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Despoiling the Ochils

Despoiling the Ochils


Postby ali607 » Sat Sep 13, 2014 7:19 pm

I couldn't agree more.
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby RocksRock » Sat Sep 13, 2014 7:59 pm

Hear, Hear!
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby hailiamdigby » Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:06 pm

RTC wrote:This "YES" must have been left by capable scramblers, even climbers.


It's a shame they didn't fall.
I hate people who litter.
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby Dave Hewitt » Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:47 pm

Haven't yet seen this - was on some Bridge of Orchy Munros today - but it does sound ridiculous. I get annoyed at the charity walk planners who paint route arrows on bits of the Ochils a couple of times each summer, never mind big stuff like this.

I tend to think these things backfire in voting terms - hard to imagine any undecided voter opting for Yes on the basis of such a thing, and quite a few will be shoved towards No by it. Same with the vandalising of No posters in fields - it looks terrible and will help a few people to make up their minds.
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby ali607 » Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:58 pm

yes i would agree - any kind of 'in your face' yes campaigning has the opposite effect on me...
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby RyanfaeScotland » Sat Sep 13, 2014 11:32 pm

Are you asking for help to despoil this place (get rid of the cardboard, clear up the paint if the rain doesn't do it) or are you just having a rant?
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby RyanfaeScotland » Sat Sep 13, 2014 11:46 pm

Sorry that should probably have a winky face or something after it as it reads rather bitchy. It was actually meant to be an offer to help (or at least to look into the feasibility of helping) but it's late and I'm tired and that's not how it came out. :(

Right no more posting for me tonight!
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby Dave Hewitt » Sun Sep 14, 2014 12:11 pm

It is pretty big - I've still not been along for a look, but it's visible from my house six or so miles away and at quite a tight angle. Not sure if it's the cardboard/cloth version I'm seeing or the paint one - it's on the Torry slope but looks to be semi collapsed when viewed through binoculars.

Might be connected with the paint incident a couple of weeks ago on Abbey Craig, the cliff which carries the Wallace Monument. A load of saltire-blue paint ended up down the front of one bit of the crags - unclear whether it was deliberately thrown over or whether it was a failed attempt to paint a flag or whatever. I've not seen any claims of responsibility, but the feeling round here (close to and within sight of Abbey Craig) was that it was some kind of (presumably unofficial) Yes campaign stunt. The locals weren't impressed - including the local SNP activist, whose house windows are so festooned with Yes posters that it's a wonder any light gets in.
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby Dave Hewitt » Sun Sep 14, 2014 4:35 pm

RTC wrote:Yesterday afternoon 4 motorbikes passed me on the green ATV track coming down from Ben Ever.

It'd be worth your while speaking with the Rhodders shepherd about this. A couple of weeks ago - at the summit of Ben Ever - he came across on his quadbike and asked if I'd seen any "kids on trials bikes". I hadn't, but had seen tracks - this was in a slightly less dry spell of weather than at present. The shepherd said he didn't have any particular problem with the bikes themselves, but three times that month (August) they'd come to gates on tracks and being unable to open them had just gone straight through the fence, trashing it.

I asked if he'd spoken to the polis and he said he had - they'd been sympathetic but someone would need to catch the bikers red-handed. Sounds like what you encountered yesterday could well have been the same guys.

By the way, how's the 1000 Dumyats / 100 Cleuchs thing coming along?
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby Dave Hewitt » Sun Sep 14, 2014 6:29 pm

I've now been along for a look (en route to watching the Forth Circle steam train rattle through nearby as it does on two Sundays each year). The main thing to say about the Yes signs is that - thank goodness - they're not paint. Looked at them through binocs and they're both made from white sheets. The one on the Craig Leith cliffs - which, as you say, would have needed proper climbing ability to "install" - consists of three large white sheets each with one letter of YES written in some kind of black inky marker pen or spraypaint. All three sheets are still there but a couple have come semi adrift - but it would have been hard to see what they said even when properly in situ as they're over 1000ft above the road and the writing's not brilliant. Impressive feat of attachment, though, especially given how chossy that piece of rock is reckoned to be.

As for the other one, on the front of the Torry slope, that's still very legible and is much the more effective of the two - it can be read from afar with the naked eye with no problem at all. Looking at it through the binocs, it's made of what are probably white bedsheets - my guess would be that they're tentpegged into the hillside. Each letter is made from several sheets - so the word is quite a lot larger than the other version. The Y is whiter and brighter than the E and the S - my better (together - ha!) half reckoned it could well be made from white plastic sheeting, whereas the other two letters look to be some kind of normal linen with the hillside beneath slightly showing through.

Anyway, for all that at some level I'd probably prefer these things not to be there, I don't really have a problem with them given that they're merely attached to the hillside rather than daubed on (when, as indicated above, I would have been annoyed). So long as the people who put them up duly take them down again - ideally on 19 September or soon thereafter - I think I can live with it for a week. I still think they're as likely to dissuade than to persuade, but that's another matter.
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby Dave Hewitt » Sun Sep 14, 2014 6:51 pm

RTC wrote:I'll speak to the shepherd if I see him, Dave.

The one I spoke with recently was a youngish and quite cheery chap - not sure if I'd seen him before - rather than the rather quiet (but friendly in my experience) bearded guy who is more often about. Dunno if they're sharing the work or if there's been a change of shepherd.

Reached 1023 Dumyats. I should have let you know about 1000th but didn't want a fuss and sneaked up on my own. Apologies. Only 72 Ben Cleuchs.

No worries - nothing wrong with enjoying such things on the quiet. Congrats on the 1000 - that kind of thing always takes some doing. Hope you got a nice day for it. You've probably told me before and I've forgotten, but do you know when ascent no.1 was? Incidentally, the previous 1000 Dumyats do I went to - Alex King's - was at night in lashing rain, and rivalled my own 1000 Cleuchs do for horribleness.

The Law seems to get steeper and have more false summits every time I go up. How many Ben Cleuchs for you?

The one last week took me to 1075. Recently reached 800 Ben Evers. Every one of those has involved going to or from Ben Cleuch - Ben Ever is a classic sidekick summit, a bit like Brim Fell in relation to Coniston Old Man. The next proper landmark is that I'm closing in on 500 ascents of the Law - the most recent one of those was no.487. Tend to do low-20s per year, so assuming no injury/illness etc problems 500 should be next spring sometime. I've once - back in 1995 - had a Cleuchless Law ascent. (Have you been up the Law other ways? The route up the flank from the Daiglen Green bridge is just as steep, and pathless, but makes a nice change, and of course there are other options - eg cutting across to follow the fence from halfway up is quieter and not much longer than the standard path.)

Re numbers, next come Andrew Gannel (288) and King's Seat (235). Long term, I'd like to get all nine of the main Ochil 2000ers into triple figures. Tarmangie and Whitewisp aren't now far off, but Blairdenon and Innerdownie are only on 67 and 45 respectively, with just four or five tending to be added each year, so it's ages away yet. I like these long-term, slow-burn cumulative hill games - much more fun than rattling round standard rounds of things in next to no time.
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby Dave Hewitt » Sun Sep 14, 2014 6:58 pm

Dave Hewitt wrote:The Y is whiter and brighter than the E and the S - my better (together - ha!) half reckoned it could well be made from white plastic sheeting, whereas the other two letters look to be some kind of normal linen with the hillside beneath slightly showing through.

Ah, correction from the aforementioned better half (who has also studied the letters through binocs). She says: "I think it might all be polythene, but the Y is white and the ES transparent-ish stuff. "

It's definitely not paint, anyway.
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby RyanfaeScotland » Sun Sep 14, 2014 11:22 pm

Dave Hewitt wrote:
Dave Hewitt wrote:The Y is whiter and brighter than the E and the S - my better (together - ha!) half reckoned it could well be made from white plastic sheeting, whereas the other two letters look to be some kind of normal linen with the hillside beneath slightly showing through.

Ah, correction from the aforementioned better half (who has also studied the letters through binocs). She says: "I think it might all be polythene, but the Y is white and the ES transparent-ish stuff. "

It's definitely not paint, anyway.


Perhaps they ran out of Daz after the Y sheets and had to use The Next Leading Brand for the rest. :lol:

RTC there is a sign on Brimmond hill local to myself that says the use of any motored vehicle on private land is illegal without the land owner's permission (or words to that effect).

Oh and given the recent descriptions of the signs I'm afraid you are on your own for removing them!
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby Dave Hewitt » Thu Sep 25, 2014 12:21 pm

Quick update on this. The big Yes sign on the Torry slope above Alva was removed last Friday, the day after the referendum - I was along that way that afternoon and it had gone. I think there was also some kind of sign on a slope a little further east - possibly on the Nebit, not sure as I only caught a glance of it while driving last week. If so, that too has now gone. However, the much messier-looking Craig Leith Yes sign is still there - I did a circuit from Alva yesterday afternoon (lovely day) and it was still to be seen up on the crag. It's become tangled and is completely illegible, but it's still up there (I can see it with the naked eye from my bathroom window in Stirling).

I was on the hills up Crianlarich/Tyndrum way both this weekend and the one before. The first weekend - ahead of the referendum - saw all sorts of places festooned with signs from both the Yes and No camps, fair enough. What was striking this past weekend however (I was in those parts on Sunday) was how almost all the signs had vanished, as if they'd never been there. On the 50-mile drive each way, I saw just one big Yes sign still attached to a fence, and one No one propped up beside a hedge. That's good to see - both in terms of litter and people moving on with life - and it would be nice if the Craig Leith sign installers could be bothered to take theirs down as well. The weather's been good in the past week, so there's been no excuse in those terms.
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Re: Despoiling the Ochils

Postby BoyVertiginous » Thu Sep 25, 2014 12:30 pm

Dave Hewitt wrote:Quick update on this. The big Yes sign on the Torry slope above Alva was removed last Friday, the day after the referendum - I was along that way that afternoon and it had gone. I think there was also some kind of sign on a slope a little further east - possibly on the Nebit, not sure as I only caught a glance of it while driving last week. If so, that too has now gone. However, the much messier-looking Craig Leith Yes sign is still there - I did a circuit from Alva yesterday afternoon (lovely day) and it was still to be seen up on the crag. It's become tangled and is completely illegible, but it's still up there (I can see it with the naked eye from my bathroom window in Stirling).

I was on the hills up Crianlarich/Tyndrum way both this weekend and the one before. The first weekend - ahead of the referendum - saw all sorts of places festooned with signs from both the Yes and No camps, fair enough. What was striking this past weekend however (I was in those parts on Sunday) was how almost all the signs had vanished, as if they'd never been there. On the 50-mile drive each way, I saw just one big Yes sign still attached to a fence, and one No one propped up beside a hedge. That's good to see - both in terms of litter and people moving on with life - and it would be nice if the Craig Leith sign installers could be bothered to take theirs down as well. The weather's been good in the past week, so there's been no excuse in those terms.

Not seen the one in the Ochils, Dave, but agree that whoever stuck it there should remove it. Was also through Crianlarich/Tyndrum the weekend prior and virtually every lampost/pole had something on it and wondered to myself at the time if/when/by whom they'd be removed so, good to hear these are away. Was in the Tinto Hills the day before the vote and the car park there was hit by Yes campaigners between setting-off from and returning to my car...wonder if they've been removed yet?
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