Alan Hinkes presents a £1,500 cheque to the Brathay Exploration Group on top of Helm Crag. Photo: Derek Cockell

The only Briton to summit the world’s 14 highest mountains admitted he has yet to complete the ascent of the Lake District’s Wainwrights.

Mountaineer Alan Hinkes did put one over on the taciturn author by scrambling to the top of the rocky outcrop on top of Helm Crag – a feat Alfred Wainwright never achieved.

Yorkshire-based climber Hinkes, who is also a keen fellwalker, joined members of the Wainwright Society to celebrate their annual charity challenge, which involved walking 84 ridges described by the writer in his first three volumes of the Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells.

The challenge raised £1,500 for the Brathay Exploration Group. Its chairman Malcolm Tillyer said the cash would be used to fund taster weekends for disadvantaged young people from Cumbria.

Alan Hinkes, who has summited all the world’s 8,000m peaks, is an honorary member of the Wainwright Society and joined walkers on a route from Gibson Knott to Helm Crag.

The society’s secretary Derek Cockell said: “In spite of his many mountaineering achievements, Alan Hinkes admitted that he still had not climbed all of the 214 fells described in Wainwright’s Pictorial Guides.

“However, he demonstrated his climbing skills by scrambling to the top of the Howitzer, the highest rocks on Helm Crag, a feat that Alfred Wainwright never managed to accomplish.”

Funds from the sale of the society’s 2015 calendar, which will go on sale later this year, will also go to the Ambleside-based exploration group.