Originally Posted by
CheddarMan
This is a perennial favourite for forums like this. And the answer is really tricky. The balance is between making walking to lovely places an elite sport that requires licences and permits and qualifications versus the ill prepared people who get themselves in trouble.
I am off on a Stag weekend for my best mate in a few weeks, we are going to Princetown on Dartmoor for a walking weekend. There are 12 of us going, and over the years in various combinations, we have done over 100 mountain marathons, have all the qualifications Mountain Training offer, walked every area and high peak in the UK, 3 of us have won National level orienteering competitions, we will have on our backs rucksacks with every appropriate bit of kit that will keep us safe. We will walk whatever the weather does to us, but could we guarantee that we will all come back safe?
Sometimes people say that rescue teams should be able to get the 'public' to sign a disclaimer and if they are poorly equipped the team doesn't have to go, but if they are properly equipped they will. That is arse about face for me. I have, and I am sure you will have as well, seen people with every conceivable item of kit under the moon, but not the slightest clue what to do with it all! They would get rescued, but it's wrong, it's not having the kit, it's knowing what to do with it. After all, when on a mountain marathon we carry tiny amounts of kit, look essentially very poorly prepared, but actually are some of the best prepared people in the outdoors that weekend!
After many discussions on this subject over the years, I tend to come down on the side of letting people get on with it and educating if we get the chance. When we think of the amount of people who use the outdoors, rescues are actually extremely rare. It doesn't help that these rescues are often concentrated in small areas in whatever country you look at.