Bagging a Munro? What?
“Why are all these cars parked here?” It is a question guests ask when we come across a gathering of vehicles beside an otherwise quiet Highland road. I explain that their owners have probably gone to bag a Munro, which can produce a look suggesting I have momentarily lost my senses. Nothing is being put into a bag. These walkers are heading for a mountain summit, and for some of them that summit is another entry on a list they intend to finish. Scotland has turned reaching the top of a mountain into a collecting habit.
The name comes from Sir Hugh Munro, a Victorian landowner and enthusiastic mountaineer whose first tables appeared in 1891. He studied maps, consulted fellow climbers and drew on his own expeditions to identify Scotland’s mountains reaching 3,000 feet, distinguishing separate mountains from subsidiary tops. There are currently 282 Munros. I sometimes think those Victorians had an enviable amount of time for organising the world, although this particular exercise has kept generations occupied ever since. Bagging simply means reaching a listed summit and adding it to your tally. Some walkers enjoy an occasional one, while others work towards climbing the lot.
They are not evenly distributed across the North Highlands. Ben Hope is the most northerly, with Ben Klibreck farther south, while Torridon offers celebrated mountains such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe. The naming does not stop with Munros either. Corbetts occupy the next height band, between 2,500 and 3,000 feet, with enough drop between them and higher ground to qualify as separate hills. Marilyns use a different measure: how far a summit rises above the ground connecting it to anything higher. Their name deliberately plays on Munro and Marilyn Monroe, which usually raises a smile in the car. A mountain list with a Hollywood joke seems an appropriately British development.
Hillwalking is something I have yet to fall in love with, and my knees, after years of rugby, are not encouraging the relationship. I also know where my guiding experience ends. Mountain weather can change quickly, and a pleasant view from the road tells you little about conditions on a ridge. If guests want to explore that world, I would rather involve a suitably qualified mountain professional who knows the terrain than lead them somewhere beyond my abilities. I understand the attraction, though. A list gives people reasons to return, places to discover and achievements to remember. Those parked cars may belong to somebody starting a lifelong enthusiasm, or someone with only one summit left.
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