BY general consent the Lake District is regarded as Britain’s premier national park. It might well now be ruing its decision, a few years back, to brand itself “the UK’s Adventure Capital.”

Of course adventure has been an ingredient of Lakeland tourism ever since William Wordsworth and his fellow ‘romantics’ sparked it off two centuries ago. Symbolically the industry is said to have got underway on the October day in 1818 when Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy climbed Scafell Pike. She and a friend needed the assistance of a guide, and the wonder of it all is clear from her account. To Dorothy the stillness at the summit that day “seemed to be not of this world”. She pictured the scattered “huge rocks” as being “like skeletons or bones of the earth not needed at the creation”.

For today’s Lakeland walkers that sense of discovery, of entering almost a different sphere, has long since passed. Most walk for what was always the Wordsworths’ main inspiration – to appreciate the Lake District’s incomparable beauty.

Yet plenty of visitors to the Lakes still find adventure in its exciting sense. Rock climbing is adventure. So too are scrambling, kayaking, sailing, mountain biking. Since none of these ‘adventure’ activities conflict with the concept of a national park as a place of beauty and tranquillity there was never a need to market the district as a super Adventure Playground. But the deed is done. The national park authority and Cumbria Tourism are united in this ill-judged endeavour, which now poses a threat not only to the Lakes but all Britain national parks.

A planning row that rumbled for some time was over a proposal to run a zip wire from almost the summit of Fleetwith Pike, a mountain at the head of Borrowdale, to a car park half a mile below. I wrote here that it should have taken no longer than ten minutes to reject the idea. But the planners agonised for months before only narrowly dismissing the scheme, which many feel might yet re-emerge.

But the Fleetwith zip wire turns out to be a mere minnow of its kind. An operator now proposes to run no fewer than eight zip lines across Thirlmere. Also crossing the A591, the main road through the Lakes, they would form two rides, each with two lines each way,

Bizarre is one word that comes to mind. Preposterous is probably better. Certainly there can be few people familiar with the Lake District who didn’t do a double take on first learning that someone wanted to string multiple zip wires across one of Lakeland’s principal lakes.

But it is all about attracting new, younger visitors. Why should the less energetic be denied this exhilarating experience of Lakeland, it is argued. Such a slap in the face for the millions exhilarated enough by the beauty championed by admirers from Wordsworth to Wainwright. If the Fleetwith Pike zip wire deserved no more than ten minutes consideration this deserves no more ten seconds.

But approval is certain to lead to similar ventures elsewhere. And why not? A zip wire from Ravenscar to Robin Hood’s Bay suggests itself. More than two miles long it would carry riders above waves that would threaten to snatch them. An adventure indeed. Thirlmere zip wires, eat your hearts out.