Originally Posted by
Thomas coupling
... Don't say that too loud to any one from the rest of the world, because they'd laugh at you. They trip over this altitude en route to the real mountains in their back yard. ...
Yes, they do, but often 300km to 1000km from a nice warm ocean. A large part of the problem with British and Norwegian hills, whether you are on the ground or in the air, is that the air comes in from a cold ocean and straight onto them.