The Sty Head Pass

Can it be Saved?

It appears likely that a crisis will soon be reached with regard to the proposed high road over the Sty Head Pass, in the heart of the Cumberland mountains, and it is no exaggeration to say that the decision arrived at on this point will have a far-reaching effect on the destiny of the Lake District. Hitherto the sentiment attaching to the home of the Lake poets has enabled the defenders of the most beautiful tract of country still left in Great Britain to ward off the more serious inroads of vandalism ; and while Snowdonia has suffered grievous outrage at the hands of the commercialist, the region of which Scawfell Pikes is the centre has remained comparatively immune. But now it would seem that a new and worse danger is at hand; for with the County Council consenting to the scheme, and with sufficient money available, it will be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to save the Sty Head Pass from being turned into what the motorists will make it.

At this juncture there has appeared a book by a well-known rock-climber, Mr. G. D. Abraham (alas, that a rock-climber should have written it!), entitled “Motor Ways in Lakeland,” with the avowed purpose of promoting what he calls “the fascinating sport of hill-hunting”; for the motorist, having exhausted the pleasures of the plains, is now bent on mountaineering, and talks, like the cragsman, in professional language about “pitches.” Worst of all, he is desirous of seeking his “pitches” on the Sty Head. Well, if he is permitted to do that, it will be the greatest disaster that the nature-lover in this country has yet known. People often talk of the necessity of “compromise” in this matter, forgetting that there are cases—and that this is one of them—in which one cannot compromise, because there will soon be nothing to compromise about. For the Sty Head is, both geographically and æsthetically, the very citadel of the Cumbrian hills, the pivot from which all the chief valleys radiate ; and if that stronghold is once violated the chief charm of the district will be gone.

Motorists’ “Ways.”

The “much-needed road over the Sty Head Pass” is several times alluded to by Mr. Abraham; in reality it is not in the least desired by anyone except traders and motorists, and by them only at the expense of the much more important “needs” of the public. A glance at the map prefixed to Mr. Abraham’s book shows how little reason the motorist has to complain, for he already has access to every one of the lakes, and there are only three considerable mountain tracts that are not penetrated by roads. Why should the Scawfell group now be broken up by making the footpath into a motor highway? Whose interests demand it? It is easy to see why local traders welcome a scheme by which they would personally benefit, for a Sty Head road will doubtless bring with it a Sty Head Hotel and all the “business” that follows either the engine or the motor ; but for the public there will be nothing but loss in the destruction of mountain scenery which can never be replaced. The motorist’s plea for a road is naive rather than convincing. “Except for the approach to the base of the mountain,” says Mr. Abraham, “the motor-car is practically useless in approaching Scawfell Pike”. One would have thought that, having ridden to the base of the mountain, the motorist might be content to get out and climb. Then Mr. Abraham tells us that, if the road is made, the “magnificent scenery” of Piers Ghyll “will be brought to the public ken”. But as any fairly active walker can now visit Piers Ghyll, and as the famous ravine is already one of the sights of the district, how will a motor-road bring it any better to the public ken? We know the ways of the motor only too well. What a motor-road will do will be to strew the Ghyll with cigar-ends, sandwich-papers, broken bottles, and all the other litter that marks the course of the idle tourist who has so little respect for the glorious ground on which he is treading that he will not even approach it on foot.

The Question at Stake.

In such a controversy the ultimate question must always be this—What is the essential character of mountain scenery? What is it that gives to mountains their unique value as a recreation ground for mind and body alike? Surely, above everything, it is their wildness, their aloofness from the din and turmoil of common life ; and it follows that if this solitude is so invaded as to be impaired or destroyed, the very feature which is the main attraction of the hills will have been lost. It is not visitation, but vulgarisation, that is to be feared. If their sanctity is ruined, the mountains are mountains no more. It must be remembered, then, that when such a demand is made as that the Sty Head should be thrown open to motors, the very existence of the Sty Head (as a mountain pass) is at stake ; it will become what the Kirkstone Pass at present is—”the best test-hill in Lakeland,” as Mr. Abraham calls it, a place of upward “struggle” and “downward flight”.

During a short visit to the district, early in the present month, I had an opportunity of realising one of the effects upon mountain solitudes of what Mr. Abraham so pleasantly calls “motor-ways in Lakeland”. I was spending a day on Helvellyn, in dense mist, as it happened, broken from time to time by rifts which gave flying glimpses of crags and tarns : but rarely did a minute pass without the upward-borne sound of the grunting motors, as they raced to and fro along the road which skirts the whole length of the mountain on the Thirlmere side. The next day, under similar conditions, I was on the Sty Head pass, and there no motor was to be heard—only the ravens croaking on the rocks of the Gable and Great End. The croak of the raven, or the croak of the motor—which is likely to bring more comfort to the spirit of those who seek the Lake District for their recreation? Let visitors go to the heart of the hills on foot, and however great their numbers they need do the place no wrong. If they go on machines, panting and snorting up one side, and scorching furiously down the other, they will not only get no profit themselves—for, as Mr. Abraham says of the ascent of Kirkstone, “it is to be feared that few motorists see anything but the final struggle up to the tiny white inn overhead”—but they will ruin the very nature of the mountains for the generations that are to come.

It is for these and similar reasons that the making of a road over the Sty Head would be an act of national folly. Even now, before it is too late, cannot an organised effort be made to prevent it?