Scafell Pike is a mountain that almost has a magnetic ability to lure people into climbing it.
As England’s tallest mountain, it’s an incredibly popular hike and it’s also part of the three peaks challenge, which draws in thousands of people each year.
But while it’s a mountain that people regularly climb – it isn’t a hike without risks, and for the unprepared, it can quickly go from a challenging day out to a dangerous survival situation.
Mountain rescue are reporting more and more call outs to Scafell Pike due to its popularity and over 100 incidents have already been recorded on the mountain alone this year.
Teams are regularly responding to unprepared hikers that are lost, injured or trapped on the pike – and they have also faced several deaths there over the years.
It’s a situation that is putting huge pressure on mountain rescue teams and their resources – who rely entirely on volunteers and donations from the public to continue running.
While some accidents are unavoidable – many of them are, and properly preparing for the Lake District’s mountains can take a lot of pressure off its rescue teams.
But how dangerous is Scafell Pike really? Can hikers better prepare themselves for it? and are we underestimating England’s tallest mountain?
We spoke to Matt Le Voi, of Lakeland Mountain Guides, who has summited Scafell Pike over 650 times and Penny Kirby MBE, a team leader at Wasdale Mountain Rescue who has been part of the crew for 41 years and faced countless rescues on the pike to find out more.
So, how dangerous is Scafell Pike really?
While thousands of people successfully climb Scafell Pike every year – it’s not always an easy hike.
Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team leader Penny said it’s a hike that can be easily underestimated.
Standing at 3,208 feet above sea level – Scafell Pike is a mountain where hikers can set off from their car in warm summery weather and be greeted by much colder and more intense weather at the top.
It also has a vast expanse of rocky terrain at its summit that makes both ascending and descending the mountain more difficult than an normal grassy fell top.
When hikers come to descend the mountain once they reach the summit, if they’re not careful, there is a risk of descending into Piers Gill, a ravine that once you’re in it, it becomes close to impossible to get back out of without help.
As long as hikers properly prepare themselves for Scafell Pike, it is widely considered a safe hike, but it can quickly become dangerous when people become too carefree about taking it on.
Penny said: “If you’ve not done any hillwalking before, it can come as a shock. The terrain is really taxing on your feet and your ankles are all over the place because the ground is so rough.
“A large amount of people do get lost because some navigational apps make the top of Scafell Pike look like a grassy meadow, when in fact it’s hideous, it’s full of boulders where you have to hop from one to another.
“I think people often come such a long way to do it that they become determined to do it no matter what, but having an awareness of how horrible it can be on top and really vicious even if it’s nice weather in the valley bottom is really important.
“If you can’t navigate your way off the pike, it can kill you.”
Call outs to the pike have increased rapidly over the past few decades alongside its rise in popularity on social media and its increased accessibility through the use of navigational apps over map reading.
Rescue teams are now having to adapt to a changing visitor landscape as a result.
Penny recalled that when she started out with mountain rescue in 1983 they only had 12 call outs in the Wasdale area across the whole year – while as of August this year, there have already been over 100 call outs to Scafell Pike alone.
Hikers being unprepared and lacking equipment, setting off late and getting lost and being unable to navigate are some of the most common reasons rescue teams are called out to the pike.
Penny added: “I do think it’s a shame people don’t want to start on something easier and have a really good experience which encourages them to progress. So many people go up Scafell Pike as their first ever mountain walk, it’s quite something.
“Nobody goes out intending to break an ankle and we’re not in the business of judging people. All teams are seeing the increase in call outs and we’re having to adjust to it.
“Our rationale behind getting more people to volunteer for mountain rescue is to meet that increasing demand.
“A lot of call outs are quite physically and mentally draining too. If we’re called to a big search, you set off with high hopes of finding a person alive and as time goes on you then start to lose hope.
“You realise things aren’t looking good and it’s tough, it’s emotionally tough, and when you’re called out back-to-back it leaves crew members with no time to recover.”
Where do most people go wrong?
Cumbrian mountain guide Matt Le Voi has ascended Scafell Pike over 650 times, and said that most people get into difficulty due to how hard it can be to navigate the mountain.
He said: “There are multiple routes up Scafell, all of which pose different challenges and different lengths and durations. You can add the pike into a massive walk or approach it from Wasdale, which is an easier and shorter route.
“That’s the most popular route by a country mile I’d say. It’s got a nice obvious path in the lower section, but the thing with Scafell is once you’re two thirds of the way up the mountain, it gets really rugged.
“That poses extra problems as it’s physically harder and you have to walk between boulders and go up and down.
“Getting through that and knowing where the path is is a challenge for anyone, hillwalker or not. The top of Scafell Pike looks like the moon, especially when its misty.
“So you can get up there, get your summit pictures, feel great and then not know which way is down because it all looks the same.
“I think that’s where a lot of people become unstuck on Scafell Pike as they maybe don’t have the right means of navigation or their skills aren’t up to par just yet to meet the conditions up there.”
Matt added that he has often had to give people advice on how to get off the mountain whilst taking groups on excursions.
He said: “In my experience guiding up there, the amount of people I’ve had to stop going off the wrong side of mountain or give advice to unsure people is quite common.
“You get it on all the national peaks because of what they are. You often get people who’ve never been hillwalking before going up these peaks and I don’t think people need to be fully equipped with all the latest gear, but getting caught out without warm clothes, food and water is not good.”
The two main navigation problem areas
Penny explained that in particular there are two main places people can go wrong with their navigation when descending the mountain.
She said: “It’s not straight forward coming off the top. It’s difficult terrain and there are a lot of navigation problems that can be avoided.
“There are two main places people go wrong and that’s shortly after leaving the summit they get drawn off to the left and that takes them to Mickledore, where our stretcher box is and we do have signs on that now to help people.
“But the other point that lures people into dangerous territory is as they come down the correct route, there’s a junction that if they go wrong, they can end up walking into Piers Gill.
“It looks innocuous at the top, but it lures you in and you can go down various rocky steps but there comes a point where you can’t retreat and your only option is to sit tight.
“We’ve had some really nasty accidents in there.”
Penny said that in terms of numbers of people doing the walk – it is considered rare to end up stuck in Piers Gill, but for those who do get trapped, it becomes a serious situation fast.
She said: “The consequences are serious and sometimes fatal and we had a run of incidents in there at the start of the year.
“We had two people in two days end up in there, and all the people who have ended up in there are really lucky to have survived.
“It’s not easy for us either. Because it’s a gully, there’s loose rocks and stuff can fall down, it’s really not a nice place to be.
Being under-prepared and hiking up Scafell Pike without a backpack can also create problems for hikers who end up lost or in distress.
Penny added: “You don’t need boots that are hundreds of pounds, but you need decent shoes with tred on the bottom, clothing to keep you warm and dry, plenty of food and water and ideally a torch and not your phone as that drains your battery.
“If you’re wet all through with sweat you can end up with a wind chill effect, so the cold air temperature is normally nine or 10 degrees colder than the valley.
“Alan Hinkes, a famous mountaineer, once said how do you cool a sausage down? You blow on it. So imagine that effect on you if you’re in wet clothes, you’re hurt or have sore knees or a hurt ankle and you can be in trouble really quickly.
“When we do get called out, we tell people we’ll be around two to three hours, and they often don’t understand that we have to get out of work, get our kit, come up the valley, so it’s not a quick fix.
“Someone told me that for you to sit out and not lose body heat, the air temperature has to be 26 degrees and we don’t get many days like that here.”
Penny also said that with many people driving a long way to get to the lakes and arriving late that hikers often end up benighted – which can quickly result in a much more difficult navigation situation.
Matt added that he believed the rise in reliance on navigation apps has also caused problems.
He said: “We have this generation coming through have have used mobile tech from a young age whereas if you go back 10 or 15 years, you would have never considered using a phone to pay in a shop let alone using a phone to navigate.
“We’re now so used to using Google Maps and these apps are the same thing for hiking. We run navigation courses and have people saying they want to learn to use a map and a compass because they know they’re overly reliant on their mobile phone.
“So people are recognising that and wanting to change because if that’s all you’ve got, your phone can break and get wet and de-charge and that can leave you scuppered.”
A poor attitude or wanting to push on when other hikers in a group are struggling is also a cause of rescues on the pike.
Penny said: “One of the major causes of incidents is people splitting up, so perhaps one person doesn’t want to go to the top, they say they’ll be 10 minutes and then they’re not and the person waiting wanders off withut navigation skills and often the ones we’re looking for are the less-able and less experienced ones.
“Only split up if it’s an emergency and even if you don’t manage to climb the pike, you come back alive and you’re that much better informed.”
But Scafell Pike is all over social media – it can’t be that dangerous, can it?
There are over 39.1 million posts on TikTok alone based around the Lake District – so it’s fair to say the national park and its mountains and fells are very popular on social media.
Matt added: “Scafell Pike is the tallest mountain in England and with that it has that attraction for a lot of people.
“It doesn’t take people long in their early hiking days to think yes, I want to climb the highest mountain in England. People will climb it for the kudos of saying they have done it.
“It’s a magnet, they want to go hiking and want to do something with acclaim that people have heard of. Helvellyn has the same draw with it being third highest mountain and having Striding Edge.”
Matt added that following advice on social media isn’t always the best way to approach climbing a mountain.
He said: “On things like Facebook forums where people are asking for advice, they’re often getting it from people who are saying ‘oh, it’s a really busy mountain’ ‘just follow the crowds’ and people are thinking brilliant, I’ll just do that.
“On busy days you might get away with it, but you can’t guarantee people will be up there and going the same way as you.
“There’s definitely that influence for people to visit because of social media. It’s fantastic in a way, because it’s getting more people outdoors, but it’s also driving people to specific places.
“The joy of it for many people is sending stuff out into the world like ‘this is how easy it is to climb Scafell’ or ‘my epic day on Scafell’ and the weather might have been amazing or the person in the video might not have had a rucksack on or been in shorts.
“But social media is so influential, people are latching onto this stuff. It’s the same with the infinity pools which are leading to more rescues.
“You know everyone is going there because they’re seeing it on social media and it’s having an impact for sure.
“You don’t have to be massively fit to climb Scafell Pike, particularly from the Wasdale side, but it can give off this perception that it is easy, especially with people saying just follow the crowds, and that can catch people out.”
Are there any plans to make navigation easier for hikers?
Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team members are currently in talks with the National Trust to discuss what interventions could be put in place to help prevent hikers from ending up lost on Scafell Pike and ending up in Piers Gill.
Penny said: “We’re having discussions with the National Trust at the moment to see if we can do anything about it like introducing signage to the mountain.
“They are prepared to put what they call a memorable cairn that is distinctive up there, and they’re planning to have a photo at the bottom to remind people if they come back to Wasdale to turn left and avoid Piers Gill.”
Signs are not hugely common on British mountains and people have spoken out on social media against the introduction of man-made signs being installed on the mountain – but Penny said that it was an intervention that is urgently needed.
She said: “Years ago I would have said no thank you, let it be as wild as possible. But I feel the demographic is changing, and it’s so much more attractive to so many more people and some come here not knowing what they’re getting into, so I do think it is important now.”
How can I stay safe on Scafell Pike?
There are some specific safety tips out there for people hiking up Scafell Pike that should be considered on top of the basic advice of being well-equipped and prepared – read here for more information on the basics of being prepared for the fells.
Matt said: “Have a good means of navigation and be self-sufficient with that. Learning to navigate is not that hard, it’s actually fun and making sure you’re prepared for all conditions and weathers is important too.
“Carry spare layers, waterproofs, hats and gloves year around. It’s better to carry it and not need it than to leave it in the car and not have it on the mountain.
“One of the most striking things when I have these conversations with people is help will be around three hours if you hurt yourself on the summit of the pike.
“I always ask people, could you sit down now for three hours and be okay, or would you be a hypothermic mess?”
Hikers should never split up when in a group, tell people at home where they’re going and should also always carry a torch with spare batteries, an emergency shelter, and power bank for their phone.
If you choose to use a navigation app on top of a map – choose one that accurately depicts terrain and land features such as cliffs.
Penny recommends using the Ordnance Survey app for an accurate view of terrain. Using multiple apps is also recommended where necessary.
Interested in map reading? Matt offers courses that help get hikers up to speed.
