beddowsm wrote:Your post has really wound me up. Its people like you that cause people like me to stop posting for the fear of reprisal. Whether that be pictures taken which may offend people to holiday snaps of a fire. I know several decent people who no longer post because of people like you.
Hello Mike,
et al
This post is a very belated, but none-the-less sincere, apology for my comments above. The issue has sprung up now as I’ve just stumbled across your post of the
excellent videos of your Pyrenean trip last summer – a big ‘Thank you’ for posting these, as well as this trip report.
I didn’t follow up nearer the time, which in retrospect was a big mistake, as a) I was still angry for several weeks afterwards and b) you specifically ruled out any further debate on the matter and I took you at your word.
I remained angry for two reasons; firstly, I simply couldn’t get the mental image of a father throwing himself off a fifty-plus metre cliff with his young daughter out of my mind – the stuff of nightmares really. Although this incident wasn’t filmed, of course, although I think the poor chap’s family witnessed it from their position of safety – poor family too when you think about it.
Secondly, the fires earlier in the year, that I referred to your riding past, have a very personal impact as one of the sites, the hermitage and ravine of Santa Maria de Arbolo near Gerri de la Sal on the N260, is, or rather was, one of my favourite walks. Furthermore it was the last place my dear old dog, Streak, was able to walk to before we had to have him put down last year. The whole valley was ravaged by fire last March just a few days before the spring rains would have saved it from destruction. OK, forests do regenerate given time, but even being optimistic, at fifty-five years old I won’t live to see that beautiful view again.
In parentheses; you posted some photos of yourselves at a viewpoint next to another hermitage on a mountaintop, Sant Quiri, where three of the HISS trails coincide and it is another favourite walk of mine - I go there about half a dozen times each year. Looking at your route map you rode along the ridge due east to Baró rather than take the valley trail south-east, which would have led you through the destruction zone and eventually to Gerri de la Sal. You could certainly have seen the scorched forest from Sant Quiri summit if you had looked.
There's lots of stuff I could add about the causes of fires, they are virtually
all deliberate one way or another, the total banning of wild camping in a region two-and-ahalf-times the area on Wales, which includes all of the central section of the Pyrenees, and the imminent introduction of special licenses for green lane riding, which may effectively make it impossible for foreigners - difficult enough for residents - to ride here. But that may be better on a general post.
Regards
Simon
every time someone lights a fire in the forest in the middle of summer.
Are there any websites explaining where's and where nots ? I use Wikiloc for a lot of route satnav ideas and some of the routes posted can be quite old and i'd have no idea. 