Most of Ireland's hill-walkers and mountain climbers have third-level qualifications and professional careers and use private transport to get to their starting points.
And how do we know all this? It's all down to a Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) study which provides, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the extent to which the Irish uplands are used for recreation and the value to the economy of this growing activity.
Commissioned by the Mountaineering Council of Ireland (MCI), the study, Recreation in the Irish Uplands, has implications for a range of interest groups as well as commercial and State bodies, not to mention land-owners and hill-walkers.
For example, says the MCI chairman, Mr Frank Nugent, the report shows the need for an adequate public transport system to support hill-walking. "It defeats the whole idea of recreation and exercise if you spend most of your day in a traffic jam in Glendalough."
The report, co-written by two WIT lecturers, Mr Jack Bergin and Mr Milo O Rathaille, estimates that in 1997, the year the data were compiled, 90,000 people spent £115 million visiting upland areas, North and South. That figure comprises accommodation and travel costs, annual expenditure on gear and money spent on the day of the visit in bars, shops and cafes.
Hill-walking is by far the most popular recreational activity in the uplands, but walking on tracks, rock-climbing, driving, cycling, nature study, running and orienteering are also covered in the report.
With the number of hill-walkers in particular growing all the time, there are obvious implications for the environment. While some would argue that walkers are part of the problem, they are also the best-placed witnesses to the condition of our uplands. Most of those surveyed believe that the environment is suffering.
While the issue causing most anxiety is litter, erosion, fencing, masts and antennae, access, trespass signs, mono-cultural forestry development, road construction, over-grazing by sheep and attitudes of land-owners were all areas of growing concern to MCI members.
Mr O Rathaille, who describes himself as a "frustrated non-hill-walker" who hopes to have more time for the activity, says the report should be of particular interest to the tourism industry. Over a quarter of those who visit the Irish uplands live abroad, with English walkers in particular tending to make return visits.
Mr Nugent says hill-walking is more than just a healthy activity. "It's a very social sport. You can walk and talk and invariably end up in a hostelry for a jar or a meal."
He hopes the report, which has been presented to the Government, will result in due recognition of an activity which, unlike many other sports, is open to people of all ages and does not require high levels of skill. The study found that the average age of hill-walkers is 40.
The MCI chairman claims the new sports Bill is too concerned with high-performance sport and not enough with recreational activity. "We hear about the need for 50-metre pools and plans for new stadiums. All we need are maps and guidebooks."
Among the changes Mr Nugent would like to see is the introduction of a public transport system which would enable walkers to travel to their starting point and return by bus from where their walk finishes. So simple it should hardly need stating. Yet 90 per cent of Irish hill-walkers - and 70 per cent of foreigners - now travel to the location by car so their walk invariably must end back where it started. This means traffic jams at the most popular sites in summer.
Until now, the MCI had no factual basis upon which to make its case for the kind of recognition it sought. Thanks to the work of Mr Bergin, himself a keen climber, and Mr O Rathaille that's no longer the case.
