A good hill walking friend once advised me that when lists are put in spreadsheet form they would rarely be complete, as there would always be things that required updating. This same philosophy is applicable to the Mapping Mountains site; however that doesn’t stop me from tinkering in the background and through updates making the various headings more accessible. Therefore, the last year has been one of consolidation with a variety of headings either being updated or fully revamped, so let us now look at 2025 and the Mapping Mountains year in review:
January:
.jpg)
The The Welsh P15s list took over eight years to complete. The totals on completion were 5,431 P15s and 435 P14 subs. As with all hill lists I’ve originated the relevant detail is initially hand written, with eleven hills appearing on each A4 sheet of paper. These are sometimes referred to as the Master List. This Master List is then updated with all relevant detail produced by the Trimble GeoXH 6000 or LIDAR analysis. This gives a data trail of any updates. However, it is time consuming converting a hand written list into an excel spreadsheet and then Google Doc with all relevant details included. When the P15 hills to the Mynydd Twr group were published on Mapping Mountains in May 2021, it was announced that hills would appear in the Google Doc list on an ad hoc basis when their details had been checked either with latest available mapping, LIDAR analysis of a Trimble survey. As of January 2025 these ad hoc hills have started to appear in the The Welsh P15s list available on Mapping Mountains. My plan is now to include all hills that I either LIDAR or Trimble in this list. Therefore, the listing of the The Welsh P15s will slowly be built up week by week.
February:
During February the Stiperstones group of hills in the The Welsh P15s were uploaded to the Google Doc list available to download on the Mapping Mountains site. This is the first group of Welsh P15 hills to be published in their entirety that has been fully Trimbled and/or LIDARed in this list. And by doing so a number of unlisted P20 and P15 hills were discovered.
Apil:
Two of the most important surveys conducted during the year were completed during the month of April; the first to the summit of Carn yr Hyrddod (SN 790 704) and its adjacent summit of Lan Ddu Fawr (SN 787 699), resulting in these two hills now being listed as a Twin Top Dewey. The second survey was Mow Cop (SJ 858 575) and its adjacent rock pillar of The Old Man of Mow (SJ 858 575). The rock pillar is one of the few summits that I have surveyed and yet not been to the top of, with the data ascertained from a measurement offset taken from the top of the trig pillar on the summit of Mow Cop.
May:
.jpg)
May was dedicated toward the The Welsh P15s. Except for the post announcing this and the Monthly Synopsis post published on the last day of the month, every day comprised two posts dedicated toward this list and published at 7.00am and 7.00pm. I’d done something similar when the Mynydd Twr group of hills were originally published in May 2021 and then I promised myself never to do anything similar as the work load is immerse. Well, it seems I don’t learn my lesson. However, I’m definitely not doing anything like this again as by the end of writing and scheduling these articles I was worn out!
June:
During the month of June I visited St David’s and spent six days in the area. Staying at Caerfai and exploring sections of the coastal path and visiting Can Llidi and its rocky summit. During our stay we went on two island trips; the first around Ynys Dewi and the second to the island chain of North Bishop. Before this visit I scrutinised LIDAR, and on my return home I did likewise. All data were then fed into the ever increasing number of hills now available on the The Welsh P15s list published on Mapping Mountains.
September:
On the 3rd September it was announced by Alex Cameron via a post on the Tump forum that the first BritFours Hall of Fame has been published on the Europeaklist website, and that for 2025 and following years, the BritFours will be a hill list adopted by the Relative Hills Society (RHSoc) and published, in a simpler and edited format, in their journal Relative Matters and on their website. The list was announced in March 2018 and is co-authored by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams with relevant changes including reclassifications, summit relocations and name changes being fed into the list published on the Haroldstreet website.
September:
On the evening of 24th December last year I had an early Christmas present as the site views for Mapping Mountains exceeded 1,000,000. In September of this year the overall site views crashed though the 1,500,000 mark. Therefore, in the last nine months Mapping Mountains has had over half a million site views.
December:
The end of 2017 culminated in the 300th consecutive day of posting articles on Mapping Mountains. I’ve continued this trend ever since, with articles being published on every day of the subsequent eight years until the end of 2025. That equates to approximately 3,220 consecutive days of posting articles. I’ve gone a bit bonkers and now need to break this trend, so 2026 will give me a little rest from these daily exertions.
Year’s End:
As mentioned above, another grand sweep for the year was achieved, as a separate post has been uploaded to Mapping Mountains on each and every day of the year. However, next year I plan on revising this daunting schedule, this will enable me to concentrate on other things relating to the hills. The site will continue and articles will still be posted, but instead of every day I’ll probably post every third day. I’m quite looking forward to the rest.
The Year Ahead:
On a personal note next year will be interesting as the last eight years have been dedicated toward publishing daily posts on Mapping Mountains. By posting an article every third day, or something similar, I will free up a substantial amount of time that will enable me to work on other hill related subjects.
Lastly, I would like to thank all those who visit Mapping Mountains for their continued support and I hope the year ahead brings lots of happiness and fun-filled days on the hill.
Myrddyn Phillips (1st
January 2026)
No comments:
Post a Comment