Walking in the United Kingdom the scrambling suddenly becomes much more serious. In Britain, the term "mountaineering" tends to be reserved for technical climbing on mountains, or for serious domestic hillwalking, especially in winter, with additional equipment such as ice axe and crampons, or for routes requiring rock-climbing skills and a rope, such as the traverse of the Cuillin ridge, on the Scottish island of Skye. The British Mountaineering Council provides more information on this topic. Navigation and map-reading are essential hillwalking skills on high ground and mountains, due to the variability of British and Irish weather and the risk of rain, low cloud, fog
Lammermuir Hills The Northumbrian missionary bishop Cuthbert spent his early years as a shepherd on the Lammermuir Hills. Sir Walter Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor and Donizetti's derivative Lucia di Lammermoor is set here. Scott lived at Abbotsford House, near Galashiels. Two ranges of hills in New Zealand, the Lammermoors and Lammerlaws are named after the Scottish hills. Lammermuir Hills The Lammermuirs ("An Lomair Mòr" in Gaelic) are a range of hills in southern Scotland, forming a natural boundary between Lothian and the Borders. The name literally means "lambs' moor". and is derived from the Old English words "lambra" and "mor."