People & Place
Mountain guides are not there to carry your bag
What a guide actually provides is decision-making under uncertainty. Most clients are buying something they have not identified.
People & Place
Rangers, guides, farmers and residents of the places we visit briefly.
25 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 1 of 3
People & Place
What rangers actually do, and why the job is changing
Ranger work has shifted from land management toward crowd management. The people doing it have opinions about that.
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People & Place
Trailhead towns live and die by parking
The economics of a small town at the end of a valley are stranger and more fragile than visitor numbers suggest.
People & Place
Crofting, commons and the land nobody quite owns
Large parts of upland Europe are held under tenures that predate modern property law. They shape what the landscape looks like…
People & Place
The people who count things: volunteer surveys and what they are worth
Most of what is known about population trends in birds, butterflies and plants comes from volunteers with a clipboard.
People & Place
Mountain rescue is volunteer-run in more countries than you think
Who comes when you call, and whether it costs you anything, varies enormously between neighbouring countries.
People & Place
The people who maintain long-distance paths
Most famous routes are held together by volunteer associations with almost no funding and a great deal of paint.
People & Place
Guides, porters and the ethics of paying for altitude
Trekking economies depend on porters, and conditions vary from professional to genuinely dangerous.
People & Place
Estate stalking, access and the weeks when hills get complicated
Deer stalking seasons overlap with good walking weather, and the etiquette differs sharply by country.
People & Place
Guidebook authors walk the route more often than you think
A good guidebook is field-checked repeatedly, and the ones that are not are recognisable within a few pages.
People & Place
Farmers and footpaths: the friction and where it comes from
Most conflict on rights of way is about a small number of recurring behaviours, and both sides know which ones.
People & Place
Bothy culture is a set of unwritten rules that mostly work
Open shelters survive because almost everyone follows conventions nobody enforces.