PLANS to limit environmental damage on Ben Nevis by extending a controversial new path have been criticised by the former chairman of a path-working group for the John Muir Trust.
The Nevis Partnership, which was set up in 2003 to safeguard the environment on Britian’s highest mountain, is holding a public consultation on plans to extend the Lochan Meall ant-Suide path, built in 2006, by 50 metres.
Brian Willshaw, manager of the Nevis Partnership, says the path extension is needed because climbers and tourists are already making their own way down the mountain from the end of the path at the lochan, which is about halfway up the Ben, causing environmental damage.
Mr Willshaw said: ‘Climbers use the path to get down from the summit and then make their own way down to the car park at Torlundy. The problem is that there is quite a lot of damage to the environment and to habitats there.
‘We are trying to encourage people to cross over the outflow of the lochan and make their own way down on the other side of the burn. By doing that it will help the environment because the ground on that side is less sensitive to damage.
‘To encourage people to do that we are putting in about 50 metres of further pathwork. We are trying to do the minimum we need to do to stop further erosion, and we can get an idea of the number of people coming down.
‘If we tried to put in a path all the way down the opposition would be enormous and we would have to get planning permission which would take quite a long time. The works we are proposing could be done with our own volunteers and staff.’
However, John Allen, the former chairman of the path working group on the Perthshire mountain of Schiehallion, which has suffered environmental damage from walkers in the past, says the plans will ‘devalue’ the experience of walking on the mountain.
He said: ‘To me it is disgraceful that an august body such as the Nevis Partnership should propose to spend money in developing this path.
‘Ben Nevis has importance nationally and internationally and provides the ultimate in hillwalking and adventurous mountaineering. New paths simply devalue this experience. Convenience mountaineering - making ascent and descent easier by paths - has no place here.’
The consultation document states that a full path from the lochan to the North Face Car park at Torlundy is not being proposed as the ‘damage at present is not sufficient to warrant an expensive and intrusive full build path’.
The Nevis Partnership is to consider all comments made on the consultation at a board meeting on December 15 this year. Comments are invited to be made to the Nevis Partnership website before November 30.
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