A sex toy, the shattered pieces of a toilet and the hearth from a fireplace were among the more surreal items collected during a litter pick of Scotland’s highest mountain at the weekend.
Rich Pyne, a mountain guide from Kinlochleven, devised the Real 3 Peaks Challenge after being disgusted at the amount of debris scattered around Ben Nevis.
He and 24 volunteers collected 30 bags of rubbish from the iconic mountain on Saturday while his colleagues tackled Scafell Pike in the Lake District and Snowdon in north Wales.
Mr Pyne said: “We got about 267kgs (589lbs) off the Ben, but we haven’t had the chance to collate what we got from the other hills just yet.
“However, it was quite a monster haul, just from the Ben.
“We found all sorts of things, absolutely all sorts. Lots of bottles, quite a lot of banana skins, we managed to find the hearth from the fire place which goes back to the days when there was an observatory, and lots of cable.
“There was also some garden turf left on the top, there was an urn with some ashes in it, a pair of new Timberland boots which obviously didn’t work out for somebody and random pieces of clothing.
“I found the ceramic part of a toilet, it had ‘One Man and his Bog,’ written on it. It had been smashed up and hidden under some rocks.
“There was even a sex toy in a cairn – it looked like a lemon squeezer.
“We have got it all piled up and bagged up, so that nobody needs to touch it – the amount of tissues was unreal.”
The John Muir Trust and Highland Council provided equipment for the army of volunteers.
Mr Pyne pointed out that memorials were not allowed on the Ben, but that prohibition hadn’t deterred some visitors.
He said: “There was also a cross, which was about 2ft high. It had a cairn which was destroyed. The only cairns allowed on Ben Nevis are the ones for winter navigation.
“There were a lot of memorials and some ashes up there. They were all taken off. It is not a graveyard. They will be archived with the John Muir Trust, they are not thrown away.”
