little game I'd take it too.
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You could argue that to a point but it's not an excuse for inaction.
The initial (and only) environmental argument is to "prevent widening" - but given the widening was only in a couple of places for very short sections, and given their "repairs" are a mile long, and wider for that entire length than the damaged bits it's just full of shit.
They have money to spend, they need to "do something" to justify their jobs - so they've done this.
My o/h's job is (effectively) environmental impact assessment (for a big construction company, worked her way up from ecologist to senior management). She's painfully aware of how weak our legislation is. And it's clear that no impact assessment was done prior to this work, otherwise it wouldn't have gone ahead.
Given that this is a SSSI, that should be criminal. Though I suspect it actually isn't.
They pulled the "accesibility" excuse out (it's no more accesible as you've seen the sort of paths you have to use to get up there) and said "climate change" made it imperative - because a bit more rain in what is already the wettest place in the UK is going to do what, to a bog, exactly?
No. There's no excuse other than "because we could, and we get paid".
What's that quote? "It's very difficult to get a man to understand something if his continued employment is dependent on him NOT understanding it", or something.
Very much that.
