In reply to Tim Chappell:
I think a lot of it comes from personal agendas - daddy wants to get to the top; the kid couldn't care less. Daddy says it'll be fun but apparently it doesn't seem that way when they're halfway up, soaked to the bone, freezing cold and, in some case, hopelessly lost.
To highlight what I mean about agendas here's a little anecdote:
I was hired to lead a group of scouts the other month and the Scout leaders told me what
their plans were - Up Tryfan, down to bwlch tryfan, up to Glyder Fawr and fach, down to llynau y cwn and, if time allows, up y garn (bearing in mind these were 11-13 yr olds, some of which had never walked up a mountain before, I was thinking "we'll see about that!"). We only just made it to the summit of Tryfan when one of the leaders said "You know, I don't think we're going to make it to the Glyders!".
Post edited at 20:06