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Think it through before you set off

Most of the harm done in the uplands is accidental, and most of it is avoidable with a little forethought at the kitchen table. Check the mountain weather forecast and the hours of daylight, then build in slack. A party racing a fading horizon is far more likely to cut a corner, trample a bog edge or leave kit and litter behind. Tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back, and check whether your route crosses land managed for grouse shooting, deer stalking or lambing, because access arrangements can change with the season.

Parking matters more than people realise. Passing places, gateways, farm tracks and the soft grassy verges that pass for car parks in the Lake District, Snowdonia and the Cairngorms all get churned into mud by careless parking, and the ruts last for years. Arrive early, consider a quieter day, and never leave a vehicle blocking an access track or a field gate. If a car park is full, that is not permission to invent another one.

Stay on durable ground, even when it is wet

Upland paths exist because thousands of boots have already found the least damaging line, and in many places they have been carefully pitched with stone by path teams working in horrendous conditions. Widening them undoes that work. When a path is muddy, walk through the mud rather than around it: the braided scars on either side will outlive your wet boots by decades, and peat takes centuries to re-form.

Where there is genuinely no path, on open access land, use durable surfaces — rock, gravel, dry grass, sand — and spread out rather than filing into a single new line that will soon become a channel. Avoid the soft, mossy edges of bog pools and the fragile lichen-covered outcrops that take a very long time to recover. If you meet a group coming the other way on a narrow pitched path, step onto rock rather than the vegetation beside it, and be prepared to wait a moment.

Take every scrap of litter home

The single most common misconception in the hills is that food waste is fine to leave because it is biodegradable. It is not, in any practical sense. In cold, acidic upland soils, the decomposition that happens in a warm garden compost heap simply does not occur at any useful speed.

• Banana skins and orange peel can sit visible on a pathside for months or even years, looking like litter because that is exactly what they are.
• Apple cores, bread, nuts and dropped crumbs attract crows, gulls, foxes and rats, which then learn to associate walkers with food.
• Wet wipes, tea bags, chewing gum and cigarette ends do not break down at all in any meaningful timeframe.
• Foil, cling film, sandwich wrappers, elastic bands and the little plastic windows in snack packets are the items most often lost from pockets.

Decant food at home into reusable bags to cut down on packaging, carry a small stuff sack as a bin, and check your pockets and rucksack side pockets before you drive away. If you find litter that is not yours, and it is safe and hygienic to handle, carry it out — it costs you almost nothing and it is one of the small kindnesses of the hills. That includes dog waste bags, which should never be hung in a tree or left behind a wall, whatever the intention was at the time.

Sort out toilet stops properly

Sooner or later, everyone gets caught short. Handle it with a bit of planning. Carry a small trowel and a couple of bags, and go at least thirty metres from any path, building or watercourse, and considerably further from streams, lakes and springs. Dig a hole fifteen to twenty centimetres deep into the topsoil, do what you need to do, replace the turf neatly and disguise the spot.

Toilet paper goes in a bag and comes home with you. So does anything else that will not break down. Leaving tissue tucked under a stone is not a solution; it gets dug up by animals, blown about by wind and is deeply unpleasant for the next person. Urinate well away from water and paths, and dilute with water where you can. Carry hand sanitiser, and remember that human waste is the most significant hygiene issue in popular upland areas.

Behave well around wildlife, livestock and history

The uplands are working landscapes and fragile habitats at the same time. Between roughly March and July, curlew, lapwing, golden plover and dotterel nest on open ground, and eggs and chicks are extraordinarily well camouflaged. Keep dogs close by, on a lead around livestock and during nesting season, and simply avoid the temptation to strike out across pathless moorland at those times.

• Give livestock plenty of room, especially cows with calves, and never feed or attempt to stroke them.
• Close every gate behind you, and leave walls, stiles and fences as you found them — do not climb over drystone walls.
• Respect historical features such as shielings, boundary stones and old cairns. Do not move stones, and do not build new cairns.
• Watch where you put your hands and feet on rocky ground, and check for ticks afterwards.

Fires, camps and leaving it as you found it

Use a stove rather than lighting a fire. Fire scars in thin upland soils last for years, and dead wood is habitat. If you wild camp, keep groups small, choose an already-worn pitch on durable ground, and camp high and out of sight rather than beside a road or a popular loch shore. Wild camping is legal in Scotland under access rights, but elsewhere you need the landowner's permission.

Leave the place as you found it, or better. Pack out every item you brought, take home nothing but photographs and memories, and let the next walker arrive to the same quiet, untouched hills that were left for you. That is the whole principle, and it fits in a rucksack.