Pidurutalagala is Sri Lanka's highest mountain at 2,524 metres, rising as a broad green dome immediately north of Nuwara Eliya. The summit is off-limits — the military has operated a television and radio relay station there since the 1950s — but the approach roads and lower slopes are accessible and the views down over the town and Lake Gregory are good.
The mountain is covered in dense montane cloud forest on its upper slopes, transitioning to tea estates lower down. Even without reaching the summit, the drive or walk up the access road gives a good sense of the scale of the highlands and the patchwork of estates that covers them. The mountain is also the source of the streams that feed Lake Gregory.