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I walked up Ben Lomond yesterday. What is it with these tracksuit wearing chavs that they feel the need to walk half way up then throw away their Lucozade sport bottles, tattie crisp pokes and cardboard sandwich wrappers on the trail?
don't try rough camping in glen etive. No trees left, all hacked down and more exposed human sh1t than....well .........,one can only presume, the houses in which they live.
I walked a bit of the WHW near Conic Hill and it was a bit of a mess - loads of burnt ground from fires and a fair bit of litter. 🙁
Dont get me started on Glen Etive Kev. The sunday morning patrol was always an experience to look forward too. How a group of 4 people can create 14 bin bags full of rubbish in one evening is something i will never figure out. Then when they try to leave them at the side of the road expecting some silly eejit to come and clean up after them. It was good watching them try and fit it all in their car when challenged though.
Shame about Glen Etive - always looked dead nice to camp there when I passed way back.
horrible isnt it. was up at glen etive with the canoe club last week for the weekend, found a big fire with the barbecues and all the half burnt rubbish left in it and their water bottles lined up neatly beside it (this was beside crack of doom, a beautiful spot). how can these people think this is even remotely acceptable (they dont think i know). im preaching to the converted here so i am going to hold back the rant here.
the whole of the loch lomond area is the same, luss, balmaha, rowardennan, ben lomond. that is why they have had to put in a bylaw to ban roadside camping and make the loch lomond rangers special constables so they have some more powers. this should lessen the impact of the litter left by roadside campers, but will still not deal with the litter left by day trippers.
it makes you want to weep.
I am however of the opinion that it is good to have sacrificial places for these cretins to camp though. If they are in Glen Etive and on Loch Lomondside that means that they rent at many of the other much more beautiful places.
My experiences also tell me that the number of Weegies in Glen Etive is much lower than the number of Edinburghers and English.
if you dont think glen etive is a stunningly beatiful place that deserves to be preserved from litter and filth then you need your head examining.
and sadly it takes a very small number of people to make a huge mess. i had about 25 students up there two weeks ago and i am confident that we didnt leave any rubbish. you could argue that we caused erosion and visual pollution but we were fastidious about picking up rubbish and we camped elsewhere. i did a poo but i walked for a long way to do it and it was buried.
Didnt say that it was anything other than beautiful. Merely pointed out that there are other more beautiful places in scotland.
During the Summer they are now advising you be careful where you get water from up at Derry Lodge because there is so much contamination from humans,how sick is that? Go to the outdoors...bring a fricking trowel.Still, looking fwd to the ML this Summer and carrying out EVERYTHING I took in(or produced while there) 😕
I was in Glen Etive (Ben Starav and Glas Bhein) the weekend before last for the first time in years and amazed at the number of people camped along the river. Literally hundreds. There seemed to be a lot of families with children and the atmosphere was a little bit less 'menacing' than it can be on Loch Lomond-side.
Empty Lucozade sport bottles seem to be everywhere (usually not too far from the car park) if there's a bottle on the ground at Glentress, then it's almost always one of these. Buckie for the new outdoorsman.
My wife freaked out at me last fri night when I lost my temper and shouted at a youth for hacking at a large live tree with an axe right beside the car park at loch lubnaig, near Callander. They were young 15-18 and camping on the shore feet away from the carpark.
Maybe she was right as he had an axe but if he had come anywhere near me I would have brained him (which also would not be a good outcome.) So much for the tranquil fish and chips with my two young girls.
Its really embarrassing to think I come from the same country. Lots of tourists about.
I did get a clap and thumbs up from other other people there when we left.
i try and console myself with the thought that it has been like this for ages and tnature survives regardless. i dont think i believe it tho.
the thing about glen etive is even if no one leaves any litter it cannot support that level of people (hundreds!) using it every warm weekend. these little kids must be shitting everywhere. sad times.
What can you expect from an entire sub-culture who get their information from the Sun/Star/Sunday Sport etc?
M_P - I am loving the irony of you saying that Glen Etive cant support hundreds of visitors each weekend so soon after saying that you took 25 students up there...
If you really want to help out, contact Scott McCombie at NTS and see what he suggests. Perhaps some tree planting or survey work...
weegie = Glaswegian ?
If loads of people want to poo there why not build a nice toilet block ?
SFB - The land is owned by the National Trust for Scotland. It was received as a gift from a benefactor and one of the stipulations about the gift was that no improvements would be made. That includes building toilet blocks, this is also the reason that they moved the visitor centre from it's previous site.
weegie = Glaswegian ?
Yup - you'll see lots of gratuitous references to them on here ;-(
As others have said the problem is far from unique to LNP
I reckon it's the Welsh doing it 😉
or those racer types - they don't seem too bothered about littering with gel wrappers & old tubes etc.
Also, there is no such thing as a weegie chav. NEDS are the Glasgovian equivalent of Chavs. Think West Highland Sabre Toothed Fighting Midgie compared to Southern Soft Gummy Midge and you'll get a suitable idea of the relationship between the two species.
M_P - I am loving the irony of you saying that Glen Etive cant support hundreds of visitors each weekend so soon after saying that you took 25 students up there...
i kinda recognised that irony by saying we probably caused a degree of erosion and visual pollution. we were up there on our annual 'the etive is dog low paddling and jumping in weekend. but i also said we were fastidious about rubbish and camped elsewhere. its the camping that causes the most problems because of the footprints of tents, the fires, the litter, the soap and food waste and the inevitability of human waste. if it wasnt for me having a ridiculous bowel we wouldnt have left any human waste. i am seriously thinking of investing in sealed container thing because i feel pretty guilty about pooping there.
You can avoid the East loch lomond carnage on this route - Now officially open. Mountain bikeable too.
http://www.threelochsway.co.uk
weegie = glaswegian?
Out of interest how do you know the chav littering scum were weegies? Rather than say other fifers?
I heard that they were all Jambos
I walked up Ben Lomond yesterday. What is it with these tracksuit wearing chavs that they feel the need to walk half way up then throw away their Lucozade sport bottles, tattie crisp pokes and cardboard sandwich wrappers on the trail?
sounds like the start of train spotting..
buckie swilling neds 😆