Читать книгу The Pennine Way - the Path, the People, the Journey онлайн

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So was it right to tolerate the sort of erosion that I’d already heard about in the Peak District or could (and should) the path be better maintained but still remain a walking challenge? After all, a walking route that is so long, high, exposed and remote is surely challenging enough, regardless of the surface beneath your boots?

The Pennine Way’s creator had a clear view on this. In an article in The Great Outdoors magazine in April 1993, journalist Roly Smith quoted from a conversation that he had had with Tom Stephenson in 1976. Did the scars on the landscape caused mainly by the feet of Pennine Way walkers upset the route’s architect? ‘No, it doesn’t offend me in the slightest,’ Tom replied. ‘The way I see it is that this route has given so much pleasure to so many thousands of people who perhaps otherwise might have not ventured on to the hills. That is what I wanted in the first place, and when I see young people enjoying themselves on the Pennine Way, it makes it seem worthwhile.’