In 2005 I managed 113 days hillwalking, only two less than in 1999, which was my best ever. However, my Marilyn total only crawled up by 15. Seven of my new Marilyns were bagged in the Lake District in November, but even there, with plenty of new hills to choose from, I could not resist the temptation to revisit some of the highest hills, and was rewarded with a beautiful day on Skiddaw above a sea of cloud.
Another highlight was my third ascent, on a sunny August day, of the Inaccessible Pinnacle, which clears the way (for my own convoluted reasons) for completion of the Grahams in May this year. Although there were no prolonged spells of good weather, I managed to get a satisfactory number of sunny days. For example, there was a traverse of Liathach in mid-October when early cloud quickly cleared, and the final walk along the road by Loch Torridon at sunset was magical. Christmas Day was celebrated in beautiful weather on the Monadhliath, without seeing anyone else. The daftest bagging was in July, with Hill of Strone, Driesh and Mayar from Glen Prosen on my own one day, followed by Mayar, Driesh and Hill of Strone from Glen Doll with a group on the following day.
Possibly the second-lowest point of the year's walking was lying in my tent in Glen Avon, listening rather nervously to a thunderstorm when I should have been sleeping peacefully, wishing I had stuck to my original plan of going to the bothy at Faindouran Lodge. Definitely the lowest point was during the first night of a planned three-day back-packing trip in May, when I realised that my tent was only just standing up to the battering it was taking from the wind and rain, and that my sleeping bag was so wet that I was going to have to abandon the trip. It was not much consolation that none of the others on that trip stayed for a second night.
