Duke of Edinburgh's Award: How to ration roaming

Travelling light on Duke of Edinburgh's Award

As spring moves towards summer the forest trails in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park are swollen with the annual pilgrimage of young people plodding along to obtain their Duke of Edinburgh's Award (DofE). It is a good place for groups to walk. The heavily forested trails require some map reading skills, there is plenty of good scenery, lots of wildlife and it's not too far from the populous central belt of Scotland. There are various campsites available within the newly designated camping management zones established by the National Park authority as it seeks to restrict wild camping in the National Park. This is unfortunate as the protocols of wild camping are exactly the sort of skills that young people should be encouraged to learn as part of their expeditions. It is wild camping that really inspires a love of the great outdoors and inculcates the desire to explore. 

I despair of the way that the DofE supervises the walks for young people. This morning a leader was instructing a group of teenage girls at the start of their walk as I ran past them, it was a litany of don'ts. The youngsters all looked as if they would happily give up on the spot, this was not an instruction to enjoy themselves. A couple of miles further into the run I passed another group of 8 or 9 struggling to carry 60 - 70 litre rucksacks with tents strapped onto the top or bottom of the sacks and various cans of drinks tied onto other straps. As a way of deterring youngsters from enjoying the freedom of walking this must be the optimal experience.

Leaders of the Duke of Edinburgh's award should not be loading their charges with such heavy loads. I was so concerned that I halted my run to ask the youngsters why they were carrying so much stuff. They said it was on the list of things to take. All of them said they were struggling to carry their sacks and seemed to regard the event as a rite of passage. It is not as though they travel long distances or do much climbing on these events. Competitors in Mountain Marathon events carry all the food and equipment for the high mountains and an overnight camp in 20-litre rucksacks. I normally use a 36-litre rucksack for a couple of night's backpacking in the Scottish hills and a 58-litre rucksack was sufficient for a 13-day traverse of the GR20 in Corsica. Not since the 1980s when the equipment was much heavier than today have I used rucksacks as large as those recommended for the Duke of Edinburgh's Award.

The equipment list is the full Monty version of the rule that you should always wear boots in the hills. Thirty years ago this was the norm and I was admonished on several occasions for wearing trainers. Yet modern trail shoes are far more appropriate in spring, summer and early autumn. Saving 2lbs of extra weight on your feet speeds progress and reduces fatigue. Similarly carrying 15-20lbs rather than 30-40lbs on a DofE expedition would lighten the load and lift the spirits of the walkers. Even the Duke of Edinburgh in his dotage would approve of this. The DofE need to re-examine the DofE expedition list and make it more appropriate for enjoying the outdoors rather than supporting their sponsors, the outdoor retailers, increase their sales. In doing so create they are creating a cadre of reluctant sherpas rather than nurturing the curiosity of young people to enjoy the outdoors.