Mend Our Mountains: meet ranger Liam from Fix the Fells

With almost 2,000m of footpath around Haytor Rocks in Dartmoor newly repaired, thanks to BMC Access & Conservation Trust funding from the Mend Our Mountains campaign, here are our top 5 walks and climbs in the area.

Do you have Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) days to fill or is your company looking for new and exciting CSR days for your staff? The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) has the answers.

Over 800 drinks containers were removed from Wales’ highest peak last weekend causing environmental campaigners to demand the urgent introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for bottles and cans.

This unassuming, bright, green or red moss with lush, almost tentacle-like fronds is hiding five well-kept secrets.

On Tuesday 8 October, the Supreme Court will consider whether the right to wild camp on Dartmoor continues to be a cherished freedom. The case, brought by Alexander Darwall, owner of 4,000-acre estate in southern Dartmoor, challenges the notion that wild camping (or backpack camping) should be considered an open-air recreation in its own right. 

Did you know that the 140,000 miles of footpaths and bridleways we have access to in England and Wales are under serious threat? The footpaths you love the walk on are disappearing fast before our eyes due to erosion from increased footfall and more extreme weather conditions. Here are 14 reasons why we can't ignore footpath erosion.

The Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) Big Clean Up event marks an unprecedented effort to begin to rid the mountain of decades-old litter, including a misplaced Santa hat! Over two days, Friday 20th and Saturday 21st September, dedicated volunteers and specialists undertook a challenging mission to clean one of Wales’ most iconic natural landmarks. 

The BMC welcomes and supports the Cumbria Wildlife Trust who are set to rewild the bleak plateau of Skiddaw. This work aligns fully with BMC values - protecting the mountains for future climbers, hill-walkers and mountaineers and promoting environmental sustainability.

On Sat 21 September, 40 BMC volunteers will climb Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) to rid the mountain of as much litter as possible in The Big Clean Up event, including the 'waterfall' of trash which has been stuck for decades in the steep and hazardous Trinity Gullies.

The BMC volunteers have been super busy this summer, with the latest Get Stuck In project seeing 12 of them create a 50m length of stepping stone path to make a more sustainable way through the bog below Tryfan, Eryri (Snowdonia), North Wales.

The BMC is pleased to announce our membership of Sports for Nature (S4N) - the first mountaineering organisation to do so. S4N enables and encourages sporting bodies to champion nature and contribute to its protection and restoration, an initiative that aligns completely with the BMC’s values, including our ongoing access and conservation work, aims for net-zero emissions by 2040 and new Climate & Sustainability Action Plan.

If you're a BMC member or if you have made a donation to the BMC Access & Conservation Trust (ACT), you are directly supporting our Mend Our Mountains campaign which is funding Fix the Fells again this year. Your contributions enable rangers like Caroline Mercer to consistently repair and manage the Lake District paths that we love to walk on. We caught up with Caroline on a path above Derwent Water, near Keswick, to find out about a typical day in her life - it's pretty hard work!

This August, 14 BMC volunteers spent two days on The Band in Langdale, Lake District, making repairs to a 100m stretch of footpath in the latest Get Stuck In event, funded by the Mend Our Mountains campaign from the BMC's Access & Conservation Trust.

BMC member Roy Hammond from Congleton, Cheshire, has now volunteered seven times for Get Stuck In events, funded by the Mend Our Mountains 2024 campaign from the BMC's Access & Conservation Trust (ACT). This summer he stepped it up a notch and led the Get Stuck In Eryri event this June, coordinating a dozen volunteers who stayed in the Lincoln Mountaineering Hut in Deiniolen, North Wales. The group worked for 6 hours during both days, including a hike up to 750m on Glyder Fach on day one. We asked Roy what he gets out of volunteering on the Get Stuck In events for the BMC, and what it's like to start organising them himself.

The BMC’s Access & Conservation Trust (ACT) is pleased to announce a seventh project within the Mend Our Mountains campaign for 2024.

The sphagnum season is upon us again! Now that the ground-nesting birds have stopped ground-nesting, it’s time for BMC volunteers to start planting this incredible, carbon-sequestering moss at strategic locations across the Peak District moorland. Can you help us?

With four GB Climbing athletes heading across the channel for the Olympic boulder and lead competitions starting Monday 5 August, not only are they bringing their A-game in terms of performance but, as part of the BMC, the whole team is supporting Paris 2024 in its bid to be the ‘greenest ever Games’. 

Proposals to make ordinary trespass a criminal offence have alarmed outdoor groups, including the BMC. Ahead of a debate in Parliament on the issue and the possibility of Government publishing the Police Powers and Protections Bill, Ed Douglas calls for the Government to think again.

There are concerns that government are considering moves to turn trespass from a civil offence to a criminal one. In a public consultation that is currently out for comment, it has been suggested that police powers could be strengthened to force people to move on from unauthorised encampments. The BMC is concerned however, that there could be unintentional consequences of the proposals around issues such as wild camping.

In this booklet for managers and landowners, the aim has been to address a range of common questions and concerns about rock climbing in disused quarries. Covering all aspects of access and liability, through a selection of case studies, it showcases the benefits not just for climbers, but for the wider public and land managers themselves. Benefits which can be realised with assistance from climbers and the BMC, through the repurposing of disused quarries as rock climbing destinations.

Camping ‘wild’ is a different way of spending the night outdoors but it isn't allowed everywhere - with a responsible approach however, there are many remote areas where you can still rest your weary head under a star-filled sky.

The stats are in from the Bangor University Mountaineering Society's (BUMS, excellent acronym) crag clean up at Penmaen Head, a limestone sport climbing venue in North Wales, near Colwyn Bay.

Want to know more about how you can reduce your own personal carbon footprint and lessen your impact on the environment? We’ve tried to make it simple for you by producing three separate checklists – for yourself, your workplace and for any events you might be arranging.

In the last three years Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park Authority have been very active in working on a number of lower level bridleways around Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and more recently started work on the bridleway connecting Capel Curig to Crafnant. While some of these trails have given opportunities to link communities and provide access to lesser-abled users, the scale and nature of the works on some of the routes that pass through some wild and remote areas has also surprised many users.

Commuting with crampons, hard outdoor labour, and spending 120 hours a week with your colleagues - we speak to a mountain path repairer to find out more about the highs and lows involved in this vital job.

The BMC has welcomed another conservation project into The Climate Project portfolio, planting seagrass with Seagrass Ocean Rescue in conjunction with the North Wales Wildlife Trust. This is in addition to the current sphagnum moss planting and peatland restoration with Moors for the Future in the Peak District that you can also get involved with here.

This April saw the BMC’s first volunteer day in Pwllheli, North Wales, partnering with the Seagrass Ocean Rescue project and the North Wales Wildlife Trust as part of the BMC’s The Climate Project. Two more dates are planned for May and August, read on for dates and how to get involved.

With the general election announced for Thursday 4 July 2024, get behind the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) as we lobby for more access to nature, outdoor education and more protection for the places we love to walk and climb in. Pick one (or all!) of the below and ask your election candidates if they will back it and why it’s important to them.  

Seven things you always wanted to know about path repair (but were too afraid to ask)

As the general election date draws nearer, the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) have reviewed the manifestos from each party to help you make a more informed choice when it comes to protecting the landscapes and crags that we love to walk in and climb on.

As the world’s garment manufacturing industry moves to a more sustainable business model, what we’re wearing in the hills in three years time will be very different to today’s unsustainable, un-recyclable, polluting garments, predicts Mike Parsons from the Outdoor Gear Coach. But why is change needed? And what is going to happen? Mike explains in this article.

The Landscape Project is the BMC's latest film series that brings climbing and natural history together. Presenter Nathan Chrismas, a biologist and ecologist, shares his deep knowledge and passion for the geological and ecological highlights of four hugely popular climbing and walking areas.

As part of Volunteers Week 3 - 9 June we have Cotswold Voluntary Warden Walk Leader Margaret Reid sharing her inspiring experience. Margaret organises and leads walks in the Cotswolds National Landscape for people from the Friendship Cafe in Gloucester. Activities like this are made possible with funding from the BMC Mend Our Mountains project from the BMC Access & Conservation Trust (ACT) charity.

This week is Volunteering Week 3 - 9 June so why not get involved with one of the many BMC volunteering opportunities? There are loads to choose from, including helping out at climbing competitions, leading hill walks at events and litter picking nationwide, planting seagrass in Wales, repairing footpaths in the Lake District and restoring peat bogs in the Peak District.

BMC volunteers from the Get Stuck In programme joined Fix the Fells last month in Wasdale on Lingmell Breast, one of the main routes up to Scafell Pike. They spent the day helping to maintain part of this hugely popular footpath up to England’s highest mountain.

May is National Hill Walking month, but not everyone finds it easy to access this hills, whether that’s due to physical, financial or knowledge-based barriers.

The Watkin Path up Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and the peat hags on neighbouring mountain Glyder Fach have benefitted from BMC volunteer improvement work on the latest Get Stuck In event, 15-16 April 2024. This was organised by Hill Walking Rep Steve Charles and Access & Conservation Officer (Wales) Tom Carrick as part of the Mend Our Mountains project, funded by the BMC Access & Conservation Trust.

Grabbing your attention with this beautiful picture of a Kestrel (Cudull Coch)! Now that the rain has subsided a little, it's a good time to remind everyone that we share our crags with many other creatures, notably our feathered friends who like to nest where we like to climb.

The BMC’s volunteering arm, Get Stuck In, donated £1,500 to Fix the Fells this week to buy footpath repair tools to enable our teams to quite literally get stuck in to fixing the mountain footpaths in the Lake District.

The sphagnum-planting season has come to an end to allow the ground-nesting birds to, well, ground nest! Thank you to all the volunteers that have helped the BMC to plant over 16,000 plugs of this super soggy, carbon-locking moss this winter, helping to restore the Peak District peat bog.

Mend Our Mountains is back for 2024 with six incredible access and conservation projects across England and Wales. This project is funded by the BMC’s Access and Conservation Trust charity (ACT) and we would like to thank all our members, supporters and volunteers for making vital work like this possible. Here’s what is happening this year as a result of your funding, including volunteering events you can get involved with.

Did you know that we have a BMC Community Liftshare site? The Liftshare site is also able to connect you with others going to the same BMC event or Mountain Training course. The beauty of a community like the hillwalking/climbing/mountaineering BMC community is that many of us are often moving in the same direction. This lends itself to the Liftshare infrastructure which can allow us to move in the same direction – together. Greener, and cheaper!

On the 16 April we have the last opportunity to lobby for the 2024 ban on the sale of peat in bagged compost for horticultural use by supporting a Ten Minute Rule Bill speech by England in Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet Theresa Villiers.

The BMC have been hard at work presenting the Outdoors For All Manifesto to parliament, kick-starting a new addition to The Climate Project, arranging re-bolting, cleaning up crags and consulting on access across England and Wales. Here are the highlights as we swing into spring.

The BMC supports Dartmoor National Park Authority in its appeal against a ban on wild camping.

The recent advertisement offering Kilnsey Crag for sale at a price of £150k presents an opportunity to remind members about how the BMC approaches potential land acquisitions. We're also on the lookout for specialist volunteers to support our land management work.

Worryingly, small adder populations could be extinct by 2032 unless we act now to help conserve them. The North Pennines National Landscape are asking BMC members to help them record sightings these native UK snakes to better understand their distribution and improve conservation efforts. Their Adders Up project started in February 2024 and will run for three years, hoping to achieve positive outcomes for the conservation of this enigmatic and threatened reptile.