Hill Bragging

Let’s get straight to the point. This book holds the key to the finest hill walking in Britain, which is to be found on the highest hills. Most of these are rarely climbed, so they have the potential to offer wonderful new experiences to hill walkers who are open-minded enough to consider the evidence and set foot where few have been before.

How can this be possible? In this small and busy land, with more guidebooks than hills, how can there be so much scope for new areas to explore, new adventures to enjoy, new summits to stand on? The answer is simple. There are far more high hills than most walkers realise because their thoughts have been constrained by categories, guidebooks and magazines. Almost all the books cover the same ground, often by the same routes. Superb hills for sure, and some fine books, but limited in scope and imagination. There is far more on offer for those who are willing to look beyond the standard fare, to release themselves from the shackles of tradition and take a fresh look at the topography of the land.

These bold assertions apply only to the Highlands of Scotland. The book does include hills in England and in Wales, but there are not many discoveries to be made in areas where every lump and bump over 2000 feet has been catalogued many times over. In Scotland there are hundreds of high hills that offer excellent walking where hardly anyone goes. Few people have climbed these hills because they have not been listed in well-known publications. The hills are not hidden from view but they have been hidden from the minds of hill walkers.

Another original feature of the book is its accuracy. The key criteria are precisely defined and rigorously followed. The outcome is the catalogue of the 1033 High Hills of Britain. The promise of rich new experiences can be fulfilled by exploring and climbing these hills. By bagging them. The high hills are a consequence of planetary history and weathering, but the list of high hills is a consequence of extensive research, fresh vision, accurate measurements and careful attention.

By 2020, most of the high hills had been surveyed using complex scientific equipment and software that exploits the phenomenal precision of the Global Navigation Satellite System GNSS. Heights for these hills are given to the nearest tenth of a metre, which is ten centimetres, four inches, the length of a long middle finger, the width of an average male hand.

All these figures are accurate. Hundreds of the heights are different from those published on maps and reproduced in guidebooks. The heights of hills surveyed using satellite-based technology are correct. If heights shown on maps and elsewhere are different, they are wrong. Close in most cases, but not correct. That is not subjective opinion, not hill bragging, it is the simple truth. More on that later for the sceptics and enthusiasts.

As well as innovation and accuracy, another substantial feature of the book is the set of stories, experiences and themes. These tales from the high hills are intended to put human flesh on the data bones, to illustrate what it was like to climb some of these hills for one observer on one day. The tales are for entertainment, they are not guides to advise which way to go. Guidebooks can be useful for beginners, but this book is for walkers who are willing to look at a list and a map and work out routes for themselves. The stories illustrate some of the possibilities available by setting off into the high hills armed with an agenda, an open mind and a torch. They provide a personal touch to complement the pedantic precision of the magnificent set of data that catalogues the magnificent set of hills.

Finally, the book takes a look back to where it all began, by assessing the work and legacy of Hugh Munro. His name is rarely mentioned in the rest of the book because it is not relevant. The rigorous approach used for defining the high hills requires taking a fresh look at the land free from the chains of the past. That is not being disrespectful to the pioneer of the genre. In fact, the chapter on Hills, Tops and Mountains is intended to reinstate the value of Munro’s work in its entirety. His name lives on but his work has been diminished and distorted in the century since his death in 1919. Many well-informed people think that he is entitled to a legacy more in keeping with his broad vision and painstaking research. It turns out that the emperor does have some clothes, rather fine ones, but they have been through the mangle too many times and no longer fit, so it is time for a new outfit. Made to measure of course, but closely based on the classic collection from a century ago. The book therefore provides an examination and reinstatement of the past as well as a catalogue of the present and opportunities for the future.