Europe Mountain Groupings

The highest mountain in each of the countries in Europe can be categorised into a level difficulty. For my simple analysis I've used five groupings: lowland countries; easy trekking peaks; hard trekking peaks; scrambling/climbing peaks; and mountaineering peaks.

The 14 LOWLAND COUNTRIES would be: Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldavia, Monaco, the Netherlands, San Marino, Vatican City. All of these peaks have a road to the top or very near to the top and require absolutely no mountaineering or climbing skills. Although the peaks may be easy, the interest lies in visiting all of these countries and essentially enjoying the adventure of travel.

There are 7 EASY TREKKING PEAKS: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Even here, Cyprus, for example, has a road to the top so you could, if you chose, drive rather than hike but hiking is a more interesting and enjoyable experience. However, never regard even a low mountain as easy. Many people have, and still do, get into difficulties on mountains such as Ben Nevis, sadly sometimes with fatal consequences. For these peaks a knowledge of mountains would be desirable and an appreciation of the different hazards mountains can throw at you. In particular, hiking these peaks in winter, as with all mountains, is a different ball game where skills and experience count.

In the next category of HARD TREKKING PEAKS I would include 11 countries: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Macedonia, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Yugoslavia. Here the difficulties you may encounter are not only possible problems on the mountains themselves, but also problems you might encounter travelling around these countries. Height is not a defining factor when considering level of difficulty. For example, Finland's highest peak lies at a modest height of 1328 metres, which you may feel warrants it being classified as an 'easy trekking peak'. However, to get to the peak entails a 50-kilometre walk-in to the mountain in a vast countryside on a scale you may never have come across before. Hence its inclusion here under the category of hard trekking peaks.

The fourth category would be SCRAMBLING/CLIMBING PEAKS which includes 6 peaks: Germany, Greece, Lichtenstein, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Although I climbed all but one of these solo, and all without a rope, you are definitely at a stage where you don't want to fall off. It's a long way down to the horizontal on some of these peaks and care, especially if there is snow underfoot or bad weather prevails, needs to be taken.

In the next category, MOUNTAINEERING PEAKS, I would include 9 mountains: Armenia, Austria, France, Georgia, Iceland, Italy, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey. There are dangers on all of these mountains and many people have been killed on them over the years. You have technical difficulties, height problems and all the dangers involved with moving on high mountains. Some mountains may not succumb to your efforts for a number of reasons, primarily bad weather conditions; it took me several attempts on some of these. For the mountains in western Europe there are many guide books available on just about every route ever taken. Start heading east and your problems are magnified. Russia has its problems but the mountain there is an easy snow plod, however combine this with its height and that puts the summit out of reach of about a quarter of the climbers who set out to climb it.