I really should have known better. A journalist of my acquaintance rang me to say he’d been chatting to the John Muir Trust about Ben Nevis. Clearly on the scent of a story he told me that 160,000 people had climbed Ben Nevis last year, putting an enormous amount of pressure on the mountain. We chatted a bit about the effects of so many boots on a footpath like the one that runs up the hill from Achintee and he asked me if I thought a permit system should be introduced? I suggested the tourist path on Ben Nevis was…