2015 was another rather lean year for new Marilyns for me. This was due to a combination of new Marilyns now being quite a long way away for me and moving home. We went onto the market at the end of March. This meant a fair bit of tidying up in house and garden for a few weeks beforehand, several months of having to be on hand for viewings and all the other things that go with selling a house, and then getting unpacked and organised in our new home. The result was that I only managed two multi-day trips in 2015.
One of these was spent near Lochnagar, repeating some Munros and collecting a few outstanding Munro Tops, including one of my last four Murdos, in very windy weather. It was only on my way out, after my second day's walking, that I picked up a note at Spittal of Glen Muick warning that movement might be almost impossible on exposed summits that day. The other was more Marilyn-productive, completing region 6 and making fair inroads on region 7. After a long day near Dunkeld on this second trip, going over Deuchary Hill, Benachally and Creag nam Mial, I can confirm other people's logs online suggesting that getting to Creag nam Mial is hard work. A map-reading mistake meant the last 3km were over trackless, tussocky ground instead of the 1.5km I could have reduced this to if I had been more careful. On reaching what I assumed was a thank-goodness summit, a prominent cairn on a sharp little top, I found that the true summit was 500 metres away over several ups and downs and some awkward walls and fences. It was a rewarding summit when I did get there, with wide views over a big empty quarter, but it had taken some getting to. The trackless 2km westwards out to the track to Loch Ordie felt like at least twice that distance, and I was very pleased when I finally reached the car after a ten-hour day. Unsurprisingly, I had not met another walker that day. Deuchary Hill seems a well-visited spot with good paths all the way, the other two hills much less so.
June, July and most of August saw disappointing weather here in the north of Scotland, with a lot of rain and low cloud. This meant I did not get out very often in these months. From September on, things picked up and I nibbled away at region 3 Marilyns between Glen Coe and Loch Etive, with just two left at the year-end. But I admit that I spent more days visiting Humps, having new ones available in much easier reach than Marilyns now. I added 45 new non-Marilyn Humps to my new Marilyns and had reached 1192 Humps by the end of the year. I have added another three since then, so I can make out the door into the Hump Hall of Fame not too far away now.
I had some excellent days out in the year. Oddly enough, one of my finest views was off little 163m Hump, Meall Dearg, near Achiltibuie, in the early evening after an earlier and longer walk over Beinn an Eoin and Sgorr Tuath that day. The sweep of the view out over the Summer Isles, across The Minch, to the Western Isles, across Fisherfield, Torridon and Coigach over a silver sea was breathtaking. Bigger is not always better, as so many hillwalking writers have said.
I hope that 2016 will see some progress towards completing the mainland Marilyns north of the Highland Boundary Fault. I have 47 outstanding now, all but seven of them in distant parts of region 19.
