This week Dave Hewitt turns his attention to the thorny issues of mountain bikers' access to the Northern Corries and the right to roam for pet pooches.
Ron Walker, of Carrbridge-based Talisman Mountain Activities, has sent in a couple of photographs taken at 5pm on 5 April near the Ptarmigan tow on the northern slopes of Cairn Gorm. They show two Irish mountain bikers who, when intercepted, said that the local tourist information office had cleared them to access the summit plateau on their bikes. They had also interpreted the leaflets produced by CairnGorm Mountain (the funicular operator) in the same way.
Ron Walker demurred however and turned Norman Tebbit's advice on its head, telling them to get off their bikes as they were tearing up the fragile vegetation. The request was ignored and off they pedalled.
Ron has therefore asked what he describes as "a silly question" - are mountain bikers allowed to use the waymarked paths in the ski area and Northern Corries? His own feeling is that they're not - but then, as he adds, "the whole access arrangement for walkers/climbers is such a bizarre farce with regard to funicular access that I'm not so sure now - eg only skiers and ski spectators wearing soft shoes/high heels and no sensible rucksack are permitted on the train and out to wander about the icy ski area".
I asked local eco-expert and long-time monitor of developmental damage Adam Watson if he knew of any formal bike-access policy in the Northern Corries. "The official line on the ski area," he writes, "used to be No to bikers. I haven't been up recently but last autumn there was a notice (which had been there for many years) where the dirt road starts to climb out of the car park, saying No mountain bikes, or words to that effect."
While bike-use in the hills is a complex and much debated issue (eg there was the absurd attempt by the National Trust for Scotland to discourage cyclists from using the Land Rover tracks west of Linn of Dee), it surely isn't good for the thin vegetation of the high Cairngorm tops to be churned in this way and especially not in springtime with the hillsides running with meltwater. As Adam Watson says, "There couldn't be a worse time from the point of view of damage, given the thaw conditions and soft ground."
No one (least of all Ron Walker I suspect) wants to be down on mountain bikers per se - they're entitled to their slice of fun just as much as everyone else - but this does seem a particularly inappropriate (dare I say stupid?) place in which to go whizzing and skidding about. In addition to choices being made by the bikers themselves, there is also the question of the encouragement - or at least the corporate blind eye - apparently being given by CairnGorm Mountain staff.
Given the extreme sensitivity of the ecology of the Northern Corries area in light of its wholesale trashing in the name of commerce, one would have thought that the company's policy would have erred on the side of caution and that cyclists would have been advised to seek their pleasures elsewhere. In reality however - at least on this evidence - there appears to be no policy at all, at least not a practically-applied policy. Ron reports that he has contacted Scottish Natural Heritage about the incident (via local head ranger Nick Bullivant) but hasn't as yet heard back.
The public relations side of the CairnGorm Mountain operation continues to go clumsily at best. Ron also reports that a female partner of one of his clients was reduced to tears at the ticket office, "after being publicly humiliated for wearing mountain boots to protect her weakened ankle, the result of a recent car crash. She was told to come back in trainers and a lightweight street jacket. All she wanted to do was to take some photos at the top station before going home. It was blowing a gale and icy at the top, with no restaurant facilities and with 90-minute queues to get down, yet young families were being allowed up with street clothing to shiver."
Another area of on-hill awkwardness is that of dogs, especially during the lambing season, and this has prompted a query from Jim Willsher of Greenloaning. He writes, "Three of us (plus dog) set off to climb Beinn Chabhair to the north of Loch Lomond. Upon entering the farm we were met with two large signs saying No Dogs and No Dogs, even on leads. Rightly or wrongly (and possibly viewed by some as irresponsibly) we ignored the sign and kept our on lead dog between us until we were above the farm. We noticed that a couple behind us, with their flatcoat and golden retrievers, were turned back. What's the legal position on all of this? Given that we were not walking in the farm itself could the farmer have stopped us?"
Good question, and to be honest I'm not at all sure of the answer. I think that legally an under-control dog can be taken on to the hill at all times and that in the unhappy event of it coming to court the dog owner would win provided they could show that no damage or sheep-harassment had occurred. However for most dog owners there is a more immediate and more understandable fear - that of the farmer taking matters into his own hands by way of a gun concealed about his person. Clearly no one wants this and so it's hardly surprising that a lot of perfectly innocent dog walkers back off from hills where signs are displayed.
But is it legal? As I say, I'm not sure - and would value input and advice. Even at the formal level of local authority signs there seems to be considerable variation and confusion. My local hills, the Ochils, are split between several councils, most notably Stirling (at the western end, on Dumyat and Sheriffmuir) and Clackmannanshire (the Hillfoots approaches). Both these authorities have recently posted green and yellow notices at the start of popular routes, advising walkers how to behave during the lambing season. But whereas Stirling's notices include the phrase No dogs at this time, Clackmannanshire requests only that dogs be kept on a lead. The latter looks the more reasonable and sensible but it's hard to tell if these are officially sanctioned byelaws or whether the council rangers are simply making up "rules" as they go along.
There are echoes of the foot and mouth crisis in this, with Clacks again taking a more walker-friendly stance than the more reactionary Stirling authority. And again, as with foot and mouth, the difference in attitudes is patently impractical given that it's by no means unusual to start a walk in the Clacks area and finish in Stirling, or vice versa. Is a dog owner supposed to bundle their beagle inside the rucksack and tell it to shush the instant they cross the Stirling boundary fence?
That some unscrupulous landowners and smallholders use No dogs signs as a way of trying to keep legitimate walkers off the land was well shown by a recent court case in which a Mull farmer was convicted of a breach of the peace. The Oban Times for 2 May reported that Adam Brown, a 61-year-old sheep farmer of Sithean, Dervaig Rd, Tobermory, had confronted Karen and Iain Rigby, of Quinish, Dervaig, in late September last year. The Rigbys had walked their two dogs past a sign reading Strictly no dogs and were approached by Brown who gave them grief on two fronts - the dogs and their (the Rigbys') pedigree. "He said we couldn't be locals because of our accents," Iain Rigby said in evidence. "(Brown) said, All you English are the same, you are probably from Cumbria, and if I let you through more English will follow." In light of this, Brown was initially charged with acting in a racially aggravated manner but the procurator dropped this "when it became clear that Mr Brown's references to English and Cumbria were in connection with the foot and mouth outbreak and not racially motivated." So that's OK, then.
Brown was admonished on the breach of the peace charge but quite aside from the "local island for local people" aspect of the case, it shows just how easily situations can flare up when dogs and No Dogs signs come into close proximity. It doesn't bear thinking about how James Irvine at Deephope might react in such a situation - see Summit Talks three weeks ago.
Anyway, to return to Jim Willsher's query, I can only add my own personal observations on such matters. As a non-dog-owner who once in a very occasional while goes out on the hill with one of several bedogged friends, I must confess to two feelings of unease. One is the question of how I would react were an irate shepherd or keeper to appear when (as almost invariably happens) the dog is running loose on the upper slopes. To put it more starkly, with whom would I side? On the one hand I would want to stand by my friend - and certainly would were the shepherd unnecessarily stroppy. But I can appreciate the work-versus-leisure dichotomy and so, on the whole, would lean towards siding with the shepherd. These guys must, from time to time, have their entire day's work undone by one stupid dog (owner), even when a sheep or lamb isn't actually harassed.
Ideally, I suppose, I would attempt to arbitrate, to placate, to keep everyone happy. As yet this situation hasn't arisen but every time a dog is let off its lead, even high up away from any sheep, I feel a level of unease that detracts from the pleasure of the day. For me, walkers should keep dogs under close control (not necessarily on a lead) at all times - or at least at all times when I'm around.
The second annoyance links with this and is a consequence. It's the way in which certain keepers and shepherds have come to regard all walkers, whether bedogged or not, as though they have an uncontrollable pack of baying hounds with them. Again there is a good example of this the Ochils, where one of the shepherds gets extremely het up over dogs, particularly at this time of year. Increasingly, his irritation extends to all walkers, and many perfectly innocent people have received an unnecessary and unfair ear-blasting just because someone else, somewhere across the glen, chose to let their dog run free. As a non-dogee, it annoys me to be burdened with the sins (real or otherwise) of the dog community. There is a dog debate to be had but it should take place between the two interested factions, with dogless types playing no role beyond that of spectators.
It's because of this that I feel unable to fully defend the dog-owning community - this awareness of the collateral damage that unleashed dogs do to the reputation of all walkers. Certainly in situations such as the Brown/Rigby case, where abuse has been clearly proved, I'm happy to stick up for the dog walkers even though what they initially did - walking past a sign - might have been a little rash. But when it comes to dogs being allowed free access to farmed hills, then for once I'm unable to wholeheartedly support the access lobby. Harmony within the human population surely has to take precedence over dog politics.
Although interested - hence the preceding paragraphs - this is one issue where I'm happy to remain uninvolved. I'm just thankful that our cat shows no sign of wanting to explore any further than the tree at the bottom of our garden.
Dave Hewitt
9/5/2002
You can contact Dave at Dave.Hewitt@dial.pipex.com
