Volunteers with the rubbish collected at Camasunary on Skye, with Blà Bheinn in the background

Volunteers working for a conservation charity have cleared more than 50 sacks of rubbish from the summits of two Highland mountains.

The John Muir Trust helpers collected the rubbish from Britain’s highest mountain Ben Nevis and from Schiehallion, the 1,083m (3,553ft) munro in Perth and Kinross.

And 15 cairns were removed from the two mountains by volunteers who contributed to 5,000 hours of unpaid work on the trust’s properties.

An incredible million giant rhubarb seeds were removed from North Harris; 545 bags of rubbish removed from beaches across Scotland; 3,000 non-native sitka spruce trees removed and 600m of deer fence removed.

The 23 work parties also helped maintain 19km of footpaths and repaired 3km of livestock fencing.

Sandy Maxwell, the trust’s conservation activities co-ordinator said: “We have had an excellent year. Our volunteers are pretty hardy and enjoy getting out and doing conservation work in wild places.

“It is astounding to see how many people will turn out for work parties in all weathers.

“One of the big highlights has been removing fencing from an area of newly established woodland at Li and Coire Dhorrchail on Knoydart. We also helped the North Harris Trust to begin a project to eradicate invasive giant rhubarb from their property, and held our first work party on Corrour Estate.”

John Hutchison, the trust’s chairman said: “The Trust’s vision is that wild land is protected and enhanced throughout the UK and wild places are valued by all sectors of society.

“We are very fortunate to have an active membership who are prepared to give their time to help us carry out practical conservation work in wild land areas.

“I would like to thank every one of our volunteers who have achieved an incredible amount of work across some of Scotland’s wildest places through our conservation work parties in 2010.”