I wandered lonely as a crowd...

Many years ago I worked at Christie's, the fine art auctioneers in London.  One of the things I most enjoyed about working there was the fact that I got to see some fantastic works of art as they passed through the sale rooms - many of them on their way to private collections.

Some pieces were bought as an investment and were destined to spend their days in safety deposit boxes.  Paintings would often be left with Christie's for safe keeping, or until a house was redecorated, though it was often the case that pieces stayed hidden in the vaults for many, many years.

I always used to think that was so sad - all of those amazing pieces of art hidden away where no-one could see them.

I was mulling all this over the other day when our nephews came to visit and we took them out to explore the Langdale Valley on a beautiful but busy bank holiday Sunday.  The car crawled along the northern shores of Windermere (more time to admire the views) as we made our way to Ambleside and we were accompanied on our journey up to Stickle Tarn by several hundred other people out enjoying the sunshine.

It would have been incredibly easy to curse every other person who ventured out that day, denying us the chance to enjoy the fells in peace, but then that would have been no better than wishing for magnificent pieces of art to remain hidden away in bank vaults and dusty basements.

Aside from the fact that we rely on the tourist industry here and that crowds of people mean good business for hotels, B&Bs, pubs, cafes, gift shops etc., surely the sight of so many people out enjoying the sunshine is a good thing?

We saw families laughing and chattering as they made their way upwards; kids chastised (as were our nephews a few times) for getting overly enthusiastic or for getting too near to the waterfalls or cliff edges and exhausted groups pausing for welcome gulps of juice and chocolate.

We chatted to many of them, discussing the stunning views, my silly hat or how much beer we planned to have when we got back to the pub at the bottom.  And we all paused to admire a gorgeous little 3 year old girl making her determined way to the top in her pretty princess wellington boots.

Surely it's a fantastic thing to see so many people out having fun in the sunshine?  And how dull would the pub have been without plenty of people laughing, chattering, telling exaggerated stories and playing board games while they enjoyed a beer and a well earned plate of food?  Yes the food took a bit of a while to arrive, but that's because it was all freshly made, not some burger bar production line - and anyway, it gave us more time to natter.

You only need a map and a tiny sense of adventure if you really do want to avoid the crowds (instead of returning down the way we came we cut across to Dungeon Ghyll and only saw 3 other people on our entire route back to the pub).  So long as folks are respectful (and let's face it, most of them are) there really is plenty of room on the fells for everyone.

Major new Lake District sponsor announced

The Lake District National Park has teamed up with a major corporate sponsor in a deal believed to be the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Global giant Virgin has agreed to make a substantial investment in Cumbria and they have a lot of exciting ideas to help the region assert its claim to be the "adventure capital of England".

First up they plan to produce their own definitive walking guides and change the sport of "Wainwright bagging" into "Virgin bagging".  As an incentive to encourage more people to get outdoors and join in Virgin will be rewarding every hiker who can demonstrate they've climbed all 214 summits with a free "I've bagged 214 Virgins" T shirt.

Virgins as far as the eye can see

They also plan to invest in updating a number of the lakes themselves in an attempt to draw in more people.  Low Water, just below the summit of The Old Man of Coniston, will be heated and turned into an "outdoor adventure pool" complete with a waterslide running directly from the summit.

Stickle Tarn will become a giant jacuzzi with a drinks service available from The Sticklbarn pub in the valley below and to improve access for visitors with mobility issues a stair lift will be installed running from the pub directly to the tarn.

Site of proposed giant jacuzzi

Another fell to benefit from the new "rapid descent" concept will be Fleetwith Pike.  Richard Branson has made several secret visits to the area and, like many people, found the descent along Fleetwith Edge "long and bit tedious in places - nice views though" so he's decided to install a zipwire running from the summit of the fell to the back of the Bridge Hotel in Buttermere.

Virgin also plan to make the fells a safer place by installing giant inflatable tubes, emblazoned with the Virgin logo, on either side of accident blackspots such as Striding Edge and Sharp Edge.  Lake District Mountain Rescue gave the idea a cautious welcome: "Anything to improve the safety of walkers is, of course, welcome", they said "but we just wish they'd paint them green so they blend in better with the landscape."

Sharp Edge - safer in future

Friends of the Lake District have been surprisingly positive about the deal with a spokesman quoted as saying "Hell yeah, why not? This place could do with livening up a bit."

And finally, whereas many sponsorship deals have required a complete change of venue name to satisfy the sponsors, Virgin are making only one name change to one lake - Bassenthwaite Lake will, in future, be known as Bransonthwaite Lake.

Soon to be "Bransonthwaite Lake"

All those wishing to make their views on this announcement known can do so by contacting the Lake District National Parks Authority no later than midday on Tuesday 1st April 2014 or by emailing afool@novirginsincumbria.gov.uk.

Not a good sign...

Pavey Ark from Stickle Tarn - Jack's Rake is the
diagonal line running up the front.

A bit of a different blog this time, prompted by a story in this week's Westmorland Gazette.  Within the space of one week, two people unfortunately lost their lives falling from Jack's Rake in Great Langdale.  These deaths are unbelievably tragic and clearly our sympathies are with their families; heaven knows how you cope when something like this happens.  In the wake of these tragedies there has been a call for warning signs to be placed on the more dangerous routes within the Lake District, and this has stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest in some quarters.

Tragic though these events are I'm afraid I'm wholly against the idea of warning signs being placed on dangerous fells for two main reasons; first of all the Lake District is a National Park and should not be cluttered up with unnecessary signage and secondly, even if there were signs I'm pretty sure people would ignore them anyway, or see it as an even greater "badge of honour" to flout the warnings.  People ignore signs every single day; "Smoking Kills", "Keep off the Grass", "No Parking" and "30MPH" to name but a few.  Signs like these are perceived as being for "other people" and not for whomever is reading them who will, no doubt, justify their reasons for ignoring them in some way or another.

Striding Edge

I've said my piece about signs before in my work blog, I genuinely think that one of the main reasons that so many signs are ignored is because there are so many of them to begin with, my previous rant was prompted by a trip to a toilet which involved 8 different signs telling me what to do.  In a society which is becoming more and more reliant upon signs to tell us what we can and can't do, we're in danger of losing the ability to think for ourselves and in the fells, that can be very dangerous.

I also think it's very important to keep things in perspective.  The second fell I ever climbed was Helvellyn and we went up via Striding Edge, another notorious route where there have been many deaths; we were pretty inexperienced but were aware of the dangers so waited for good weather and took things very steady, along with the several hundred other people on the route the same day.  Recently I was speaking with a neighbour who told me that, during one ascent of Striding Edge, his party sat and ate lunch near the final approach and counted over 1000 people going past in the space of an hour.  So let's do the maths; lets say that was an average figure for the peak ascent times of roughly 11am - 2pm, so that's 3000 people per day, now let's say there were 5 good climbing days that week, that makes 15,000 for the week and roughly 60,000 for the month.  Even if that only happened for 4 months of the year we're already getting on for nearly 1/4 million people.  (No wonder Fix the Fells are so busy!).  Tragic though it is, statistically speaking, with those kinds of numbers there will be casualties.

Sharp Edge; another notorious route.

Many moons ago my job called for me to work with TRL (Transport Research Laboratory) , these guys know all there is to know about road traffic accident and investigation and they told me that the thing they'd found which was most likely to encourage someone to reduce their speed was not a warning sign but a roadside memorial; a sharp reminder of our own mortality.  I know on our ascent of Striding Edge the memorials certainly reminded us to stay focused.  TRL were passionate about the need for appropriate signage and fully understood the problems caused by too many signs, or unclear or confusing instructions.

Warning signs appear to do very little to warn people.  Currently every car park and access point to Morecambe Bay has large warning signs regarding the dangerous sands and fast tides, and yet over one weekend in May 33 people required rescuing.  On the other side of the country, anyone who's ever visited Lindisfarne will know that every single shop, car park and tourist attraction carries warnings about the causeway and every year people ignore them and get caught out.

Following any tragic event everyone involved will look back and think how things could have been done differently, or how the same thing could be prevented from happening in the future, and it's important that we learn lessons where we can.  But the sad fact is that life is tragic. Millions of people visit the fells each year and sadly some of them get injured and a few will die.  If you stick to the safe routes you're likely to remain safe, if you tackle a more dangerous route the risk factor rises.  I'm not suggesting that the people involved in these tragedies did anything reckless or foolish, I just honestly don't think that warning signs are the answer.