In the winter of 1884 Rey travelled to Britain where he spent some weeks with alpine mountaineer C. D. Cunningham in England. His trip included an intellectual afternoon visit to Madame Tussaud's in the company of the editor of the Nineteenth Century literary magazine and a visit to Scotland where on 11 February after a spell of bad weather, Rey, Cunningham and a local man, John Cameron, made a winter ascent to the top of Ben Nevis. At the summit they visited the new observatory which had been opened just a few months earlier, and enjoyed hot steaming coffee and toasted ship's biscuits in the company of the observer and his two assistants. Cunningham later observed that Rey was known to have referred to their trip up Ben Nevis more frequently than some of his other great achievements in the Alps.: