Marhofn 183.10 - May 2008

Baglogs: Cellar Field:

Baglog: Andy Tomkins (+51=217)

The hillwalking year didn't start for me until the middle of April, after moving to Liverpool from the relative Marilyn desert which is region 42. The spring was spent exploring region 36, since these hills are the closest to my new home. June brought me to my first Marhofn dinner, where it was good to meet some fellow mad baggers. A wet week was spent in Morvern and Ardnamurchan at the beginning of July, where nothing higher than Beinn nam Beathrach (582m) was climbed due to the weather. A week in the Cairngorms followed in August, regions 30, 35 and 36 in autumn, and trips to the Lake District and Sussex in December. The highlights included:

• Climbing Longridge Fell (36) on a sunny, blustery May afternoon after it had been raining heavily all morning. The views were crystal clear to the Yorkshire Dales and Forest of Bowland.
• Beinn a'Bhuird, my 200th Marilyn (although I didn't realise it at the time), on a hot summer day with views as far as Caithness, Sutherland and Orkney.
• Ingleborough and Whernside on a wet October day, which gave me a strange feeling of achievement.
• Beinn Dearg (1B) and Morven (21A) climbed with Chris Watson after the Baggershambles event in November. Beinn Dearg was a delightful undulating ridge walk and Morven was my first snowy hill climbed for 20 years.
• St Sunday Crag, Fairfield, and Seat Sandal, climbed on a cold day with a freezing gale-force wind. The hills were covered in a beautiful layer of hoar frost, although the icy paths were a potential skating rink. I passed a woman who had slipped over and badly injured herself. This was my first trip to the Lake District since 1987.
• Ditchling Beacon, Firle Beacon and Cliffe Hill, my 49th, 50th and 51st Marilyns of the year. They were climbed on a sunny day with fog below the hills and the Downs sticking up out of the fog. Cliffe Hill was golfer-free, as I reached the trig point at sunset.

Plans for 2008 include further summits in regions 34 and 35, and inroads into regions 27 and 28. I have become interested in climbing mountains with 600m prominence, and would like to get to 50 worldwide by the end of 2008. I have one left in Wales, three in England and quite a lot in Scotland. I intend to bag a fair few in Norway this summer, which should help me increase my total from its current 32.