Mountaineering Instructor and author of ‘Nature of Snowdonia’

Balancing the call for adventure with care for the environment is at the core of Mike’s work, training mountain professionals in awareness and knowledge of nature in one of the busiest parks in the UK.

“The vast majority of people who go hillwalking go up and down a hill and follow the desire line, which is often marked by a footpath. The issue for me is about how we manage those footpaths. Certainly if you look at Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) they are suffering from overuse and spreading, caused by people walking alongside the path because it’s not big enough or is falling to bits. Snowdonia National Park are working hard on that and have invested significantly. They’re trying to cope with the numbers but need funding.

“The Pyg Track (popular route up Snowdon) is too narrow for the traffic, so people walk alongside and cut the corners. What do they do? Queue up and wait patiently? A lot of people do, the queuing up Snowdon is quite remarkable, but somebody’s going to cut the corner and I can easily put myself in that bracket.

If I’m working I’ve got to give value for money, and I’m not doing that if I’m stood in a queue.

“Once you go away from Yr Wyddfa, it’s a different picture. You’ve got the National Trust doing the best they can. But other hills are owned by private farmers or estates. Is it their job to pay for the repair of a footpath, stiles and gates up a hill? These are public footpaths and there should be some public funding diverted from the highways budget. The budget required, in the scale of things, is not big, but it would need to come from somewhere.

“On Mountain Leader training you need to go off-path to test people. So you have to go into areas where you can do tricky navigation or movement on steep ground away from normal visitors. But you do this with the expectation that people will be operating at a higher level than most.

“Bizarrely, once you move away from the path, you tend to get less erosion because people are spread out more and the sward (grassy surface) is usually more robust so can sustain some footprints. Where you’ve got overgrazing, you’re going to break through the sward much more quickly and then the water gets in and does more damage. Erosion isn’t just caused by foot passage, it’s also overgrazing and weather.”