These are the nation’s riskiest hiking spots — and they’re getting busier

The countryside of England and Wales is charming but rarely do its rolling hills look spectacular on Instagram. The Trinnacle is one exception.
On Friday morning the three prongs of gritstone reared stunningly over Saddleworth Moor, 16 miles east of Manchester. It is a perfect social media-friendly scene … which makes it a delight and a danger.
Incidents have come thick and fast as picture-hunters with no climbing experience try to clamber to the top of the pillars. In 2021 Imran Choudhury, 36, from nearby Oldham, fell 200ft and survived. The next year an adult and child were injured. The Peak District National Park now warns people not to climb the rocks.
Many of those I meet above Greenfield reservoir are Trinnacle-seekers. Terry McKay, a security manager and DJ from Hull, shows me his Facebook profile picture: him atop the rocks in bright sunshine. He stresses that he is an experienced hiker and was with others when the snap was taken.
“We first saw [the Trinnacle] on Instagram and said let’s go climbing, let’s go find it,” says McKay, who has been up here many times. He got up at dawn to drive two hours for a solo recce before a trip with a bigger group.
Not everyone he meets in the hills is as prepared. “I regularly do the Yorkshire Three Peaks walk and I’ve seen people in sandals even on really bad days.”
In the past few summers rescue teams have been busier than ever, peaking in the staycation summer of 2021.
Mike Park, chief executive of Mountain Rescue England and Wales, says social media has spread the word about “hidden gems”.
Park warns of the danger. “People don’t realise the risks in getting to these places and getting down from them too,” he says. “Mountain rescue volunteers are available 24/7 but the demands are increasing.
“The only way we can see of keeping those demands manageable is by tackling avoidable ones,” Park says, meaning incidents caused by unsuitable clothing, lack of preparation or silly risk-taking.
Because the Trinnacle is so near Greater Manchester, it is a magnet for city folk, many of whom get into trouble. “The path is a scramble in places and has become eroded, with steep drops along the route,” says Dave Wyatt, team leader of Oldham Mountain Rescue.
He says there has been a “significant increase” in incidents at the Trinnacle. “People get into difficulty and require help from mountain rescue, the ambulance service and in some cases the coastguard helicopter.”
Rock-climbing mistakes can be fatal. In 2022 an inquest heard that Victoria Luck, 47, a special needs teacher from Wolverhampton, set out to visit a hard-to-find “infinity pool” she had seen on TikTok. She and her boyfriend were on the Crib Goch ridge in the Eryri National Park (Snowdonia) when the mother-of-two fell 150ft to her death.
Last week pictures of a spectacular wild-camping spot on a rocky outcrop above Llanberis went viral, turning a rock climbers’ secret into a “bucket-list” aspiration for millions.
The local mountain rescue team saw more callouts than any other group in the UK last year, followed by Ogwen Valley (also in Eryri), Wasdale in the Lake District (which covers Scafell Pike) followed by Edale in the Peak District.
Ogwen Valley is high in the rankings because of Tryfan, a mountain whose classic shape and dramatic crags have led to it gaining in popularity.
“Tryfan is not a mountain you can walk up” says a mountaineering YouTuber called the Bald Scrambler who advises visitors to take a guide. “At best it’s a scrambling route. At its most severe it is dangerous climbing terrain. Look beyond the hype and the flashy social media posts and all is not well.”
The north face of Tryfan is where most incidents occur and last year there were more than 40 callouts to people in trouble. There have been several deaths, too, including Phil Zhu, a 19-year-old martial arts fan from Liverpool who fell from Tryfan in May.
Back in the Peak District and not far from the Trinnacle is the Bleaklow Bomber, another site popular with TikTokers and YouTubers. It is actually a moorland plateau where a US B29 Superfortress plane crashed in the winter of 1948. Adventurous visitors can still see the engine turbine and part of the fuselage.
A 2021 TikTok video by “UK Hidden Gems” shows how to get to the site and has been viewed almost 2.8 million times.
Near by is Kinder Scout which sees a lot of callouts, due to its popularity with urban day-trippers who may not be fully prepared.
Heading up towards the Trinnacle today is a group of teenage boys — Sam, Steven, Sean and Neel — who have come from Stretford, west Manchester.
Not old enough to drive, they have taken a bus, tram and another bus to get here.
Belying the stereotype of selfie-hungry teenagers, Sam says they are here to “escape technology” and came across the Trinnacle after looking up beauty spots, not on TikTok.
The rise in rescue callouts is only partly down to youngsters. Mountain rescue says less than a quarter of people it helped last year were under 25.
Saddleworth walkers James Durkin and Zoe Patchett enjoy exploring the hills with their dog Bryn. They often meet people who are unprepared for either walking or the terrain.
“People use Google Maps and try to find a path on that, but it’s not a reliable hiking thing to use,” Patchett says. “The weather and visibility can change quickly.”
She says she follows a lot of hiking pages on Instagram and the Trinnacle is “all over my feed”, along with various infinity pools and other photogenic locations such as the Fisherman’s Path, near Beddgelert in Eryri.
Experienced mountaineers are keen to stress that social media can be a positive force too. As long as people take the right precautions, it can allow them to find and share some of Britain’s best beauty spots, which are not just for veteran walkers.
“[Social media is] a good way for us and others to share knowledge, advice and information about how to stay safe while making the most of the outdoors” Park, the mountain rescue chief, says. “There’s definitely a good side to it too.”