Feature
Marking Time
By Alan Kimber
(MCofS member and Nevis Partnership Director)
At the Mountaineering Council of Scotland 1997 A.G.M. it was suggested by one of the respected guest speakers (Bob Aitken - Chair of the Scottish Countryside Activities Council) that Ben Nevis was a special (unique) case and may need to be treated as such in relation to waymarking and a host of other factors effecting Britain’s highest and most popular peak. In part the debate had been sparked by Fort William Mountain Rescue Team placing two posts on the high plateau of Ben Nevis in 1995 and producing a map to help aid people off of the mountain more safely. Members of the rescue team and others before them had been doing this sort of thing for years, without any public outcry. On this occasion some anonymous people took exception and hack-sawed the two posts to the ground.
Since 1995 substantial public debate and research amongst all sections of hill-goers has taken place. The Nevis Partnership has been formed and in their strategy it has been accepted by the majority of partners that some form of waymarking is needed on Ben Nevis. Last year a public ‘Survey of Recreational use of the Nevis Area’ confirmed that Ben Nevis does indeed need looking at in a special way, as a wide cross-section of those questioned felt that waymarking on Ben Nevis needed improving. Of interest is that this view was not reciprocated for other mountains in the Nevis area.
The Nevis Strategy proposes: ‘Consolidation of the Observatory ruins and removal of non-essential cairns, memorials and other artefacts; Maintain waymarking cairns at a minimum number of strategic locations on the Summit section of the Ben Path, where necessary to assist less-experienced users in adverse conditions’
It would seem therefore that we have arrived at a point in the discussions where we need to agree what is non-essential and what is minimum.
My own view is that a line of markers at 50 metre intervals from the summit, via the top of Gardyloo Gully to the point on the plateau at GR 157713 should be developed. The old line of cairns which have been in place since the Weather Observatory could form the spine of this route. The markers which show the route down to the CMD Arete should be kept and maintained. Number 4 Gully should keep its post and the summit shelter must be maintained along with the observatory ruins and the ‘Peace Cairn’. All else, apart from the CIC Hut can go in my opinion.
The view from one MCofS member that “A few deaths are a small price to pay for a unique and pristine landscape” is not one that I support.
The following from the late, respected French guide Godefroy Perroux in his guidebook to Ben Nevis is of interest; "as blind as bats we faithfully followed the compass, our only hope of salvation. With frozen, half-closed eyes glued to the tiny instrument. I saw nothing ahead. It was Dave who spotted it first: a pole sticking out of the snow right in line with our course. It was a bamboo cane complete with illuminated marker tag. A few yards further on there was another and another. The feeling of relief was unbelievable. Here was a route to safety, obviously left by the BBC team. The markers took us swiftly and safely to the pony track".
More details at: <http://www.westcoast-mountainguides.co.uk/matters.htm>