IT WAS once an endurance challenge to test the fittest of hill walkers and climbers — scaling the highest peaks in England, Scotland and Wales within 24 hours.

However, in recent years the Three Peaks Challenge has become so popular among charity fundraisers that park authorities have now drawn up a code of conduct to regulate the thousands of people who visit the areas at all times of the day and night.

The route takes in Snowdon in Wales, Scafell Pike in the Lake District and Ben Nevis in Scotland with participants expected to scale the peaks and complete the 500-mile route between them in a day.

The event, backed by corporate sponsors, can raise as much as £150,000 for a charitable organisation in the space of one weekend.

But it has now become a victim of its own success with thousands of people descending on the mountains in one go, sometimes in the middle of the night.

The Association of National Parks Authorities and the Institute of Fundraising have become so concerned that they have drawn up a code.

Park managers and local people, especially in the hamlet of Wasdale at the foot of Scafell, say they do not have the facilities to cater for the large numbers of walkers who arrive en masse in the summer months. Last year 29,000 people visited in June.

Guy Newbold, who runs a Wasdale tourist website, said: “We can have 600 or 700 people turn up in the middle of the night.There’s a problem with litter, and people are often tired after driving from Scotland or Wales, which poses a safety risk.”

The new code asks that events be limited to a maximum of 200 participants, vehicles parked away from gateways and participants urged not to arrive, start or finish between midnight and 5am.Alex Brooks-Johnson a challenge events manager who has helped to draw up the code, said problems arose from ad hoc events organised by inexperienced organisations.

“The problem is not that there are too many events, but that there are too many run by people who do not have adequate experience,” he said.

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