Hi All,

I'm sure that you have heard this one before, but I would sincerely appreciate any help.

I have an undying obsession for mountains but unfortunately don’t have any really tall ones near where I live (UK). Would it be possible for you to recommend a mountain for me which has the following criteria –

Location: Europe / Russia, closer to UK would be better
Height: 4000 meters plus
Climbing difficulty: Walk up & not technically difficult, cable car help possibly?
Time: Would want to make a 5-8 day trip which would include acclimatisation & the climb. The entire trip would be solely to get on top of the mountain
Fitness required: My partner & myself are both in reasonably good shape
Budget: Flights + accommodation + guide (if required) shouldn’t exceed £800
Other: Super-amazing views

That should sum it all up. After doing some initial research it seems as if mount Elbrus would have been a good choice, but I assume that you guys would know better.

Cheers & thanks,

MountainDuck

You might be able to settle on 3-4000 feet and closer to home- Lords Rake on Mt. Scafell looks pretty cool with snow in you tube video of course there is Ben Nevis and in Alsace the Grand Ballon and the Schwarzwald across the river.

For 800 pounds you could get a flight to Colorado or California in the US, spend a week, and spend your whole time climbing 4000m peaks. California has more than 100 of them in the Sierra Nevada range and Colorado more than 500 in various ranges around the state, and many of those are nontechnical walk ups, including some of the highest peaks (e.g., Mt. Whitney, Mt. Elbert, etc.). The weather conditions in summer are pretty benign for both places, especially in the Sierra Nevada in CA, and inexpensive lodging is available. If you want a bigger challenge you could climb a 14K' Cascade volcano such as Mt. Shasta (nontechnical alpine snow climbing by its easiest route; requires use of ice axe and crampons) or Mt. Rainier (requires glacier travel skills in addition to basic snow/ice climbing skills by its easiest route).

MountainDuck wrote:Location: Europe / Russia, closer to UK would be better
Height: 4000 meters plus
Climbing difficulty: Walk up & not technically difficult, cable car help possibly?

The usual suspects, so-called "Seilbahnviertausender":
- Breithorn from Klein Matterhorn cable car
- Allalinhorn via Mittelallalin "metro"
- Montblanc du Tacul from Aig. du Midi station

Other non-cheating, non-technical 4k peaks:
- Gran Paradiso
- Bishorn
- Castor
- Vincentpyramide
- Weissmies
- Lagginhorn
- Dome du Neige (Ecrins)

Just look up the sp pages.

Here's a second mention for the 14k ft (4000m) peaks in Colorado or California.

Mount Whitney in CA is a great beginner's 14k peak (it was my first). It's trail all the way up. However, getting permits in advance makes it slightly logistically tougher to plan. In other words, you just can't "show up".

Thus, Colorado may be an equally acceptable alternative. In Colorado, you can acclimatize a little better by staying a day or two around the Leadville area (10,000 ft, about 3200m), have some beer, walk around, then when you feel better, make a dayhike up Elbert. Then, if you still feel good, there are all sorts of other 14k peaks to hike. Permits are not needed, you won't need a guide, and the hike is doable in about 8 hours (assuming average pace). You won't be disappointed.

Note that Colorado's mountain weather can be a little more unsettled than in California. Thunderstroms are common, but if you're hiking at dawn, you'll probably be fine. I'd suggest late July-mid September window.

A wise suggestion: Go the the mainland and climb a 2500.
Then a 3000.
Then a 3500.
Possibly couple of few more intermediary heights. Then you will have an idea what's a 4000 like.
Why willing to get straight to the goal ?

Don't forget the cascades on the west coast of the us.

drpw wrote:Don't forget the cascades on the west coast of the us.

There are only two Cascade peaks higher than 4000m (Shasta and Rainier) and I mentioned both of them in my previous post. As noted, Shasta is nontechncial by its easiest routes (ice axe and crampons needed but glacier travel/crevasse rescue skills not required) whereas Rainier requires glacier travel skills on every route.

Sounds like a Mt Blanc trip to me.

Elbrus isn't the mountain for you. It'll be more expensive and 8 days won't cut it. If you have no experience non of the 4K peaks in the alps sounds like a good idea to me. Lagginhorn is a bit of scrambling, but if you hit really bad weather I can easily see it go wrong for someone without experience. Breithorn isn't technical, although you'd have to cross a glacier. Admittedly not a particular dangerous one, but it's not a peak I would bother with as you'll get fairly little joy out of it. There's something about hords of Japanese people taking the cable car up to almost where you make your first real climb that takes away from the experience. For that money though you could climb some 3K mountains and at the end of the trip get a guide and indeed climb a mountain like Mont Blanc.

The US could be an option, but why bother to go that far? I'm really surprised nobody has mentioned this yet, but there's a cheap and good alternative closer to home: Morocco. The weather is good almost all year round. It's supercheap as both Ryanair and Easyjet fly there, and from Marrakech it's only about an hour to drive to the Atlas mountains. There's some nice and easy 4k peaks out there that will give you all you want from a first experience: a nice atmosphere, good weather, good food, cheap accommodation, easy logistics, beautiful views,... . Check out a trip report I did a while back on Jbel Toubkal. It's the highest mountain of Morocco and one of the 4000'ers around there.