Whilst it's right to think carefully about what we do and do not leave behind, it's worth bearing in mind that practically nowhere in the British isles will you find authentically "natural" ecosystems.
I would never leave a banana skin, because I know it could harm a sheep, but at the same time I know that the sheep have done more to ruin our uplands than any other creature - including fell runners!
Sheep don't ruin it, they enhance it, far more than the fake tree planting above Tebay does anyway.Originally Posted by eardstapa
It's all perception isn't it. Upland grazing by sheep is certainly not "natural". I often wonder what the fells looked like a thousand years ago - certainly not runnable all over.
The fells have seen much longer usage than many of the dales, the latter were essentially marsh and bog until relatively recently whereas the upland would have been relatively dry underfoot. Fairfield is so named because it was a fair (good) "field" or grazing. Going back even further, the area around Martcrag Moor was a series of mines/flint factories (the one on Pike o Blisco wasn't unique).
The British landscape has always been used and abused and as mentioned above there's very little that can be considered "natural" or untouched, probably the Cairngorm plateau is one such area. Depending on the maturity and size of the tree cover it would have taken a few hundred years for the present tree free upland Lakeland landscape to develop due to grazing alone. Deer and goats are more likely to prevent sapling growth than sheep who are quite particular eaters.
Currently the tree free landscape appears to be of more "use" to our society than brush/tree cover.
Last edited by Bob; 16-12-2015 at 09:55 AM.
Bob
http://bobwightman.co.uk/run/bob_graham.php
Without me you'd be one place nearer the back
A tree free, working landscape is what 'leisure users' of the Lakeland Fells have known for hundreds of years, I agree that indigenous wildlife probably cropped the fells long before the Norse settlers brought the Herdwick (if they did bring them) I see the landscape that my grandfather trod (this could go all Monty Python, with his fathers father etc, but it won't :-)) a mix of natural and industrial to be essential to the area, far better than some of the current scarification taking place in the name of 'protecting'
Mmmh. "'leisure users' of the Lakeland fells...for hundreds of years".
Who were they and how did they travel around?
As Noel has suggested: context is everything and to quote from "one of the greatest history books ever written" (Taylor):
Not much of England, even in its more withdrawn inhuman places has escaped being altered by man in some subtle way or other however untouched we may fancy it is at first sight.
(The Making of the English Landscape - Professor W G Hoskins)
"...as dry as the Atacama desert".
Whoever the bright spark was who dumped all those boulders on Ill Crag, Broad Crag and Scafell Pike, he wasn't especially 'subtle' about it
Context my dear Stolly.Whoever the bright spark was who dumped all those boulders on Ill Crag, Broad Crag and Scafell Pike, he wasn't especially 'subtle' about it
Context!
"...as dry as the Atacama desert".
I thought the Leisure users statement would cause debate :-) I'm thinking of the hound trailers and fox hunters
Yes. I don't wish to extend a pedantic debate but I had considered such people to be generally and better described as "owners of the land" who eg wished to kill foxes, rather than people at their "leisure".
Few people, hundreds of years ago, had much time for "leisure" and their idea of fun wasn't walking in cumbrian fells looking at the views.
"...as dry as the Atacama desert".
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