Why a light touch matters on fell days

There is little to beat stepping out of a warm lodge on a bright morning, flask in hand, and watching the mist lift off the fells. For anyone who spends their holidays walking in the Lake District, Eryri, the Yorkshire Dales or the Scottish Highlands, those hills are the whole point of the trip. They are also surprisingly fragile. A single boot print fades within a day; ten thousand boot prints in the same spot become a scar that takes decades to heal.

Leaving no trace is not about hardship or self-denial. It is a handful of small, practical habits that most seasoned walkers barely think about any more. Here is how to put them into practice on your next day out.

Take everything home, including the things that "rot"

The old saying still holds: take only photographs, leave only footprints. The tricky part is that plenty of things people assume will break down simply do not, at least not on a cool, damp hillside. A banana skin can linger for up to two years, an orange peel for longer, and both can alter the soil around them. Wet wipes and tissues can last for years and look horrible draped over a rock.

Pack a small stuff sack or dry bag specifically for rubbish before you set off, so there is never a moment where you are tempted to tuck something under a stone.

• Fruit peel, apple cores and nut shells — these are litter too, so carry them out.
• Used tissues and wet wipes — bag them, never bury them.
• Dog waste bags — carry them to a bin, even if that means back at the lodge.
• Bottle tops, wrapper corners, plasters and hair bands — the tiny items that add up fastest.

If you spot litter that is not yours and it is safe to reach, take it with you. A spare bag and a pair of gloves make it a two-second job.

Stay on the path, even when it is muddy

Footpaths on popular fells are not accidents. They are often engineered, with pitched stone, drainage channels and carefully placed zigzags designed to spread the impact of thousands of pairs of boots. Cutting a corner or taking a shortcut between zigzags creates a fresh line of erosion that quickly becomes a gully. Once water gets into it, the damage accelerates.

That means walking through the puddle rather than around it, provided your boots are up to it. Walking around widens the path and kills off the vegetation on either side, and a metre-wide scar can become three metres within a season. On narrow sections, walk single file. On peat and bog, stick to the flagged or boarded surfaces. If you find a path in genuinely poor repair, note the location and report it to the relevant national park authority when you get back.

Walls, gates and stiles: leave them as you find them

Dry stone walls are one of the defining features of the British uplands, and they are working structures, not climbing frames. Hoisting yourself over a wall loosens the stones, and a wall with a gap in it is a wall that no longer keeps sheep where the farmer needs them. Always use the stile or gate.

Leave gates exactly as you found them — open if they were open, closed if they were closed. If you are unsure, close it. Do not remove stones from a wall to make a step, and do not build new cairns or add to existing ones; a cairn is a waymarker, and moving stones can make it misleading. If a stile has a loose top stone, test it before you commit your weight.

Give vegetation and wildlife room to breathe

Upland plants grow slowly and recover poorly. Heather, bilberry, mosses and the rare arctic-alpine flowers found on high ground can take years to return after being trampled. Stay on bare rock or established paths at summits, and avoid walking across flower-rich grassland just to save a few metres.

Between March and July, ground-nesting birds such as curlew, lapwing and skylark are sitting on eggs or chicks, which are almost invisible until you are right on top of them. Keep dogs on a short lead around livestock and during nesting season, and never let them chase anything. Before you travel, clean your boots and paws, and again before your next walk, to avoid spreading invasive plants between valleys. And leave the wildflowers where they are — they belong to everyone.

Plan your day so the low-impact choice is the easy one

Most of this comes down to preparation before you leave the lodge. Fill a reusable bottle rather than buying drinks on the way, decant snacks into containers instead of taking individual wrappers, and check the mountain weather forecast so you are not caught out and forced into a rushed, damaging descent.

Choose a route that suits the conditions and the slowest member of your group, tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back, and park considerately in a proper car park rather than on a verge. Take a spare bag for litter, and a spare layer so you are not tempted to cut the day short in a way that puts you on fragile ground. The fells have been here for millions of years. With a little care from each of us, they will look just as good for the walkers who come after us.