Northern Ireland Outdoors Forum - Hiking, camping and more
General => General Chat => Topic started by: Mourneman on June 14, 2012
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Back in the Western Mourne's again today parking at letrim lodge carpark following the track until the Mourne way between Tornamrock & Pierces castle crossing the rocky river until Windy gap.Having Marshalled for the Mourne-way marathon last saturday i was quite shocked at the amount of rubbish lying on the mountain ,mostly empty engery gels,drinks bottles's & plastic tape used to mark the way,more shocking was the find that the event team had spray painted rocks along this section of the Mourne-way,i've no problem with them spraying the grass or gravel,but to spray bare granite with oil based paint is just wrong,further-more you would think the runners themselves would not dump their rubbish on the hills >:(,ending up filling my backpack with the rubbis,over a dozen bottles & fourty odd engery gel wrappers,plus tape,disgrace!
At Windy gap we followed Batt's wall back down into Castle -bog then back onto Tornamrock before getting back into letrim lodge.
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DSCN4321 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/78041970@N04/7371667018/) by cue13 (http://www.flickr.com/people/78041970@N04/), on Flickr
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DSCN4344 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/78041970@N04/7186433041/) by cue13 (http://www.flickr.com/people/78041970@N04/), on Flickr
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DSCN4328 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/78041970@N04/7371666690/) by cue13 (http://www.flickr.com/people/78041970@N04/), on Flickr(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7236/7186435577_8af0bfb4c4.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/78041970@N04/7186435577/)
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DSCN4336 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/78041970@N04/7371703646/) by cue13 (http://www.flickr.com/people/78041970@N04/), on Flickr
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That is good work Mourneman. The problem with these events are the the people who take part in them think that someone else will clean up after them. The organisers are supposed to suppose to clean the mess up. Again, well done for raising this topic.
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I recieved a reply this morning from the Event manager in regards to the rubbish & markings i found on he Hen section of the Mourne -way,in reflection its appears i may have got it wrong about the spray marks belonging to this event & it also appears the team did everything they could to ensure as must litter lifting & spray removing was done,so on that behalf i stand corrected - hers the email-
Hi John,
I’m glad to hear you had a good time at the event, it was a major success and you and your friends played a vital role in making it happen. Thanks again for your support in this. You will also be glad to hear I can clear up any concerns you have outlined with the points below.
- Oil based spray arrow on rock – you will have noticed that this is an old arrow, one put down by another event that took place last September. We only spray grass, gravel and soil for exactly the reason you have pointed out.
- Litter on the route – I agree there was allot of litter on the route and this is something that we battle with on a continuous basis. In the pre-race info pack everyone is told that if they are seen to be littering they will be disqualified from the event. Still people litter, this is a social problem not unique to the hills. To combat this we had a team of back markers clear the course and lift ALL litter from the mountain, even other peoples. You wouldn’t have seen them as they didn’t arrive to the finish until quite late. They did mention that there was very little litter on the rocky section, so that explains that.
- With regard to the red tape on the heather, we place it there to keep runner on track in a bid to reduce “ribboning” and reduce the amount of spray arrows. As we don’t spray rocks etc it’s hard to guarantee the spray on the grass and gravel will survive a good heavy rain shower or the first ½ of the foot fall. Again, this was the back markers responsibility to collect.
Other points to consider,
- We contracted in http://www.tergosolutions.com/Tergo_Solutions/Home.html to remove all 26 Extreme spray markings from the roads around Trassey and Spelga, this was carried out between 9-11pm on the night of the event.
- I personally spent all night on Monday walking Donard and Tollymore forest with a scrubber removing all arrows sprayed on gravel
- One of our team spent all day on Wednesday walking the entire route with Mourne Heritage Trust conducting a post event review of the environmental impact. The first impressions are that the impact in most cases was “cosmetic” and will recover quickly. There are some small sections that did suffer more damage, however this highlights the need for improvement to the track and will make it easier for MHT to get funding to carry out future sustainability works.
I would be grateful if you could spread the word that we do, and did in this case, put in measures to combat the concerns you pointed out. Quite often we get bad press and the blame litter, damage and poor route marking conducted by others.
I’ll keep you posted on future events and hope to work with you are your buddies from NI Wild soon.
Kind regards,
Ian
many thanks for the reply Ian,it appears that the mountain enviroment is something we both share a respect for
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Hi Mourneman, we met at the Hen mtn feed. It is most definately a disgrace that you came across race related rubbish.Good on you for doing the right thing. These runners should be ashamed of themselves[but i doubt it]Anytime i,m up in the hills, i come back with a plastic bag full of other peoples rubbish!It,s not really a surprise there was rubbish left behind, it would be easy enough for 26extremes sweep team to miss things,jst shows you how much there must have been b4 the sweep !. Unfortunately it is a social problem.the same people that dumped this crap during the race, will litter the streets, chuck stuff out of their cars.and wont give it a second thought.this will never change.Elsewhere on this forum i wrote about a Duke of Edinburgh group dumping a load of crap at Banns road carpark.They,ll be doing that for a lifetime !!
Someone else on this thread said people on these events expect other people to lift what they dump ! in race instructions it was made very clear NO rubbish was to be dumped enroute.Plz Dont tar all entrants with the one brush, i ran the half marathon. used 4 gels 1 banana and 2 botts of water, ALL was carried to the finish. :)
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most of the folk taking part in this event did take there rubbish home, i did not mean to offend anyway,well maybe those who litter ;D but most of the folk who take part in event like this do respect the mountain's,maybe a few more signs at key point's ie,trassey,donard park,ott trek about taking the litter home may help,but then again as you pointed out,there are those think this rule does not apply to them,few nice wee fines may change their minds!
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I hear ya ! Fines now that would focus their minds. Hard to enforce. What? Who mentioned vigilante litter teams roaming the hills ;D
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John you missed one, do you want me to post it to you ;D
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I reckon most of the litter gets dropped by accident, i know i've reached for my water bottle the odd time only to find the pocket is empty >:( so i try and balance that out by picking up someone elses rubbish when i get the chance