al78 wrote:Making your own route takes time and effort. Much easier if you are just interested in getting to the top and admiring the views to take a known well trodden easy route where you are not going to run into problems like a path on the map being a heather and bog slogfest on the ground.
[pianissimo]It would be interesting to have data and a historical trend in just what proportion of hillwalkers are confident and/or capable of planning their own route.
The proliferation of easy to access, downloadable, reassuring "well trodden" routes makes the development of independent skills that much more of choice rather than a necessity.[/pianissimo]