2014 was another good year of hill-bagging for us. With most Marilyns left now being more than a day's drive from home, we had expected a much lower count than previous years. With that in mind we took the advice of a friend and spent an excellent weekend with fellow Marilyn bagger Peter Cottam, who kindly acted as taxi driver around his local hills in Shropshire, giving us 12 hills over one weekend in May.
June gave us our highest monthly total for the year, when following a wedding in Clevedon we had a holiday moving from hill to hill along the south coast, and completed the regions down there, including an enjoyable few days on the Isle of Wight. It is always good to get some islands and we had quite a variety, with Carna, Gometra and Ulva also visited. Holy Island off the Isle of Arran was another very worthwhile trip, for an easy but very enjoyable hill. We tried to combine pleasant holidays with areas where we could add a few ticks, and a holiday in beautiful Beddgelert in north Wales gave a good August total too.
To our surprise, as we came towards the end of the year, we realised that reaching the 100 hills mark was again possible, so at the very last minute an improvement in the weather saw us in the north of Skye where we completed our last three hills of the year on 27-28 December in beautiful winter weather. Had we not become fonder of walking in fair weather, perhaps we could have bagged the extra two to make up an actual addition of 100, but two were lost to the hill deletions.
We had an early indication of the possibility of the ascent of the St Kilda stacks when we met Campbell Singer on Beinn a'Chuirn above the Ratagan pass, at the end of September. A chance meeting with another Marilyn bagger always gives the opportunity for a good chat, but Campbell's prediction of possible forthcoming success on the stacks gave some added interest in monitoring the weather in the following weeks. Congratulations to those who completed the list.
For 2015 one of our objectives will be to get to Ailsa Craig, which we tried on a number of occasions but were beaten by the weather. The remaining Shropshire hills and Wendover Woods will complete the English Marilyns. We have still lots of Marilyns to do in Wales, northern Scotland and the Western Isles, so we will not be bored nor need to resort to Humps, Tumps and other bumps, yet.
