Britain’s mountains are small. The highest, Ben Nevis, is 1,345 metres — lower than the tree line in the Alps and about a third of Mont Blanc. They are also, consistently, more dangerous than their height suggests.
The high points
- Ben Nevis, Scotland — 1,345m. Highest in the British Isles.
- Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), Wales — 1,085m.
- Scafell Pike, England — 978m.
- Slieve Donard, Northern Ireland — 850m.
Climbing all four nations’ highest peaks is the National Three Peaks challenge in its usual three-peak form, done in 24 hours including the driving, which is hard on participants and harder on the villages the convoys pass through at three in the morning.
Why they are dangerous
Three reasons, and they compound:
- The weather. Britain’s mountains sit in the path of Atlantic systems and generate their own conditions. Cloud can drop in minutes, and the summit of Ben Nevis is in cloud around 80% of the time. Rain, wind and near-zero visibility are the normal state rather than the exception.
- Accessibility. You can drive to the foot of Ben Nevis, walk up in trainers on a warm morning, and be in freezing fog with no visibility by lunchtime. Alpine peaks require commitment; British ones do not, so people set out unprepared.
- Navigation. The summit plateau of Ben Nevis has cliffs on one side and a descent route that requires precise compass bearings in cloud. People have walked off it.
Mountain rescue in Britain is provided almost entirely by unpaid volunteers, funded by donation, and they turn out several thousand times a year.
Munros
Scotland’s distinctive contribution. A Munro is a Scottish mountain over 3,000 feet, catalogued by Sir Hugh Munro in 1891, and there are currently 282 of them.
Munro bagging — climbing all of them — is a lifetime project pursued by thousands of people, with a register of completers maintained by the Scottish Mountaineering Club. Related lists include Corbetts (2,500-3,000ft), Wainwrights (the 214 Lake District fells catalogued by Alfred Wainwright) and a proliferation of others. The British enthusiasm for turning landscape into a list is unmatched anywhere.
Where mountaineering started
Recreational climbing largely began in Britain. The Alpine Club, founded in London in 1857, was the world’s first mountaineering club, and British climbers led the golden age of Alpine ascents.
Rock climbing as a sport in its own right developed on the crags of the Lake District, Peak District and Snowdonia, and British climbers trained for Everest in Snowdonia — the 1953 team stayed at the Pen-y-Gwryd hotel, where the ceiling still carries their signatures.
Practical advice
Take a map and compass and know how to use them, since phone signal fails and batteries die in the cold. Take more layers than seem necessary. Check the Mountain Weather Information Service forecast rather than the general one. Tell someone your route. And be entirely willing to turn back — the mountain will still be there.