IT’S been a tragic week on Scotland’s hills. We’re all proud of the spectacular scenery of Loch Lomond, Wester Ross, the Cairngorms, the Skye Cuillin and other mountain regions. Scotland’s rugged wild land is part of our national identity, their evocative Gaelic names reminding us of the ancient bonds between people and landscape.

But at all times of the year, and especially in winter, the mountains can be dangerous places.

I have to confess that I don’t quite understand people who chase adrenalin rushes by hanging off vertical edges, or venturing out into inhospitable terrain in white-out conditions. I like walking in the hills. But the operative word is walking – and preferably in reasonable weather. I’ve never had any ambition to use ropes, or crampons and ice axes.

I like the safety of footpaths. When I witnessed my partner nonchalantly scramble through the eye of the needle of the Cobbler in Arrochar, before clambering onto the precarious summit surrounded by a precipitous drop, I felt physically sick.

But I also recognise that my fear is subjective and instinctive, rather than logical. The British Mountaineering Council has produced some noteworthy statistics.

For every 100 million hours of hillwalking, there are 1,000 accidents, and for rock climbing, 4,000. But for every 100 million hours of cycling, there are 7,000 accidents, and for horse riding, 10,000.

To put the risks of climbing further into perspective, Kevin Mitchell of the Ochils Mountain Rescue team told The Guardian a few years ago that the average climber would have to climb every day for 55 years before they could except to have an accident.

Deaths on the hills are regularly followed by an outcry about the cost to the public purse, accompanied by demands that charges should be levied to pay the costs of rescue operations.

This week, we’ve had radio phone-in shows, letters to the press and a social media clamour complaining about the dangerous lifestyle of those who take to the hills in winter and the burden it places on the rest of us.

Sometimes I wonder if the perennial outrage at mountaineering may perhaps be motivated by a tinge of envy at people who are fit and adventurous. Maybe fearties like me just find them a bit annoying.

Even mountain rescue teams seem to have succumbed to the pressure this week, with some groups hinting that there should be some kind of levy on mountaineers.

These organisations perform a heroic role, on an entirely voluntary basis, and appear to be woefully underfunded. They get just £320,000 a year from the Scottish Government, divided among 27 teams, towards the total annual cost of mountain rescue nationwide.

Clearly they’re desperate for cash, and in times of cuts are reluctant to ask for more public funding.

Let’s look at some other dangerous activities and see how the cost of these are funded.

Driving, for example, which causes about 200 deaths a year – ten times more than die on the mountains – plus a further 11,000 injuries. Or smoking, which makes rock climbing and driving look as dangerous as flower arranging. Last year, smoking killed 10,000 people.

Tobacco costs £1 billion to the NHS and the wider economy. In contrast, the cost of mountain accidents is like a snowflake in a blizzard.

People indulge in all sorts of risky activity every day, and society bears the costs. I like wine and chocolate and cake – all of which put me at risk and may require publicly funded health services at some stage to repair the damage.

Do we really want to set off on a path that may well lead to people who smoke 20 a day, or exceed the alcohol guidelines, being charged a fee commensurate with their risky habits ? Maybe £500 for a visit to the GP?

Do we want to charge smokers the costs of lung cancer wards? Or drinkers the cost of alcohol treatment units? And why stop at that? Shouldn’t footballers, runners and rugby players pay for our orthopaedic services?

I would prefer we moved in the opposite direction – towards a fully funded mountain rescue service paid for from general taxation. It would constitute a miniscule proportion of our public spending and it would be a pittance compared to the £500 million-plus that hillwalking, mountaineering and other outdoor adventure activities bring in to the Scottish economy.

You either believe in universal public services, or you don’t. And we shouldn’t pick and choose which we think are deserving of funding based on subjective judgments of other people’s behaviour.

It’s time to stop treating mountain rescue services as a luxury we can’t really afford. It’s an essential service, and it definitely should be funded as such.

We fund firefighters to enter blazing buildings of people who’ve fallen asleep with a fag in their hand, or got drunk and left the chip pan burning. We even pay for poorly equipped 18-year-olds to go off into war zones to fight other people’s battles.

So why not provide proper funding to save lives on our world renowned mountains?

Hope search can resume for climbers missing on Ben Nevis as better weather is forecast