Although my Marilyn tally doesn't show it, 2007 was the year I fully converted to prominence. At least in the sense that I now use prominence-based lists for hillwalking inspiration rather than the more traditional threshold-based lists. The reason for the low bag was that it was also the year when my Marilyn-bagging career suffered the possibly permanent handicap of emigration. The tale is probably just about worth telling...
The seeds of my conversion were sown by a previous move in November 2004, from Stirlingshire to Yorkshire. After spending ten years slowly but steadily ticking off Munros and Corbetts, I was suddenly separated from the remaining ones by a drive of six or more hours. So in 2005, although I did commute to Scotland and back in search of my last 30 or so Munros, I also spent time improving my rock climbing on the gritstone edges of the Peak District and walking the busy paths of the Lake District and Snowdonia. It was while browsing the outdoor shops in Ambleside, on a rainy Sunday in February, that I picked up the book that was to change my thinking towards relativity. I mean of course The Relative Hills of Britain rather than one of Einstein's theories. At the time I remember being surprised by the breadth of coverage; England was clearly a hillier place than my Scottish scepticism had hitherto allowed, with plenty of prominent hills within day-trip range of our new home in Huddersfield. There were also intriguing possibilities for bagging in areas of the country I had never previously visited. Mid Wales and the North York Moors suddenly became attractive as weekend destinations. There were even hills in Kent which could possibly be used to enliven future visits to my wife's family. But where exactly was Shropshire? I realised that I had no idea but that maybe it was time to find out.
On returning home I did not make a tally straight away. In fact the book lay fallow for some time while I chased other goals. My first marathon (in Edinburgh) was followed by my first big lead fall, on (off!) the uber-classic Scoop Face at Castle Naze, and later by my first on-sight HVS lead (Mort Wall, Chatsworth). I also finally learned how to swim more than about 20 metres without coming close to drowning. All of these had been long-cherished ambitions (except perhaps the fall). The flipside was that these activities ate heavily into the time I had previously reserved for hillwalking.
Sometime over the following winter I finally counted up my tally of Marilyns and found, as with a visit to the Sphinx, that it was much smaller than I had imagined. Only around 350 were so far in the bag, including only 16 south of the Tweed. Plenty to go at then. Still I hesitated to commit, and 2006 was again a year for chasing other goals. My last Munro, Stuchd an Lochain, was the high point, attended by a touchingly large group of friends. Almost everyone with whom I had ever climbed a Munro was there, although some had not walked that far in years. My parents, discovering a latent interest in hillwalking, also made it to the top of their first Munro that day. In the end there were only a couple of ex-walking buddies who couldn't make it, but one of them had the ultimate excuse. Iain Collier was a genuinely nice bloke whose love of the oudoors bordered on obsession. He was also an excellent all-round climber and mountaineer, but in March 2002 his luck ran out. A routine gully climb on the north side of Beinn Dearg turned to tragedy when he and his climbing partner were swept to their deaths in an avalanche, during a storm that swept in without warning. Five years earlier, as the senior post-doc in my university lab, he had taught me to rock climb and inspired me with his humility and no-nonsense approach to our sport. He'd had his share of epics but he wasn't afraid to back off either, and we all thought he was the last person who would end up dead in such a manner. For some time afterwards I walked the winter hills with a new wariness not present in my previous youthful explorations.
A favourite memory is of being led by Iain up Curved Ridge on the Buachaille. The day began unpromisingly in a thick mist until, about a third of the way up, we laughed out loud when we popped almost without transition into a clear blue sky. The cloud inversion below us was perfect, and sitting atop Crowberry Tower that day was nothing short of magical. Five and a half years later I remembered him silently for a moment, while champagne and whisky were produced to toast my Munro success. My round ended much as it had begun 13 years before; high above Glen Lyon with an excellent view of the inside of a cloud, and a good midging in the car park to follow. Well, you can't win them all.
Meall Buidhe and Stuchd an Lochain (photo: Bert Barnett)
In 2006 I also ticked off the English and Welsh 3000ers, but I've yet to visit Ireland to finish the Furth. However, the other big achievement in 2006 was also a height-based one. I guess most mountaineers dream of one day testing themselves in the greater ranges and I was no different. Lack of time and funds had previously been a barrier, but in summer 2006 I spent more than three weeks in Bolivia, topping the magic 6000m level on Huyana Potosi on 4 August. Strangely, the experience was not as inspiring as I had imagined, nor was it to be the springboard for even higher ascents in the Himalaya as originally planned. In the end I found it odd that, with all the transport logistics, the resting and the trekking to the peaks and back, I ended up doing less actual climbing than I normally managed in a single week in the Alps. Besides the initial jetlag, and the third-world health issues that claimed the other three members of the expedition, I suffered badly from the altitude and found it was not possible to enjoy any real technical climbing at those heights. One night, as I lay alone and panting for breath in my tent at the 5600m high camp on our final peak, I suddenly realised that I wasn't having fun any more. It was -17ºC inside the tent that night, and although I wasn't feeling too cold, I really wondered what I was doing. In one way it was fortunate that the others were back in La Paz in varying stages of ill health, leaving me alone with the guides. It meant that there was no-one else to disappoint when I decided right then, in the middle of the night, just to can it. I don't think the guides really understood when we headed down in the morning instead of up, but I enjoyed the last couple of days spare in La Paz, just experiencing a bit of the culture in a fascinating country.
On the plane home I fell to wondering what I would do next. The date for my last Munro was only a month distant, and after that all of my immediate goals would be accomplished. I had no further ambitions to push my altitude limit, and I've never been one to wander randomly. I also doubted I could face the driving required to complete a round of the Corbetts whilst living in Yorkshire. I decided to devote myself to Marilyn bagging for a while and see how it went.
That autumn I busied myself with trips to the Dales, mid Wales and yes, even Shropshire. I discovered fantastic little hills like Pendle Hill, Gyrn Moelfre and Stiperstones. I appreciated the views from these relatively high hills and the solitude to be found on some of them. My tally of Marilyns began to tick over. I found the Marilyn Hall of Fame online and read through all the yearly newsletters. I joined the Yahoo newsgroup and, although I've never contributed, I've followed the deeds of others with interest.
Meeting the online community inspired by Alan Dawson, it seems that the adage about a small world remains apposite. I recognised the names of three members of the Hall of Fame whom I used to work with (Graham Illing, Steve Davis and Tony Smith). I also played chess for the Stirling club for a couple of years, although I only met the august editor of TAC a couple of times, and I doubt he'll remember me now.
The ancilliary games suggested in the 2006 newsletter amused me such that I started keeping an eye out for the possibility of bagging a Bilbo Baggins. This under-used game presumably suffers from the fact that most players of such games have climbed so many Marilyns that they can no longer find a sufficiently high unclimbed hill. For me in the low 400s this was an altogether simpler matter. The opportunity presented itself on 30 December 2006, during a Christmas holiday visit to my family in Edinburgh, and that combination of timing and location turned up an unlikely possibility. Although I was keeping an eye out, I had randomly reached 421 the week before Christmas and was simply looking for number 422 somewhere around Edinburgh. I was pleased to discover on perusal of the tables that Eildon Mid Hill (422m) was close by and could work out nicely as my 422nd. But as I checked out the maps and the other hills close by (the Eildons not being a full day out really), I noticed the quite amazing possibility of a quintuple Baggins. It seemed quite feasible, with an early start, to climb Eildon Mid Hill, Sell Moor Hill or Meigle Hill (both 423m), Rubers Law (424m), a conveniently placed spacer such as Cademuir Hill (415m) as number 425, and then to continue on to Broomy Law (426m) and White Meldon (427m), thus completing six hills in the day, with five of them being Bagginses (taking the Tolkien plural). And the best thing was that I wouldn't even have to run around like Rob Woodall to accomplish it. My brother Jai was roped in as co-driver and company for the day, and the scene was set.
Broomy Law, Goseland Hill and beyond (photo: Klaus Schwartz)
Breakfast at 6am, followed by a swift drive into the Borders, saw us arrive just after dawn at the foot of Eildon Mid Hill in less than ideal weather conditions. Nevertheless, we set off into a brisk wind under a leaden sky, safe in the knowledge that we had the necessary gear plus well-practised navigational skills if things deteriorated further. It only took 50 minutes up and down but it was already apparent that Jai wasn't firing on all cylinders. As we pulled up to the beginning of the path to Sell Moor Hill he decided to kip in the car while I walked up the hill. Now he's not one for complaining, and he's as strong as the proverbial ox, so I was a little concerned for him as I bent my head into the wind and admired the hazy view that emerged fitfully between squally showers. But when I returned to the car he said he would soldier on, so on we went. After another short drive we started off up Rubers Law on schedule, but it was clear that something was badly wrong with Jai. He waited in some trees below the summit while I topped out into what was now a gale-force wind. On the way down he was as white as a sheet and struggled to keep up, so back at the car the only decent thing to do was call it a day. We drove home slowly and Jai went straight to bed with a fever that lasted two days and kept him away from the Hogmanay celebrations. Bad luck, but I had still managed a triple Baggins, possibly the first example of this obscure feat.
The chance of the quintuple will not come again, and I doubt that a similar possibility exists at higher altitudes. The best I can hope for is that someone will read this at a convenient point in their Marilyn career and thereby be inspired to make use of my chance observation and finish the job.
With such a build-up, 2007 should have been the year I accelerated through the list. A hundred new Marilyns seemed a reasonable target, and even the 176 needed to join the Hall of Fame could have been possible, since I was not pursuing any other hobbies or goals at the time. To explain why I only managed 17, I need to digress once more.
Around October it became apparent that the company I worked for was not doing well and so I began to look seriously into the possibility of finding a new job. My contact network turned up better options than the small ads, and a few calls and emails later I was on my way to Switzerland for, as it turned out, a successful interview. The idea of moving to central Europe had been floating around ever since we left university, when my girlfriend (now wife) had started a successful career as an interpreter. Commuting to Brussels or Strasbourg from Huddersfield every other week was beginning to wear a bit thin for her, and so when the job offer came as an early Christmas present we didn't hesitate. I admit to being surprised that my new bosses were sure I could get by with no foreign-language skills, but Swiss companies are full of people with different mother tongues. And so, as 2007 dawned, I was planning a move to Basel. As details of the move clarified, I was happy to find that we had time to make a goodbye tour of friends and relatives. On the end of this, and just before the move, I would have about six days left to do some walking.
Which hills would you climb if you only had six days left before emigrating? I gave it some thought, but my most-wanted list easily filled 66 days and not just six. So I turned back to prominence. I had already picked up the notion of major prominences from the Yahoo site, and to do some more of those seemed the logical choice. Like Super-Marilyns, I hoped 600m of prominence must make a very special viewpoint indeed. Fortunately, the hills I found lived up to my expectations and so, for the most part, did the weather. I had a fantastic time, climbing amongst others Beinn Bhan in Applecross, The Storr, Beinn Mhor on South Uist and Cairnsmore of Carsphairn, in the company of my brother and a few other friends who joined us for a day at a time.
When the valedictory tour was over, Google provided me with something to look forward to. It seems that many people around the world share our afflictions... peakbagger.com, peaklist.org, summitpost.org and the RHB newsgroup itself held a variety of lists and information, from the local to the continental. There were lists on three scales of thinking. A list of P150 hills in the Swiss Jura gave 59 hills of 700-1700m altitude, mostly in my new backyard. For weekends away or longer days out, there was a list of P600m hills or Majors in the whole of Switzerland. Intriguingly, there are 114 of these, an almost identical number to the British Isles. On the biggest scale there were the 98 P1500 hills or Ultras in the whole of Europe. I can see this forming a greater, longer-term ambition, especially as Switzerland lies near the geographical centre of the continent and gives me relatively easy access to about 40 of them.
Suffice to say I haven't been bored since I moved. Last year I walked and climbed in many new areas and started on several new lists, but my next focus will probably be the Swiss Finest Fifty. Given the height and glaciated nature of many of these peaks, it will be a formidable task. I guess the most noteworthy statistical by-product of all this new activity was joining the P600 Century Club on the Grindelwald Schwarzhorn (2928m high, 966m prominence). By the end of 2007 my worldwide totals were 12 Ultras, 112 P600s and more than 500 P150s.
And so I close my tale. I doubt you'll read a longer account of the climbing of 17 Marilyns for a while. Especially since I only mentioned four of them in the whole text. As to the future, I intend to manage a handful of UK Marilyns each year, but with the riches on my doorstep I have a whole new world to explore.
