2011 was an important year for me as I completed the Grahams on Meall Odhar on 20 October, accompanied by fellow members of the Highways Hillwalking Club and some other friends. As is normal in my experience of completions, the day was wet and windy. There was not a lot of fun in standing on the summit drinking a decent malt and the champagne was being gusted away before it even reached the glass (paper cup).
However I was dead chuffed to have completed a 'full house' so to speak. A fellow hillwalking friend once said that as he travelled around Scotland he liked to look up to the hills and to recall his days on the tops, not with pride but with pleasure, and that applies to me also.
However, the post-completion high soon dissipated as I realised I didn't have a target of hills for the future. At the age of 69, to target all of the Marilyns was way too much for my mind and too big a budget to cope with. But I love going to the hills and need some sort of structure to work to.
I then hit on the idea of listing all of the Scottish Marilyns between 1500ft and 2000ft, which totalled 251 peaks, a much more manageable target although a somewhat remote possibility for me. They are obviously a subset of the Marilyns and I have called them the 'Marshalls'*. The list has caused a lot of amusement to my fellow hillwalking friends but has given me a reason to keep exploring new areas and hills when we go away.
A virus laid me low in the early part of the year, so it was April before I could tick off one of the last Grahams on my list, Stob Mhic Bheathain in Ardgour, which I climbed from the north on a day of good visibility and weather. There followed a great trip to Mull when, in addition to a Beinn na Croise and Beinn Bhuidhe, I climbed Ben More by A'Chioch ridge. Great weather for the trip and great company.
May saw a further two Grahams climbed but the following month was possibly the highlight when I had a camping trip to Glen Kinglass to climb my penultimate Graham, Beinn nan Lus. I was accompanied by Mike Gray and we were very fortunate to have fine weather for the trip and greatly enjoyed the rocky summit and the full traverse of the hill.
In August I had another very enjoyable trip to the Dolomites, again with Mike and another Highways pal. Such stunning scenery and great walks. - just a pity that I am not a climber. Club day trips and weekends away during the year also accounted for repeats of various Grahams, Corbetts and even the odd Munro. As Alan Dawson commented in RHB, the attraction of lists may be a sign of arrested personal development. As an unabashed list ticker I plead guilty as charged and look forward to many more interesting and enjoyable days on the hill.
* Editorial note - Marischal can call this Marilyn subset what he wants to, however we won't be using the name in this magazine for a number of reasons:
