1.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
2.
Topographic prominence
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It is a measure of the independence of a summit. A peaks key col is a point on this contour line. By convention, the prominence of Mount Everest, the Earths highest mountain, is taken to equal the elevation of its summit above sea level, if the peaks prominence is P metres, to get from the summit to any higher terrain one must descend at least P metres. Together with the convention for Mount Everest, this implies that the prominence of any island or continental highpoint is equal to its elevation above sea level, for every ridge connecting the peak to higher terrain, find the lowest point on the ridge. The key col is defined as the highest of these cols, the prominence is the difference between the elevation of the peak and the elevation of the key col. The following mental exercise may illustrate the meaning of topographic prominence, imagine you are standing at the top of a peak and imagine that an imaginary sea level rises to your feet. Now slowly lower the sea level and an imaginary island appears beneath your feet. Your island will grow and will merge with other islands that emerge, the parent peak may be either close or far from the subject peak. The summit of Mount Everest is the parent peak of Aconcagua at a distance of 17,755 km, the key col may also be close or far from the subject peak. The key col for Aconcagua is the Bering Strait at a distance of 13,655 km, the key col for the South Summit of Mount Everest is about 100 m distant. Prominence is interesting to many mountaineers because it is a measurement that is strongly correlated with the subjective significance of a summit. Peaks with low prominences are either subsidiary tops of some higher summit or relatively insignificant independent summits, peaks with high prominences tend to be the highest points around and are likely to have extraordinary views. Only summits with a sufficient degree of prominence are regarded as independent mountains, for example, the worlds second-highest mountain is K2. While Mount Everests South Summit is taller than K2, it is not considered an independent mountain because it is a subsummit of the main summit, many lists of mountains take topographic prominence as a criterion for inclusion, or cutoff. John and Anne Nuttalls The Mountains of England and Wales uses a cutoff of 15 m, in the contiguous United States, the famous list of fourteeners uses a cutoff of 300 ft /91 m. Also in the U. S.2000 feet of prominence has become a threshold that signifies that a peak has major stature. This generates lists of peaks ranked by prominence, which are different from lists ranked by elevation. Such lists tend to emphasize isolated high peaks, such as range or island high points, one advantage of a prominence-ranked list is that it needs no cutoff, since a peak with high prominence is automatically an independent peak
3.
Snowdon
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Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales, at an elevation of 1,085 metres above sea level, and the highest point in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands. It is located in Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, and has described as probably the busiest mountain in Britain. It is designated as a nature reserve for its rare flora. The cliff faces on Snowdon, including Clogwyn Dur Arddu, are significant for rock climbing, the summit also houses a cafe called Hafod Eryri, open only when the railway is operating and opened in 2009 to replace one built in the 1930s. The railway generally operates to the station from Whitsun to October. The daily running schedule depends on weather and customer demand, as well as other figures from Arthurian legend, the mountain is linked to a legendary afanc and the Tylwyth Teg. A1682 survey estimated that the summit of Snowdon was at a height of 3,720 feet, in 1773, Thomas Pennant quoted a later estimate of 3,568 ft above sea level at Caernarfon. Recent surveys give the height of the summit as 1,085 m, making Snowdon the highest mountain in Wales, Snowdon is one of three mountains climbed as part of the National Three Peaks Challenge. The unique environment of Snowdon, particularly its rare plants, has led to its designation as a nature reserve. In addition to plants that are widespread in Snowdonia, Snowdon is home to some plants rarely found elsewhere in Britain, Snowdon lies in the northern part of Snowdonia National Park, which has also provided some legal protection since the parks establishment in 1951. The rocks which make up Snowdon and its neighbouring mountains were formed in the Ordovician Period. At that time, most of modern-day Wales was near the edge of Avalonia, in the Soudleyan stage of the Caradoc age, a volcanic caldera formed, and produced ash flows of rhyolitic tuff, which formed deposits up to 500 metres thick. The current summit is near the edge of the ancient caldera, the calderas full extent is unclear. Snowdon and its surrounding peaks have been described as examples of Alpine topography. The summits of Snowdon and Garnedd Ugain are surrounded by cwms, erosion by glaciers in adjacent cwms caused the characteristic arêtes of Crib Goch, Crib y Ddysgl and Y Lliwedd, and the pyramidal peak of Snowdon itself. Other glacial landforms that can be seen around Snowdon include roches moutonnées, glacial erratics, the English name Snowdon comes from the Old English snaw dun, meaning snow hill, as Snowdon often has a covering of snow. Although the amount of snow on Snowdon in winter varies significantly, the slopes of Snowdon have one of the wettest climates in Great Britain, receiving an annual average of more than 200 inches of precipitation. A number of lakes are found in the various cwms of the Snowdon range, Llyn Llydaw –1,430 feet high,110 acres – lies in Cwm Dyli, Snowdons eastern cwm, and is one of Snowdonias deepest lakes, at up to 190 ft deep
4.
Marilyn (geography)
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A Marilyn is a mountain or hill in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland or Isle of Man with a prominence of at least 150 metres, regardless of absolute height or other merit. The name was coined as a punning contrast to the designation Munro, used of a Scottish mountain with a height of more than 3,000 feet, which is homophonous with Monroe. There are 2,010 Marilyns identified,1,218 in Scotland,454 in Ireland,175 in England,158 in Wales,5 on the Isle of Man. Black Mountain, in the Black Mountains, on the border between England and Wales, was counted in both countries but is now treated as being in Wales only. The list was extended into Ireland by Clem Clements in a booklet, The Hewitts, however, some lower hills such as Seatallan and Watch Hill on the edges of Lakeland and the Long Mynd in Shropshire do qualify because of their isolation from higher hills. At the other extreme are Stac Lee and Stac an Armin, nearly 80% of Marilyns in Great Britain are in Scotland. They logically extend earlier Scottish lists such as the Munros, Corbetts, Grahams, all Corbetts and Grahams,203 of the 282 Munros, and around half of the Donalds are also Marilyns. Some hillwalkers attempt to climb as many Marilyns as possible, some amateur radio operators attempt to operate from the summit of every Marilyn. Eddie Dealtry became the person to achieve Woodalls feat, later on the same day. By 28 September 2016, the Marilyns of Great Britain had been completed by 10 hillwalkers, while 320 had entered the Marilyn Hall of Fame by attaining a count of at least 600
5.
Lists of mountains and hills in the British Isles
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The mountains and hills of Great Britain, and to a lesser extent Ireland, are the subject of a considerable number of lists that categorise them by height, topographic prominence, or other criteria. They are commonly used as a basis for peak bagging, whereby hillwalkers attempt to reach all the summits on a given list. The oldest and best known of these lists is that of the Munros, mountains in Scotland over 3,000 feet, other well-known lists include the Corbetts, Wainwrights and Marilyns. There is no consensus on the definition of mountain, but in Great Britain. The UK government defines mountain as land over 600 metres for the purposes of freedom of access, in addition, some definitions also include a topographical prominence requirement, typically 100 or 500 feet. In practice, mountains in Scotland are frequently referred to as no matter what their height, as reflected in names such as the Cuillin Hills. In Wales, the distinction is more a term of land use, the Munros are mountains in Scotland over 3,000 ft. The list was compiled by Sir Hugh Munro in 1891. There are 282 Munros and 227 further tops, all of them in the Scottish Highlands, list of Munros The Murdos are an attempt to apply objective criteria to the Munros and their associated tops. They comprise all the summits in Scotland over 3,000 feet with a prominence of at least 30 metres, there are currently 442 Murdos, compared to 282 Munros or 509 Munros plus tops. The list was compiled by Alan Dawson, all Murdos are also Munro Tops, but many Munro Tops fail to qualify as Murdos because of insufficient relative height. Before 1997 there were seven Murdos that were not Munro Tops, all seven were included in the 1997 edition of Munros Tables, plus two non-Murdos, Little Pap on Lochnagar and Knights Peak on Sgurr nan Gillean or a UK top-tier administrative area. There are now 347 Hardys with the recent addition of 5 low lying English coastal estuary islands,61 hill ranges,96 islands and 190 administrative areas,183 are in England,31 in Wales,107 in Scotland and 26 in Northern Ireland. The list was first compiled in the 1990s by Ian Hardy, the Marilyns were supplemented in 2007 by the HuMPs which reduces the Prominence requirement to 100m. The list was compiled by Mark Jackson from a number of sources. There are almost 3,000 British HuMPs, including three in the Channel Islands, More recently, Mark Jackson compiled the TuMPs, a list of all hills in Britain having a prominence of 30 metres. By definition, all Murdos, Corbett Tops, Graham Tops, Hewitts, there are over 16,000 TuMPs, approximately half of that number that did not appear in previously researched lists were researched by Mark Jackson between 2006 and 2009. Since 2012 the list has been published and maintained by the editors of The Database of British and Irish Hills, a list of mountains, over 2, 000-foot-high, in England and Wales was published by Buxton & Lewis in 1986
6.
Welsh 3000s
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The Welsh 3000s are the 15 mountains in Wales that have a height of 3,000 feet or more. Geographically they fall within three ranges, all close to make it possible to reach all 15 summits within 24 hours. The length of this challenge is about 26 miles, but including the walk to and from any start point, most people undertaking the challenge walk it, and many achieve it in much less than 24 hours. The record for the stands at 4 hours 19 minutes. On 5 August 1989 a ladies record was set by Angela Carson in a time of 5 hours 28 minutes and 21 seconds. On 17/18 June 1978 John Wagstaff of West Bromwich Mountaineering Club completed a crossing in 22 hours 49 minutes. Many people choose to make the small diversion to include it on their traverse, there is also an option to include a sixteenth top, Castell y Gwynt in the Glyder range, which has been reclassified as a Nuttall since a survey in 2007. The Snowdonia Society maintains a database of persons visiting the 14 peaks in a single journey
7.
Welsh language
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Welsh is a member of the Brittonic branch of the Celtic languages. It is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, historically it has also been known in English as the British tongue, Cambrian, Cambric and Cymric. The United Kingdom Census 2011 counted 3.1 million residents of Wales, 27% of whom had been born outside Wales, and 73% of whom reported having no Welsh language skills. Of residents of Wales aged three and over, 19% reported being able to speak Welsh, and 77% of these were able to speak, read and this can be compared with the 2001 Census, in which 20. 8% of the population reported being able to speak Welsh. 787,854 of residents in Wales aged three and over had one or more skills in Welsh, in surveys carried out between 2004 and 2006, 57% of Welsh speakers described themselves as fluent in the written language. An estimated 110,000 to 150,000 people speak Welsh in England, Welsh emerged in the 6th century from Common Brittonic, the common ancestor of Welsh, Breton, Cornish and the extinct language known as Cumbric. The Middle Welsh period is considered to have lasted from then until the 14th century, when the Modern Welsh period began, the name Welsh originated as an exonym given to its speakers by the Anglo-Saxons, meaning foreign speech. The native term for the language is Cymraeg, and for the name of the country of Wales it is Cymru, Welsh evolved from Common Brittonic, the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Celtic Britons. Classified as Insular Celtic, the British language probably arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age or Iron Age and was spoken throughout the island south of the Firth of Forth. During the Early Middle Ages the British language began to fragment due to increased dialect differentiation, evolving into Welsh and it is not clear when Welsh became distinct. Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that the evolution in syllabic structure and sound pattern was complete by around 550, Jackson, however, believed that the two varieties were already distinct by that time. The earliest Welsh poetry – that attributed to the Cynfeirdd or Early Poets – is generally considered to date to the Primitive Welsh period. However, much of this poetry was composed in the Hen Ogledd, raising further questions about the dating of the material. An 8th century inscription in Tywyn shows the language already dropping inflections in the declension of nouns, the next main period, somewhat better attested, is Old Welsh, poetry from both Wales and Scotland has been preserved in this form of the language. Both the works of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin were in this era, Middle Welsh is the label attached to the Welsh of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This is the language of all surviving early manuscripts of the Mabinogion. It is also the language of the existing Welsh law manuscripts, Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker. The famous cleric Gerald of Wales tells, in his Descriptio Cambriae, during one of the Kings many raids in the 12th century, Henry asked an old man of Pencader, Carmarthenshire whether the Welsh people could resist his army
8.
Gwynedd
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Gwynedd is an area in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. As a local government area, it is the second biggest in Wales in terms of geographical area, a majority of the population are Welsh-speaking. The name Gwynedd is also used for a county, covering the two local government areas of Gwynedd and the Isle of Anglesey. Culturally and historically, the name can also be used for most of North Wales, the current area is 2,548 square km with a population as measured in the 2011 Census of 121,874. Gwynedd is the home of Bangor University and includes the scenic Llŷn Peninsula, the largest settlements are Bangor, Caernarfon, Bethesda and Ffestiniog. The largest settlement in the south is Tywyn, in the past, historians such as J. E. Lloyd assumed that the Celtic source of the word Gwynedd meant collection of tribes - the same root as the Irish fine, meaning tribe. Perhaps *u̯en-, u̯enə is the Indo-European stem, the Irish settled in NW Wales, and in Dyfed, at the end of the Roman era. Venedotia was the Latin form, and in Penmachno there is a stone from c. AD500 which reads, Cantiori Hic Iacit Venedotis, the name was retained by the Brythons when the kingdom of Gwynedd was formed in the 5th century, and it remained until the invasion of Edward I. This historical name was revived when the new county was formed in 1974, Gwynedd was an independent kingdom from the end of the Roman period until the 13th century, when it was conquered by England. The modern Gwynedd was one of eight Welsh counties created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, the county was divided into five districts, Aberconwy, Arfon, Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Anglesey. The remainder of the county was constituted as an area, with the name Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire. As one of its first actions, the Council renamed itself Gwynedd on 2 April 1996, the present Gwynedd local government area is governed by Gwynedd Council. As a unitary authority, the modern entity no longer has any districts, the pre-1996 boundaries were retained as a preserved county for a few purposes such as the Lieutenancy. A Gwynedd Constabulary was formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglesey, a further amalgamation took place in the 1960s when Gwynedd Constabulary was merged with the Flintshire and Denbighshire county forces, retaining the name Gwynedd. To prevent confusion, the Gwynedd Constabulary was therefore renamed the North Wales Police, the Snowdonia National Park was formed in 1951. After the 1974 local authority reorganisation, the park entirely within the boundaries of Gwynedd. After the 1996 local government reorganisation, part of the park fell under Conwy County Borough, the county has a mixed economy
9.
Conwy County Borough
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Conwy County Borough is a unitary authority area in the north of Wales. The River Conwy, after which the county borough is named, lies wholly within the area, rising in Snowdonia and flowing through Llanrwst, the river here marks the border between the historic counties of Caernarfonshire and Denbighshire. One third of the area of the county borough lies in the Snowdonia national park. Its total area is 1,130 square km, making it larger than Hong Kong. According to the 2001 Census 39. 7% of the population of the county borough have one or more skills in the Welsh language, the amount of Welsh spoken in the county borough greatly varies from location to location, with generally the least being spoken on the coastal fringe. However, its council renamed the district a day later, on 2 April 1996 to Conwy, Conwy is represented in Parliament by Guto Bebb and David Jones, though David Jones Clwyd West constituency also covers part of southern Denbighshire. In the National Assembly for Wales, it is represented by Janet Finch-Saunders, Conwy County Borough Council was granted a coat of arms by the College of Arms in 2001. The new arms recall those of both Aberconwy and Colwyn Borough Councils, the main part of the shield depicts blue and silver waves for the river from which the county borough takes its name, and also recalls the gold and blue wavy field of Colwyns arms. On top of the waves is placed a red tower. The chief or upper third of the shield is coloured green, in the centre of the chief is a severed head from the heraldry of Marchudd ap Cynan, Lord of Abergele and Rhos. On either side are two black spears embrued, or having drops of blood on their points and these come from the reputed arms of Nefydd Hardd, associated with the Nant Conwy area. In front of each spear is a golden garb or wheatsheaf, above the shield, placed on the steel helm usual to British civic arms, is the crest. This takes the form of the Welsh red dragon supporting a Bible, rising from a wreath of oak leaves, the motto adopted is Tegwch i Bawb, meaning Fairness to All. List of places in Conwy County Borough for a list of towns, list of schools in Conwy Conwy County Borough at DMOZ
10.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
