Clean-up crew finds piano near summit of Britain’s highest mountain

Volunteers tidying up Britain’s highest mountain have found a piano near the summit, a conservation group said Wednesday.

The instrument was discovered on the weekend under a pile of stones near the top of the 1,347-metre Ben Nevis, according to the John Muir Trust, which owns part of the Scottish mountain.

“Our guys couldn’t believe their eyes,” trust director Nigel Hawkins said. “At first they thought it was just the wooden casing, but then they saw the whole cast-iron frame complete with strings.

“The only thing that was missing was the keyboard, and that’s another mystery,” Hawkins said.

A cookie wrapper with an expiry date of Dec. 12, 1986, was found underneath the piano, suggesting it may have been there for 20 years.

Hawkins said he suspected the piano was carried up as part of a charity fundraising effort by a group who decided it was easier to bury it under a pile of stones, or cairn, than to carry it back down.

“People have played rugby up there, and someone drove up a herd of llamas,” Hawkins said. “It does attract a lot of wacky things.”

Volunteers, who were also clearing trash left by some 120,000 people who visit the mountain every year, have broken up the piano and carried down the pieces.



  1. david says:

    It was a romantic man who burdened himself to carry that heavy load of a piano to serenade the stars where no one would disturb the sound of his love for light that twinkles with joy.

  2. Jim(R) says:

    The setting was almost pefect… he played softly under the starlight, there upon the bouders in the icy air at the top of the world. He was wondering if she would still come… perhaps … no, she would come and bring the wood stove and wine to sip by the warmth in its hearth.

    Was it his imagination or was his piano slowly moving away from him? He grabbed the keyboard in alarm as the boulders underneath began to dislodge… the Barry Manilow tune he was playing must have put them off balance. Desperately he dug in with his heels, the pending doom evoking super-human strength… it couldn’t end this way. With a loud crack the keyboard came away in his hands… and the piano slid away amongst the boulders.

    He stumbled away, confused, in shock,keyboard in hand. He didn’t see the deep crevice in front of him.

    She never did show up…. she thought he was joking.

  3. david says:

    Really nice, Jim!

  4. Gary Marks says:

    #1, #2, you guys are great with the fiction, but as a simple man, I just look for the moral of the story…

    It all went well until he played the Barry Manilow tune.

  5. david says:

    #4. Gary, my favorite anecdote about Barry Manilow is that he did not write his hit song, “I Write the Songs”.

    …take it away Barry…

    I write the songs that make the whole world sing
    I write the songs of love and special things
    I write the songs that make the young girls cry
    I write the songs, I write the songs

  6. Jim(R) says:

    david, you sure got me laughing… I just had to finish the story.

  7. Mr. H. Fusion says:

    C’mon you guys, a friggin piano on top of the mountain !!! How the heck could someone get it up there? Maybe his neighbors paid to have it put there.


0

Bad Behavior has blocked 9273 access attempts in the last 7 days.