Guest Contributor – Jon Glew

Introduction

If readers would like to contribute an article for the Guest Contributor page heading please contact me, my email address appears on the About Me page heading.  The 0nly two things I ask is that the article should be hill related and importantly I should not end up in court through its publication!  Otherwise the choice of subject matter is down to the Guest Contributor.

About the Author; Jon Glew

Jon currently lives in the small village of Newbiggin close to Penrith, Cumbria having relocated there from Wiltshire in 2017 to be closer to the bigger English hills and to Scotland.  He was a late-starter to hill bagging beginning in 2006 when a family holiday to Keswick got him hooked on the Wainwrights.   At that time he was 35 years into a full career in the military as a communications engineer.  Three years later and he had retired, becoming a gentleman of leisure.  Soon after, he discovered Alan Dawson’s book and then John and Anne Nuttall’s, and became well and truly hooked on bagging, as opposed to hill walking – the rest, as they say, is history.

A Year in the Life of a Hill Bagger

Part 1 – The Monthly Totals

January

New Year’s Day 2018 and dawn broke dull, cold and wet in the Brecon Beacons.  The last few days had been spent at YHA Brecon with a few like-minded baggers, taking advantage of the army’s Christmas stand-down to bag some hills on the Sennybridge range…. but that was 2017, when I had ended the year as the second highest hill bagger on the Hill Bagging web site.  Could I improve on that position in 2018?  It would take a lot of effort.  The year started slowly, a few hills here, a few there; and it didn’t start until the 5^th day of the month.  But it soon picked up with a series of days out in my home county of Cumbria to which I had relocated from Southern England just 5 months earlier; Bleaberry Fell, High Street, the Naddle Forest; even the dreaded Mungrisdale Common was paid a visit.  During January I spent 13 days bagging in Cumbria, all of it in wintery conditions after heavy snow falls at the end of 2017; and foraying further afield for a few one-day trips to neighbouring counties.

Rest Dodd summit cairn

Troutbeck Tongue summit cairn

February

My first excursion north of the border was a 2-week trip to the Torridon mountains in mid-February with Steve Smith and Steve Lewis.  We shared a cottage in Kinlochewe and had a series of Munros planned, but the weather largely defeated us, such was the harshness of conditions and the volume of snowfall that winter.  We managed a solitary Munro amongst the 49 hills bagged over that fortnight, although a slew of Corbetts and Grahams and 25 Marilyns bit the dust, so some compensation.  We experienced some true winter mountain walking on that trip that severely extended us on some days; and our ice tools were fully deployed.  

On Sgorr nan Lochan Uaine

Later in the year I returned to Torridon - more of that later.  Returning to Cumbria to regroup for a day I was heading south to the other end of the country for a week in Hampshire, a cottage share with Carole Engel, oddly enough I was mainly bagging Devonian tumps and trigs – don’t ask!  Suffice to say some long driving days along the A303 ensued!

March

That time of the year when the annual Triggers Meet takes place.  2018 saw a takeover of the Minnigaff hostel in Newton Stewart, Dumfries & Galloway.  These events are ideal for meeting up with fellow baggers, and to take part in some joint bagging days.  The event was preceded by a 2-night stop with Alex Cameron at Castlecreavie, a farm bunkhouse near Kirkcudbright.  We hoovered up 23 hills in the area before moving on to Minnigaff.  My main target was Cairnsmore of Fleet and the surrounding hills, where a group of 5 of us ranged over the area bagging 8 hills on a 13½ mile linear walk, a very satisfying day out.  I also visited The Rhins on that trip with Alex and Tony Jenkins where we bagged all of the trig pillars along with a slew of hills.  Unaided, Alex found his first trig surface block there, crawling under a roadside hedge and scratching in the dirt to locate it, and mightily chuffed he was.  March also saw me banging away at the Cumbrian and North Yorkshire hills for 13 day trips, where 67 hills and a more modest 33 trigs were paid a visit.

Alex burrows for a Surface Block

April

A week after the Triggers Meet I was in the Highlands bagging snow-covered hills around Inverness where once again ice-axe and crampons were deployed, getting away with micro-spikes on some days, but also bagging hills and trigs below the snow-line – a very mixed week.  My base was an old but modernized farmhouse on the outskirts of Ardgay, in the company of Gill Stephens and Carole Engel, where 45 hills and 37 trigs were ticked off under some testing conditions.

Struie in early evening light

Before I relocated to Cumbria in 2017, I had bagged all the hills and trig pillars in many of the Southern English counties, but four had eluded me; Devon and Cornwall in the SW; and Kent and East Sussex in the SE.  I determined that 2018 would see me complete the SE counties, and leave the much bigger SW counties for another time.  In April I spent a week at YHA Eastbourne from where I was to visit my remaining 29 East Sussex hills and also bag 115 trig stations.  Later in the year, in November, I returned south to do a similar job in Kent when 33 hills and 100 trig stations were visited from YHAs Medway and YHA Canterbury – job done.

May

A busy month, starting with a trip to Scotland with my nephew; Andrew, where we did the Ben, he hadn’t been up there before so I thought it only proper that he should do it via the Carn Mor Dearg arete.  Conditions were very poor at the top with extremely low visibility, but we managed to bag all the sundry tops up there before taking the tourist path off.  He loved it… and so did I.  

Poor conditions on The Ben

Immediately after, we met up with Steve Lewis for a few days on Rum, staying in the BBQ bothy for 3 nights at the island’s campsite.  The plan was to visit all of my remaining hills on the island, but the weather had other ideas and high winds and rain scuppered the plan.  Instead 11 hills were bagged including Askival, which had eluded me a few years earlier, and nearly did this time too, but for Steve’s mountain skills that saw us safely off the hill in very bad weather.

Testing conditions on Askival - Steve and Andrew

When we left Rum Andrew and Steve headed home.  I drove south to Claonaig for the Arran ferry – the next stop on my island bagging tour.  A week on that lovely island saw me visit 19 hills and five trig pillars for an island completion of both.  There was also time to re-visit the island’s four Corbetts and the tricky A’ Chir, where I managed to cajole a reluctant Carole Engel to the top.

Maol Donn, Arran under big skies

From Arran I moved back to the mainland, heading north to Croabh Haven, a yachting marina south of Oban, where a series of boat trips around the Firth of Lorn had been organized by Darren Giddins.  Fortunately, the weather was superb and all trips went ahead as planned with 26 islands visited and all hills on those islands summited.  The Garvellachs, Lunga, Scarba, Shuna, Luing and the small islands in Loch Craignish were among the islands visited.  Accommodation was a smart house in the marina complex, again sharing with Gill and Carole.

Bardrishaig trig pillar on Luing

Having now been away from home for over three weeks it was finally time to head south to Cumbria and recharge the batteries, but only for a week before I was heading north again - to the Outer Hebrides.  This proved to be another outstanding trip with an ambitious series of boat trips from Leverburgh on South Harris planned by Mervyn Jack.  With the summer weather continuing benign, all trips went ahead as planned, the highlight being the successful summiting of all eight of the main islands in the Flannans group on one day, and the following day visiting the Monach Isles.  Other boat trips saw us landing on a further 20 islands including Taransay, Pabay and many of the small islands in the Sound of Harris.  In addition, on non-boating days I was able to complete the South Harris hills, and make further inroads into North Harris, and Lewis – the trip proved to be the most successful I’d make to Harris and Lewis.  It ended with a kayaking trip across East Loch Tarbert to bag four islands west of Scalpay.

Rob Woodall in usual pose - Eilean Mor on the Flannan Isles

June

After leaving Harris in early June I made my way across country to Aviemore picking up a few hills and trigs in the Cairngorms, and attending the Relative Hills Society annual dinner, meeting up with the glitterati of the hill bagging world.

After a week bagging local hills in Cumbria and a few days in Ayr to visit a friend, I again headed south to Okehampton on the edge of Dartmoor, the focus being the moorland hills where 41 were bagged and a further 10 in wider Devonshire.  The weather was very warm and summer-like and it was my second week of double-dosing on antibiotics prescribed for Lyme disease which I had contracted on one of my recent trips, I do not know which one as tick bites are a regular overhead of the hill bagger.  At the end of the week I was completely washed out and felt quite ill.  A period of rest was desperately needed, but not before a short stay at YHA Boscastle on the north Cornwall coast for a shot at a few islands – more later.  Eventually I returned to Cumbria where I managed 2 days rest before getting back onto the Cumbrian hills.

July

Between trips I had slowly been making inroads into the hills and trigs of Cumbria, where I had determined to complete the 1214 hills and 485 trig stations in the county.  But it was slow work with so many other distractions outside the county.  2019 should see the completion of this project.  But in the meantime, July was largely spent on the Cumbria hills, other than a quick one-day dash up to Dumfries and Galloway for a kayak trip, and a brief 3-night trip to Oban for some more islands; Seil, Insh (thanks again to Darren for organizing), and several small islands around Lismore (thanks again to Mervyn for arranging this) – Lismore itself would have to wait until later in year for a visit.

August

Time for a return to the Outer Hebrides, this time to Barra initially, for three nights, for a couple of boat trips organized by Mervyn.  The weather wasn’t at its best but the sea state just allowed for both trips to go ahead.  The first was a re-visit to the Bishop Isles south of Barra to try for some of the trickier small islands, this was only partially successful due to the swell precluding landing on some of our targets; the second trip was to bag a series of small islands in the Sound of Barra.  This was largely successful with just one island; Fiaraidh, eluding us when the wind picked up.  I was camping on Barra at the Borve campsite in very sub-optimal conditions; severe weather during the nights put paid to many tents on the site… fortunately not mine!  From Barra I moved north to South Uist and spent a pleasant four nights at the very hospitable Nunton House Hostel on Benbecula.  I ranged across South Uist, Benbecula and North Uist visiting several tidal islands, and two non-tidal ones courtesy of salmon farm fishermen who transported me across to Ronay and Wiay on separate days.  I bagged a total of 42 hills and 22 islands on that week-long trip, leaving plenty for a return visit.

Beinn a Charnani, Ronay, North Uist

Back to Cumbria for a few days to regroup and recharge before heading north again, this time for a visit to Shetland, somewhere I had not previously been to.  The trip took a considerable amount of planning, both in logistics for accommodation and travel, and for deciding what the priorities would be as there is far too much to do in the 12 days we had there.  My travel companion was Gill Stephens, whose focus on the Marilyn hills I was happy to go along with, being something of a closet Marilyn bagger myself.  We flew across from Aberdeen, a one- hour flight that saw us land at Sumburgh at 8am.  The hire car was waiting for us at the airport and we bagged our first hill, Sumburgh Head, 31 minutes later.  That really set the tone for the whole trip which proved to be highly successful with all 19 Marilyns bagged including Fair Isle and Foula, both of which involved short flights on light aircraft.  A further 55 other hills, 14 separate islands, and 52 trig stations were bagged during a very enjoyable trip, whetting my appetite for a revisit planned for the summer of 2019.

Ronas Hill, the Shetland high point

September

On return from Shetland I crossed over to the west coast for a night at the Oban hostel prior to catching the ferry the following morning to Tiree for an interesting boat trip that Brian Ewing had organized to take a small group out to Skerryvore Lighthouse, some 10 miles SW of Tiree.  The sea state wasn’t perfect but the trip went ahead, unfortunately the swell prevented a landing but it was a memorable trip despite only being able to stand off from the rocks and watch the awesome swell and crashing spray.  Luckily we were able to land on two other islands; Gunna and Eilean Mor at either ends of Coll.  I stayed on Tiree for two nights allowing time for a clean sweep of the seven hills and 14 trig stations there before moving onto Coll for a night where the island high point was bagged along with some other hills and trigs, but leaving some un-bagged for a return visit in the future.

Skerryvore Lighthouse - ten miles off the SW tip of Tiree

After a few days at home I returned north to Kinlochewe with Steve Lewis to have another go at some of the big Torridon hills we hadn’t been able to climb in February.  The trip was marred to an extent by high winds and heavy rain, but we achieved 46 hills including several Munros, Corbetts and Grahams although our planned ascent of Liatach was again cancelled due to persistently poor conditions.

Na Rathanan Far East Top - our first horn of Alligan

September also allowed for a quick dash up to Fife for a day trip across to the Isle of May, a magical island in the outer reaches of the Firth of Forth.  And also, at the end of the month with a good weather forecast, a couple of days in Devon to visit Lundy island in the Bristol Channel with Rob Woodall, and Richard and Denise Mclellan.  Our purpose was to climb Gannetts' Rock, a tidal sea stack off the east coast of the island requiring a tricky scramble down the cliffs to reach the tidal strand.  I had made a solo attempt on the stack in 2017, but had been defeated by the amount of exposure and having no protection (not to mention fulmars vomiting on me!)  This time would be different with Richard’s climbing skills ensuring success.  It wasn’t a difficult climb - with the confidence of a rope - but it had proved too unnerving for me on my own.

Three-quarters of the Gannets' Rock summit group - thanks to Denise for capturing the moment

October

Early in the month I made my first visit of the year to Wales.  My nephew; Andrew, had organized a trip for some of his work colleagues to walk over Cadair Idris.  He asked me if I would like to go along.  I hadn’t climbed this hill before and after quickly realizing there was a fine round of hills to be bagged there, I expanded his agenda a little.  The group were not hill baggers although all were competent walkers and some of them accompanied me to pick up the extra hills.  It was a pleasant and leisurely weekend, using the old school, now an independent hostel, in Corris as our base.

The Cadair Idris group

I made one further trip into Wales in November for the annual Bagger Rambles meet, which was held at the former Llanfyllin Workhouse.  The highlight of the trip being an 18-mile trek with Rob Woodall across some very rough ground to bag 13 of the Berwyn’s finest, all but one above 500m.

I made my penultimate trip north of the border this month, with the main purpose being to chase islands to try not to let my self-imposed target of 100 for the year slip too far from reach.  Initially basing myself at the Edinburgh Central SYHA I had a day on the Pentland Hills before moving further east for a day’s kayaking to some of the islands off the north Berwick coast - more later.  Then relocating west to Oban for Lismore before moving down the Kintyre peninsula for Gigha and spending a night at the Campbeltown independent hostel before returning to Oban, bagging Island Danna and some other tidal islands and hills en-route.  Another successful week that sprawled across central Scotland netting 11 islands amongst the 48 hills ticked off, which included clean sweeps of the hills and trigs on both Lismore and Gigha.

Wet Kip, Pentland Hills

November

November proved a prolific month with the week-long trip to Kent extended by a further week to explore a plethora of potential new islands formed by the Thames and its backwaters.  I visited all of them, around 10, three of which were subsequently confirmed as being Significant Islands and added to the Hill Bagging website.  I also took the opportunity whilst being down south to visit family, taking the grandchildren out on hill and trig bagging expeditions (William aged 8, now has his own Hill Bagging account – got to catch them young!).  En-route home to Cumbria I did a clean sweep of the Northants trig pillars whilst also bagging several hills in the county.

December

The final few days of November and the first three weeks in December I spent at home in Cumbria where, over 17 hill days, I visited 141 Cumbrian hills and 50 trig stations.

2018 finished with one further trip north, to the Grampian region, to meet up with several friends over the Christmas period.  Meeting initially at Inverness SYHA where some interesting trig bagging took place with Sharen & Roger Kingham, Gerry McGarry, Rob Woodall and others.  Then the main event – Christmas at Gill Stephens’ hunting lodge in Strathdon with Rob and Mark Smith (aka Smudge).  After a full day’s bagging with Gill on Christmas Day she produced a superb Christmas dinner for us, pheasant and ham with all the trimmings, a great effort thoroughly enjoyed by hungry baggers.  On 27^th December, I left Strathdon for a brief trip to Skye stopping at the Broadford Backpackers’ hostel then onto Arisaig for another night, sweeping up my last few islands of the year before returning to Cumbria.  Finally, for 2018, on the last day of the year I headed south to Bedford for New Year with my eldest son and his family – bagging a few hills en-route, well why not?

On Broom Hill.  Gill kindly played host to a small gathering of Christmas baggers at her Strathdon home

Bagging is often a solitary experience, but joint days on the hill can be arranged with one or more fellow baggers.

During 2018 I had the pleasure of the company of many like-minded bagging friends; 12 great days in Shetland with Gill Stephens; many trips away and hill/trig-bagging days out from southern England to northern Scotland with Carole Engel; Munro bagging with Steve Lewis and Steve Smith; island bagging in the Outer Hebrides with Rob Woodall, Mervyn Jack, Darren Giddins and many others; Cumbrian benchmarking trips with Roger Templeman; days out on local hills with Rick Salter; Dumfries  & Galloway Tumping with Alex Cameron; the hills of Tiree with Charlie Scott; Lundy and Cornish kayaking with Rob Woodall, and Richard and Denise Mclellan. There is a long list.

A Year in the Life of a Hill Bagger

Part 2 – Island Bagging – a Kayaker’s Perspective

2018 was the busiest year to date for my kayak: from the Outer Hebrides to Dumfries & Galloway to Cornwall, the Humber estuary, the Outer Hebrides and the North Berwick coast.

My kayak is a single-seater Perception Scooter, which is extremely stable and relatively easy to mount in deep water, but does lack the speed and storage capacity of a more traditional sea kayak.  On Harris, not having my kayak with me, I hired a sea kayak and felt a bit out of my comfort zone – what if I was to capsize?  Could I re-mount?  The problem with being an ardent bagger is that sometimes common-sense can take a back seat!  However, the sea state was calm and I mentally risk-assessed it as safe, and completed an 8-mile paddle across the sea loch to bag Sgeotasaigh and three other islands west of Scalpay.

The sea kayak hauled out on Rosaigh, East Loch Tarbert

Little Ross was probably the most intimidating as I had heard reports of rip tides between the island and headland, and as it was a solo trip I had no back-up.  I did this on a day trip in July from Cumbria timing the launch for an hour before high water when I hoped the tide would be running at its slowest.  I had to launch from Brighouse Bay as Ross Bay, although closer, didn’t have any accessible coastline, well it did, but the landowner whilst being friendly enough, wasn’t having any of it!  It proved to be the best part of an hour’s paddle round the headland.  In the event all went well with no sign of any rip tides and an easy landing on shingle at the north end of the island.  After recovering the kayak onto the car roof, I drove further west and re-launched to bag Murray’s Island North in Wigtown Bay.

The Scooter hauled out on Little Ross

The track taken to bag Little Ross

My one kayaking failure of the year took place from Boscastle in Cornwall, a solo trip to attempt a landing on Meachard, Short Island and Long Island.  In the event I could land on none of these due to the swell, and even if a landing had been possible the route to the summit of Long and Short Islands looked daunting.  I did have one further attempt at Meachard later in the day by swimming from Boscastle, but again the swell defeated any attempt at a landing.  This was probably a little foolhardy given my exhausted condition from a week of overheating on Dartmoor and the antibiotics for Lyme disease.  Another occasion where the urge to bag perhaps overtook common sense – something to be wary of!

The intimidating Meachard off the North Cornish coast can be summited - if a landing is possible!

Towards the end of September, I took a short kayak trip across the Humber estuary with Rob Woodall, to visit Read’s Island.  We needed a high tide due to the extensive mud flats, so arranged to meet on the south shore of the Humber before daylight to make the crossing as soon as the water was high enough.  It had been an early start, leaving home in Cumbria at 2.30am, meeting Rob well before sun up at the appointed layby on the south side of the A1077, a little west of the Humber Bridge.  As it transpired the water needed to be quite a bit higher before the mud was sufficiently covered.  So, we sat and waited while a dull and chilly day dawned before changing into wet suits to make the crossing.  Not one of the more inspiring islands I’ve visited - Spurn Head later in the day being significantly more interesting, not that a kayak was needed for that island.

The next occasion the kayak was slid into the water was in the southwest for an attempt on some Cornish islands.  This was a joint trip with Rob Woodall, and Richard & Denise McLellan.  We met at the Coverack hostel on The Lizard in mid-October.  The following morning making a pre-dawn attack on Mullion Island and at the same time made a recce of the intimidating lump of rock, The Vro, which looked as though it would be a serious climb that might be better undertaken at low water by descending the cliffs – sensibly left for another day.  The swell, whilst not great, proved a challenge to landing on Mullion, but all went well.  Later in the day we had a look at The Brisons off Cape Cornwall, but by now the wind and swell had increased with waves crashing into the island ruling out any further kayaking that day.  The following day was much improved and a launch from the surfers’ beach at Gwithian Sands saw us landing on Godrevy Island, but not without some challenges to overcome the surf and rising winds and swell.  But all went well and another island was in the bag.

Approaching the top of Mullion Island - Denise, Rob and Richard

Towards the end of October I decided it was time to attack the islands off the North Berwick coast, having had a boat charter cancelled many times due to poor sea conditions.  I’d been keeping an eye on Magic Seaweed’s swell forecast and it looked as though there might be a window of opportunity where the swell would be manageable despite getting late in the year.  The day dawned bright but cold with a light but niggling wind and I set out from the wide sands of North Berwick.  A straight forward paddle due north for Craigleith then westward with the breeze assisting for Lamb and Fidra saw the three target islands fall.  But after a challenging 2.5-mile paddle back against the swell and cold breeze, which severely chilled all extremities, I felt this was at the limit of my gear and this would definitely be my final kayak trip of the year.

Hauled out on Fidra

The track for Craigleith, Lamb and Fidra

In summary 2018 was a bag-fest.  I spent 269 days out there bagging something or other – hills, islands, trigs or benchmarks - and 178 nights away from home on bagging trips.  The tale of the tape doesn’t always produce the winner, but 2018 was my most prolific bagging year to date with 1,422 hills visited, 113 islands, and over 2,300 miles walked.  With that tally I managed to end the year top of the leader board in 3 categories on the Hill-bagging web-site, exceeding previous totals by any bagger in any previous year in those categories.  I also logged just over 900 trigs and almost 600 benchmarks.  Definitely a busy year with numbers I’m unlikely to better – although 2019 is shaping up well….

Jon Glew