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 5th 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.
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| Rest Dodd summit cairn |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 27th 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?
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| The Scooter hauled out on Little Ross |
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Hauled out on Fidra |
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| 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
