I would rather you called me Dai than politically correct I know that I keep promising to stop reading the newspapers over breakfast in order to save my ageing brain from blowing a fuse, but . . . . . . .
I spent a chunk of my life playing on the mountains and I know Snowdonia like the back of my wife’s hands. I took my Mountain Leadership ticket at Plas Y Brenin, I introduced both of my kids to the Snowdon Peak via Miners Track, PYG Track and the Gladstone. We left the train and the Llanberris Path for the wimps and the aged and infirm.
Now I read that some politically correct faction of busybodies have decided that no matter how remote, windswept and wild the scenery may be, our mountains should be accessible to all, so they are going to tarmac the Miners Track.
Why? It’s a mountain, not Disneyland. There is already a mountain railway which goes to the peak. There is also a cafe at the top but now some interfering b@stards have decided that climbing to the top of the 3,560 ft mountain, to view the magnificent scenery that takes your breath away should be something you can easily do on roller skates or sitting in a pram.
Snowdon is a mountain and can be treacherous – 10 people a year die on its slopes each year. Each year an average of 150 climbers and walkers are rescued by volunteers. Will the Mountain Rescue teams have to now carry a selection of spare batteries to fit into disabled scooters when they have insufficient power to get back?
We already see gormless people in unsuitable clothing, women wearing Jimmy Choos or espadrilles, unfit, fat oiks wearing vests and clutching cans of beer. We already have the trails defaced with garish signs warning of cold water in the rivers, slippery surfaces and danger from falling rocks. Once they have finished the tarmacing, what is a next, handrails and steps cut out on the steeper part? What about a lift up to the top of Everest?
I can just picture a bunch of prats on some quango, thinking to ingratiate with the Welsh Assembly by banging on about Elf n’ Safety and Uman Rights and coming up with this one. I bet one of them thought to throw in Travellers Rights into the equation and sought out a few Pik*ys to discuss the problem with. Imagine the scene, an all expenses paid fact-finding visit to a gipsy horse fair and being asked “How do you want your path doing, sir? We’ve a bit of tarmac left over from the old lady’s down the way”
Magic, cost cutting as well! What they don’t realise is the Pik*ys have just found another way to building themselves yet another illegal campsite and the EU via the Welsh Assembly will be paying them to do it.
Oh God, I kept telling myself that things would get better once Brown had gone. Come all you no hopers, you jokers and rogues, we’re on the road to nowhere, let’s find out where it goes. . . . . . . . . . . JC.
