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Leave No Trace

HIDDEN AWAY IN the remote Needles district of Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, far from any road, is a deep, vertical-­walled ravine called The Joint. In the heart of The Joint, accessible only to those hardy souls who make the punishing approach trek across the sun-blasted expanse of Chesler Park, the narrows open up into a grotto-like space that sun and wind never reach. Here is to be found one of the most unexpected and riveting displays of man-made rock architecture on earth.

Hundreds of cairns dot the uneven ground, but they are no lumpen, hastily cobbled together stone pyramids. Unlike the cairns we see on British hills, these are ethereal constructions that lean and teeter at unlikely angles in gravity-defying fashion. In the ever-still air, large rocks balance precariously on pebbles, stones overlap stones by the sheerest edge, flimsy rock lattices form intricate wall-like structures, and zigzagging edifices rise in implausible fashion, each arm so perfectly counterbalanced that the merest breeze would demolish the whole.

This hidden art installation, fashioned by passing canyoneers taking time out in the cool shade, constitutes nothing less than a beautiful, three-dimensional, Pointillist landscape. Like all good art, it has that elusive ‘wow’ factor missing from so many modern artistic conceptualisations. It puts Turner Prize endeavours to shame.

If only the same could be said for British cairn construction attempts. Take our highest mountain. The summit plateau of Ben Nevis is a prime example of a felsenmeer or blockfield, a patchwork of broken rocks formed by a series of freeze-thaw cycles during the last Ice Age. There is plenty of material here to build cairns, and every passing tourist seems to want to leave his or her mark by lumping a few rocks together into a misshapen heap. The ‘Kilroy wuz here’ syndrome. No rockscape could be in greater contrast to The Joint.

In the late 20th century, as the Ben’s popularity exploded, the summit cairns became an increasing eyesore and a navigational danger. In foul weather they could be mistaken for route markers and lead people astray. Add a growing number of personal memorials of various kinds and the summit plateau was beginning to look like a cross between a brickyard and a cemetery.

The desire to commemorate the lives of loved ones is understandable but, as more people and pets die, there has to be a limit to how many memorials one location can support. The scattering of ashes on mountaintops has already got out of hand. Phosphates and other minerals from cremated bones stimulate plant growth and alter mountain ecosystems to such an extent that the Mountaineering Council of Scotland has appealed for people to desist from the practice. Football clubs have similarly had to stop the scattering of fans’ ashes on their grounds to preserve pitches. When the John Muir Trust purchased Ben Nevis in 2000, they had the good sense to remove the cairns, the memorials and tons of litter in an attempt to restore the summit to a more natural state.

Some mountains have fared even worse than the Ben, with officially sanctioned larger memorials defacing their summits. The one that causes the greatest visual pollution in Scotland is a large iron cross on the southeast shoulder of Ben Ledi near Callander. In the Catholic countries of the European Alps, such crosses routinely disfigure many mountaintops. On a cloud-whipped Austrian peak, I was once struck by lightning attracted by one of the iron monstrosities.

An even more execrable blot on the Austrian landscape is the sculptor Anthony Gormley’s so-called Horizon Field, an outlandish vanity project that consists of 100 naked life-size figures of himself placed on mountainsides above 2,000m. However ­justified by specious artistic reasons, this is intrusive vandalism on the grand scale. Do you want your Alpine view marred by a naked sculptor?

Other sad people find that the only way they can think of to leave their mark on society is to carve their names into tree trunks, or arrange loose rocks to spell their name on the ground. One prime location scarred by the latter activity is Arthur’s Seat, the 251m landmark in the centre of Edinburgh. Of course, none of the vandals who commit these puerile acts care about nature. With the ever-increasing popularity of outdoor activities, and the corresponding abuse of the countryside, this makes it ever more important to educate them in minimal environmental impact.

In the USA in the 1990s, the National Parks Service, the Forest Service and other organisations developed the Leave No Trace programme for this very purpose. The programme encourages people to follow seven principles:

  1. Plan Ahead and Prepare.

  2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces.

  3. Dispose of Waste Properly.

  4. Leave What You Find.

  5. Minimise Campfire Impacts.

  6. Respect Wildlife.

  7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors.

A Center for Outdoor Ethics was established in Boulder, Colorado, and this now has international branches around the world. Ireland joined in 2006. At the time of writing, the centre has established partnerships in the UK with organisations and companies such as the Wilderness Foundation and Wildtrek, but the country as a whole still lacks a coordinated national effort. Every year the JMT still has to remove tons of rubbish from Ben Nevis. The need for Leave No Trace has never been greater. Check it out at http://lnt.org.