Leaving more than footprints

A single line of footprints snakes its way across the soft ground. The objective of the trod is clear, but its route is anything but direct. It takes the path of least resistance, contouring, finding the least steep ramps on the way to the summit. It doubles back once or twice to find the narrowest section of stream to hop over and attempts to skirt the most obviously boggy sections. 

The next day, more people visit. They too intuit their route in places, but also have footprints to follow. 

Day after day, people walk. Each leaves nothing but footprints.

There is a gradual transformation. The desire to travel from A-to-B begins to take a tangible, visible form. Individual prints are no longer distinguishable. Grass is worn away. A narrow line in the ground is worn into existence, not much wider than a single person. A path exists. 

There is so much to celebrate about a path. It represents a future and a past. A way forward and the reassurance that you were not the first to have travelled this way. It is both an inspiration and a calling to travel. By itself a path is neither a destination nor a guaranteed route to there. Just a way to somewhere. We are social animals though. And just like sheep trods, or the huge migration routes of elephants, a path is rarely a sign that just one person wanted to travel. A path imparts a degree of importance. Enough people wanted to route themselves this way to end up leaving their trace.

Years continue to pass. Some are wetter than others. Rainwater flows down the compacted, bare earth and strips a little more away. And because we are hardy souls, us hill users, we still hike and ride in the rain. We walk a little wider around those boggy sections, giving them ample berth to save breeching our boots.

Paths become ruts, then become knee-high gullies. Often it becomes easier to step to one side to make forward progress. No one wants to be literally stuck in a rut. The grass becomes worn once more. The once delicate strand has become a knotted tangle. Tens of paths make the same journey. Some die out. Some merge. Some are so deep that they have lost their original function.

Leave nothing but footprints, goes the saying. Is it time to rethink that adage?

The European Outdoor Conservation Association supports and funds grassroots conservation, protection, and regeneration projects around the world, protecting the wild places and wildlife everyone cares so much about. For more than a decade, Pertex has been a Sustaining Member of EOCA, our contribution supports their ongoing work, enabling them to focus on funding vital conservation projects such as “It's Up to Us”.

“If you are hiking anywhere outside of NGO [non-government organisation, such as the National Trust] land or in a National Park it’s almost certain that the path that you're travelling along has never had any remedial work whatsoever.

That’s why An Teallach is our figurehead at the moment. It’s an overused word, but it’s iconic and a huge draw to mountain-lovers.The mountain path is wrecked though, and because it lies on privately owned ground, it has literally never had even a day’s maintenance.”

Dougie Baird is the CEO and founder of Outdoor Access Trust for Scotland (OATS). We’ve been chatting for longer than our allotted slot of time, but it doesn’t feel that way. He’s been explaining the long (and actually quite short) history of OATS, why it is so important that independent trusts like them exist, and his priorities for now and the future. 

We start  in 1998, with the Upper Deeside Access Trust. 

“We formed the trust to specifically resolve a parking issue on the Balmoral estate of all things. The main path up Lochnagar starts at the end of a long dead-end singletrack road, next to Loch Muick. Even back then, there was pressure on the road from visitor numbers. People would end up blocking the road. We got together some funding – mashed together from lots of sources… the National Lottery, the EU and then got public authorities to match that money.” 

The Upper Deeside Access Trust eventually evolved into the East Cairngorms Access Project and shifted its focus to paths; split into three categories. Mountain paths, glen paths and community paths. 

“While for many, the real draw is the mountain paths up to the summits, there is huge value to our work elsewhere. The glen paths are often our most historic. Routes like Jocks Road were drovers roads for centuries and became the basis for the establishment of rights of way in Scotland. Finally, the community paths are some of the most valued amongst the towns and villages they serve. They are often completely new path networks and are designed to be accessible for all. We work closely with health workers and the community to create walking groups. I’ve heard tales of these paths changing people’s lives; they are more than infrastructure, they are a reason to leave the house, they are the glue of a community.”

Years passed and like so many paths, there is no end. The creation of the Cairngorms National Park led Dougie to broaden his scope once more. The Cairngorms Access Trust was formed. Finally, in 2017, it was time to go Scotland-wide and OATS came into existence. 

As we chat, Dougie skips his way through funding campaigning, bureaucracy, a multitude of stakeholders and public sector partners. He leaps from the challenges through to the successes. He is simultaneously battleworn and ready for the next fight. And a fight it may be…

Sun streams through Ewan Watson’s window as we talk. It feels like the long winter might finally be transitioning into warmer, sunnier days. Ewan’s more attuned to the elements than most. He’s spent many years working in the outdoors, and a lot of that time has been building and maintaining trails.

“I was in my early 20s and working as a scaffolder in Inverness when I saw a job advert to apply as a trainee path builder. I went down for the weekend and it rained relentlessly. It didn’t matter. I loved it and handed in my notice on the Monday. That was eight years ago now! It’s a really hard, physically demanding job. Often there’s an hour or more walk in to start the day. Then a long day of shifting stones, shovelling, tough manual labour in all weathers. And the walk out to finish the day. It’s not unusual to be out for twelve hours in summer.

“I love the outdoors, and this feels like a way of paying things back though. My Dad was a climber and mountaineer and he moved the family up to Inverness just after I was born. We were outside the whole time, mountain biking, climbing, hiking, everything. 

“I like to think of supporting path building and maintenance as buying the mountain a pint. It’s a way of paying it back for all the good times that we’ve had.”

Ewan started off as a contractor, working on projects funded and managed by OATS; often in the Cairngorms, but stretching across the rest of Scotland. Then last year, a job working for OATS came up; he is now their Outdoor Access Projects Officer. In short, he’s responsible for managing the work he was once out on the hill doing himself. There’s a little more to it than that though.

“There’s a few parts to my job. First of all, there’s surveying work; walking a path and documenting the work that it needs. It’s more than highlighting sections of erosion, it’s understanding the causes of that and the most sympathetic methods of remediation. You are looking to use local materials wherever possible and to create a path that blends in with its landscape. Climate change is actually having a big impact on the footpath network. We are seeing flooding events with increasing frequency and intensity. Every storm speeds up the erosion process.

“Then there’s the management side. In some ways that’s like any other project management role, but there are plenty of challenges there. Finally, I spend time outside with volunteers doing maintenance and conservation work, coordinating their efforts to leave the biggest impact.”

Ewan and I spend a long time talking about what makes a “good” path. Many of us who have spent lots of time in the hills, particularly in well trafficked areas, will have experienced path “improvements” that to the user feel anything but. There are plenty of examples, like newly built, but awkward to use steps, with even newer eroded lines next to them as people find an easier way up and down. Or high water bars that are functional but don’t take into account the needs of cyclists. Or brought-in material used as surfacing giving a trail a wholly unnatural feel. 

“There’s definitely an art to path building. Some techniques may be suitable for one location, but not elsewhere on the same trail. There are times when stone pitching is the only real choice – especially on steep slopes with high footfall – but plenty of times when there are other options. In an ideal world, we’d be working to maintain trails on an ongoing basis, so larger scale improvements and building wasn’t needed. 

“But, we are where we are, and intervention is better than doing nothing. Also, a lot of people will look at a newly constructed piece of trail, and it does stand out. But we aren’t building the trail for this year. We are building it for the year after and for many years beyond. I like to think that we are working on mountain time. So, it’s the little things that can make an impact. We’ll replant turf and work vegetation back into the sides of the trail. Recently I was walking along a section I’ve worked on in the past and it was only when I’d got half way along that I realised. Everything was so knitted into the landscape, it felt like it had always been there.”

We ponder the possible conflict between path repairs leading to heavier use and more people on the hills. It’s something that comes up in conversation with Dougie too. Everyone’s sentiments are broadly the same, but Ewan’s summary is perhaps the most succinct. 

“I’m not building these paths for people. I’m building them for the mountains. It isn’t about getting to the top more easily; it's about protecting the landscape we all enjoy and move through.”

Dougie extends this point; “No one is the custodian of the countryside. We know that access to natural spaces of all sorts is vital for mental and physical health, social cohesion even. I see it as reconnecting. If we are all to continue enjoying the outdoors, we need to do so in a sustainable way and everyone deserves the opportunity to enjoy that. Tourism is also a huge part of the Scottish economy. If we want people to keep visiting, we need to let them access and enjoy the places they visit.”

It’s a predictably unpredictable autumnal day in the north west of Scotland; bright sunshine punches through dark clouds. Rain showers hurry through Glens, while higher up, the escarpments of An Teallach receive one of their first dustings of snow, marking the encroaching winter. 

Dwarfed by the surrounding landscape, a small team works all day to shape a few square metres of that land. They excavate, secure and lever. They hammer and haul. Progress is measured in hours, days and weeks rather than minutes, but their impact should last years; mountain time as Ewan calls it. This group’s work represents the future, however. A mixture of full-time contractors and volunteers working alongside each other; building a path that will eventually blend in with the mountain; sourcing aggregate material from the site and working path edges to encourage the regeneration of native vegetation. 

An Teallach is perhaps iconic in more than one way. As Dougie has already pointed out, it's a huge draw for mountain lovers across the UK. It also represents one of OATS first projects in a new world. Funding has always been a challenge for an organisation that lives from bid-to-bid. It is testament to Dougie’s tenacity and experience that he has been able to sustain the organisation in its various forms for so long. 

Many of OATS traditional income sources have now dried up. European funding is a thing of a past thanks to Brexit. Dougie laments that public spending cutbacks as a result of “austerity” budgets have become the new normal. Public funds are now minimal – whether that’s from national government, local authorities or national parks. 

The National Lottery is still a lucrative source of income, but their funding is always on the proviso that it is matched from other sources. The EOCA (European Outdoor Conservation Association) funding has been – and still is – an invaluable and lucrative source of income in recent years. OATS has its own modest income streams; they run several car parks in heavily visited areas; including  the recently built Fairy Pools car park in Skye. They also offer path project consultancy. A large gap remains however.

And that’s where It’s Up to Us comes in. OATS’ latest campaign – in partnership with Mountaineering Scotland – turns the spotlight back on to all of us as mountain lovers. Whether that be walkers, runners, climbers or riders. Perhaps the time has come where “leave nothing but footsteps” isn’t enough. On an individualistic level, leave no trace principles are easy to understand and even easier to follow. They fall down when applied at a collective level though. We’ve all seen, experienced – and, yes, caused – the impact of thousands of boots on our paths and hillsides. We all leave a trace. 

Dougie is absolutely clear. “Do not be under any illusion. No one else will do anything about this.” It truly is up to us to make a positive difference and leave an environment that is there to be enjoyed not only by us, but by future generations. 

Practically, that means new path construction on An Teallach. Three hundred metres have already been built, turning choppy, wide, rutted ground into a single strip of track. 

There is plenty more to do, but the end result will be mutually beneficial to both the mountain and its users. Walkers will no longer need to negotiate eroded ground, forever travelling wider in search of solid footing. Meanwhile, the most prominent scars on the hillside will eventually return to their natural state. The finished path will be the same distance as what it replaces, but it will cover a far smaller area; a ribbon carrying folk through the terrain. 

What can we do to help? Volunteering gives additional manpower to OATS’ cause. They run everything from conservation days through to an “Adopt a path” scheme. There’s no avoiding what OATS really needs however; money. Funds to carry out repairs, funds to maintain paths so they don’t need costly large schemes. And funds to survey the country and prioritise future work.