I like food (in case you didn’t already know), and I also like spectacular views and a sense of achievement. With that in mind I wondered how I could combine these factors into a weekend’s activity.

By completing one of the 3 UK peaks and making a personal favourite piece of Mexican cuisine at the top!

Scafell Pike in the Lake District is England’s highest mountain at 978m, and me and Ryan had previously tried to ascend it in January 2022. In short – we failed, so I’ve felt somewhat compelled ever since to return and put an end to my previous dishonour.

But making a vlog about solely climbing a mountain and going back down seemed a bit unoriginal, so I thought I’d spice it up and potentially the become the first person to climb Scafell Pike and cook burritos on the summit. Not something I could ever prove but there’d always be the possibility…

So I set off on the Saturday morning from the Wasdale car park next to Wast Water lake to begin the 3 hour journey up – and no thanks to the National Trust for having the audacity to charge £9 for the day’s parking.

The path is straightforward, but – unsurprisingly – merciless. My only other mountain climb to date is Pen Y Fan in the Brecon Beacons, and although that trip was just as relentless in terms of length and ascents, at least it had some nice, long periods of straight walking. Some nice time to walk and admire the views without torturing your legs. I imagine such routes are also available around Scafell Pike, but this was not the one. This is one big, long, continuous climb that makes the end point look closer than it really is.

Anyway, being winter, daylight hours would be limited and I didn’t fancy not finishing before sunset. The challenge is all apart of it for me, so I was very much not generous with my breaks. Rests, food and water could wait until the task was complete.

It was pretty clear from the start that my idea of a nice view whilst cooking wouldn’t be coming to fruition on this occasion. The top half of the mountain was completely cloud covered so it was more a case of hoping for “calm” weather at least instead.

In winter, in the UK? Lol. Not happening. Further ascent only resulted in more wind and air so moist that I was drenched without feeling a single drop of rain. Good opportunity to put my camera’s weather sealing to the test! When I finally did arrive at Scafell’s rough and rocky top, it was pretty evident my initial ideas would have to be adjusted. Trying to cook food on a stove in these conditions might have been amusing to watch but certainly no fun for me (never mind trying to catch it all on video). I can only assume I would have ended up with a burrito containing half-cooked beef that would have resulted in a repeat of last year’s winter trip to Snowdonia (which wasn’t pleasant).

So back down I went, finding a suitable spot about halfway down. The logistics of setting everything up was…. interesting, but I ended up with a workable cooking station. I won’t type out all the details of my mountain burritos recipe here (please see video at the bottom – or the recipes section on the site (if it’s there – I haven’t made it just yet…)) but the end result was successful. I definitely just need to optimise what I need and reduce the amount I end up carrying! Plenty of by-passers liked the idea of burritos post-walking. Maybe I should start a burrito stand somewhere near the top 😁.

The weather Gods were nice and didn’t send the rain until after I’d packed up and resumed walking back down, but that was still some distance and I wasn’t exactly dry when I finally reached the bottom some 6 hours after I’d set out. Not that I should have expected anything else for the time of year.

A challenge for sure. Not helped of course by the excessive food and equipment I had but hey ho. I think another practice run without the extra baggage will be needed prior to attempting the 3 Peaks Challenge in the future. I can say with confidence that I wouldn’t have proceeded to climb another mountain the same day on this occasion!