A situation has arisen on Ben Nevis. I don't mean a rescue, although as it happens the RAF and mountain rescue teams are bringing down a man and two boys who, the report says, 'didn't read the weather forecast'. The situation I have in mind has also arisen on Snowdon and Scafell, and it concerns the dead. Apparently, the biggest hills are covered in so many memorials - plaques and little cairns - that it's becoming an issue. These are not memorials to people killed on the hills necessarily, though there are those too, but to those who felt some affiliation with the outdoors. Furthermore, so many people's ashes are being scattered on the summits that it's changing the chemical balance of the soil, fertilising it with phosphorus and calcium, to the detriment of rare alpine plants.

LRB 6 March 2008 | PDF Download