Hundreds of people climb Great Gable on Remembrance Sunday

The synthetic flowers are often left strewn across Great Gable following the annual event on the mountain's summit.

Clearing up the poppies is a difficult task for members of the Rock Climbing Club of the Lake District, which organises the service.

A club spokesman said they wanted to avoid the usual "red mess".

The service was originally held after World War I to commemorate club members killed in the conflict.

A plaque stands at the mountain's summit, where hundreds of walkers regularly make the pilgrimage bearing the man-made poppies distributed by the Royal British Legion.

But recovering the plastic flowers afterwards can be problematic because of the fell's isolated location.

Club secretary Paul Exley said: "Poppies look very pretty at the time, but after a week or two of bad weather up on Great Gable, the poppies disintegrate and become a red mess.

"They get blown all over, onto neighbouring fells, and the man-made material doesn't rot down in the way natural poppies do."

In the past, club members have climbed the mountain and filled several large rucksacks with disintegrated, soggy poppy waste.