Frank Price’s view of waymarker posts on our walking trails (Letters, 28 August) will be regarded by many as non-inclusive. Not everyone who wants to experience the wild is able to use a map, with or without training. Should they be excluded from this sustainable activity that benefits the local economy so that privileged walkers with experience can keep the wild to themselves? We don’t think so.
Furthermore, this particular moorland is a site of special scientific interest, and preventing walkers from straying off the public right of way on to vulnerable heathland is surely a good thing. Please, Mr Price, don’t encourage the type of vandalism that we have experienced.
Aled Owen
Snowdonia Slate Trail Trust
• It seems that Steve Barr (Letters, 28 August) is not distinguishing between the cairns marked on Ordnance Survey maps and those little ones started by people who know no better, which, were they to grow in size (by virtue of the tradition of adding a stone to ensure they retain their prominence), could become dangerously misleading.
The small unofficial cairns are the ones that might, and should be, scattered by a few kicks. I’ve only used OS-marked cairns for their true purpose once. When cloud came down while on the summit of Cadair Idris, we (and some lost hikers we collected along the way) found the correct gully to take us down Fox’s Path – a swift descent down a scree slope – by matching the cairns to our map. Other gullies end in sheer drops. One would have to know the mountain better than the back of one’s hand not to value marked cairns.
Pete Stockwell
London
• Much of upland Britain is lacking in biodiversity. Vast tracts are either groused over, or as George Monbiot has termed it, sheepwrecked. If we are to encourage the responsible use and enjoyment of moorlands and fells, I doubt that waymarks will threaten the integrity of what should be regarded as a democratic right to roam. Even Wordsworth, who preferred the “grey stone of native rock” to intrusive whitewashed buildings, wrote a Guide to the Lakes, which did much to encourage a proper appreciation of some of our most valuable natural resources.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
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