It’s somewhat
self-evident to say that the past year in review is an opportunity to look back
over the last twelve months and assess the progress of Mapping Mountains, but
it also affords a chance to look ahead to the upcoming year. Both can be fulfilling, with one showing the
progress made and the other the possibilities yet to be achieved.
Having set Mapping
Mountains up in late November 2013 it was always my intention to concentrate as
much energy as I could in to the site over the first two years, I hoped by
doing so the site would become established and those interested in the articles
and posts hosted on Mapping Mountains would find it of enough interest to
re-visit.
This two year time
period roughly took me to the end of 2015, and therefore I suspected that 2016
would be a year where the activity on the site would be slightly lessened, and
I could concentrate more on refining its content and presentation. However,
that is not to say that the site has lain dormant, far from it, so let’s look
back over the last twelve months and also ahead to next year and where Mapping
Mountains may go in the future.
Since its inception in
November 2013 the Mapping Mountains site has been led by the surveys conducted
with the Trimble GeoXH 6000, and although there have been many hill
reclassifications due to surveying with the Trimble during the past year I’m
not listing them here, as in past yearly reviews, this is partly due to the
site now evolving to take in many other aspects related to the hill bagging
world and some of these are listed below.
During 2016 Mapping
Mountains benefited from the addition of five new page headings, the first of
which celebrated St David’s Day on the 1st March by adding the Table of Progress for Y Pedwarau, these
are the Welsh 400m Hills, and this Table lists the people who have either
completed the main Pedwar list or who
have completed at least 100 of the P30 hills listed in Y Pedwarau.
The second new Page
Heading was added on 18th June and is entitled Significant Name Changes and it details those hills whose listed
name has changed based on historical research and / or local enquiry, this page
heading is related to three others that were already on the site; these are Hill Reclassifications, Summit Relocations and Significant Height Revisions, and
together they make a detailed catalogue of the changes to the important
place-name and numerical data associated with any hill.
On 4th July
the Mapping Mountains – Publications Page
Heading was added and this proved one of the most significant steps taken
during 2016 as it links through to a sister site that is the publishing arm to
the original blog. This publications
site now hosts Y Pellennig - The Remotest Hills of Wales which is available as a downloadable e-booklet and print-booklet
version, and thanks are due to Ruth Magness and Aled Williams for their help in
this process and to Mark Trengove for inspiration. It is hoped that more hill lists will be
published on Mapping Mountains –
Publications during the forthcoming year.
The first article
related to Hill Listing Protocols
established a new Page Heading on 15th September; this article is to
the Protocols for the Naming of Hills
and was one that I had wanted to write for a number of years. The article comprises over 6,500 words and
details why I view such a policy to be important, as well as giving historical
details to where naming nomenclature originates. Also listed are the Tools of Research giving links to important online sites that are useful
for place-name research, and lastly the Naming
Protocols are listed.
The fifth new Page Heading
appeared on 28th November and is entitled Articles – Internet, these are the articles that I have either
written, or written with input from others, or those written by other people
about things that I’ve been associated with and that appear on the
Internet. These articles were great fun
researching and brought back a multitude of good memories.
There have been a number
of important events over the last year with the aforementioned publishing
sister site; Mapping Mountains –
Publications, being one of the most important, but there have been other
significant things that have happened, including the setting up in May of a Mapping Mountains Facebook page which helps
catalogue the posts uploaded to the Mapping Mountains blog, and this when
coupled with my personal Facebook page helps in communication with fellow hill
baggers, and latterly there have been a swathe of hill reclassifications
instigated by analysis of LIDAR data by Aled Williams, this work is ongoing and has resulted in many status changes to the lists we co-author.
However, not all events
during the last year have been good ones and the continuing disassociation from
G&J Surveys is unfortunately ever ongoing and has been for over seven
months, I hope that 2017 sees this finally resolved and that financial reimbursement
that was agreed three months ago is finally forthcoming.
The latter part of the
past year was also one that saw a progression of injuries keep me off the hills
for prolonged periods of time, this started with minor surgery in late July
which kept me off the hills for three weeks, and just as I was getting ready to
get back out onto the hills I was shunted from the rear whilst pulling up in my
car at temporary traffic lights, the resulting crash wrote my car off and I
ended up in a neck brace in A&E for four hours suffering whiplash and
periphery injuries, this seriously curtailed my hill walking and I did not go surveying
again for five weeks, and when I did so, I ended up with a damaged knee that
now curtails much of my hill walking, however my physical ailments did not end
there as whilst protecting my knee getting out of the bath, I slipped and fell,
resulting in me falling down onto the side of the bath, ribs first – ouch! For the next three to four weeks I could hear
a rattling in my rib cage when I brushed my teeth and sleeping on my left side
was nigh on impossible as my ribs hurt too much and sleeping on my right side
was painful due to my knee – oh the wondrous joys of getting older!
Although my knee is not
good and the crunching in my neck is still uncomfortable I have managed to
experience some wonderful days on the hill during the last twelve months, and
although many of these still linger in my memory it is the trips to islands
that stand out, with mini expeditions to The Smalls, Emsger (South Bishop),
Daufraich, Ynys Dewi (Ramsey), Ynys Fach and Green Scar all adding a wealth of
experience to the joys that coastal retreats offer, with the majority of these trips
organised by Adrian Rayner, and I look forward to more such mini expeditions in
2017.
During the last year
Mapping Mountains had over 44,500 page views and the totals for posts and page
views since the beginning of the site in November 2013 are given below:
28.11.13 – 31.12.14: 200 posts with 22,294 page views.
01.01.15 – 31.12.15: 264 posts with over 39,700 page views.
01.01.16 – 31.12.16: 247 posts with over 53,505 page
views.
I’m extremely pleased
and rather humbled that people find Mapping Mountains of sufficient interest to
visit the site, and my thanks go out to everyone that does so as you give me
enthusiasm to continue pushing the site onward.
And what of the next
year ahead, the publication of Y Trechol
– the Dominant Hills of Wales will continue on a monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly basis,
it is also hoped that another hill list will be available as a downloadable
e-version and print-version booklet via Mapping
Mountains Publications, and the analysis of LIDAR data by Aled Williams will
no doubt continue resulting in more hill reclassifications and improvement to
numerical data in the lists that we co-author.
The New Year will also
see the start of publication on Mapping Mountains of a number of detailed Change Registers; these will record the
additions, reclassifications and deletions to various listings, many of which
are co-authored with Aled Williams, whilst some include listings by other
authors where status change has either occurred because of surveys or through
map study that I have conducted, others relate to listings where I am the sole author.
Many thanks for visiting
Mapping Mountains during the past year, your continued support gives encouragement
and I thank you for it, and I hope you have a good New Year and a fun filled
time on the hills in 2017.
Myrddyn Phillips
(December 2016)