{"id":89,"date":"2012-10-13T15:43:21","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T15:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bob-kerr.com\/?page_id=89"},"modified":"2012-10-30T21:31:19","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T21:31:19","slug":"the-scottish-munros","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bob-kerr.com\/?page_id=89","title":{"rendered":"The Scottish Munros"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Height: All mountains greater than 3000ft (914.4m)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Location: Throughout Scotland<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Munros are mountains in Scotland with a height of over 3000ft (914.4m).\u00a0They were named after Sir Hugh Munro who produced the first list of these hills in his tables of 1891.<\/p>\n

Munro did not set any measure of topographic prominence by which a peak qualified as a separate mountain, and much debate has since taken place over how distinct two hills must be if they are to be considered as two separate Munros.<\/p>\n

The Munros of Scotland are known for presenting challenging conditions to hikers, particularly in winter when a number of fatalities are reported each year. Nevertheless, a popular practice amongst hillwalkers is “Munro bagging”, the aim being to climb all of the listed Munros.<\/p>\n

Currently there are recognised to be 282 Munros.<\/p>\n

Ascent<\/strong><\/p>\n

Compleation date: 18th December 2004<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I scaled my first Munro, or started my Munro bagging career, there were 277 Munros and I did not have any intentions to complete them all.\u00a0My first Munro was Ben Lomond on 19th May 1990. This was part of an organised hillwalk by the Marr College<\/a> Hillwalking Club.<\/p>\n

Over the subsequent years at secondary school I progressively reached the summit of various Munros, including Ben Nevis<\/a>. By the time that I went to the University of Aberdeen<\/a> I had ascended about 50 Munros.\u00a0Upon joining the Lairig and Exploration Societies at the University I became very Munro-focussed in my hillwalking – if it wasn’t a Munro then I wasn’t interested.<\/p>\n

During my time at university, there was a revision to the Munro list and the total number of Munros was increased by 7 to 284.\u00a0Thankfully I had already been up most of the additions so that was a good arm chair Munro bagging session.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After university, I progressively continued to bag Munros but it was involving more and more travel to pick up new ones that I had not ascended before.\u00a0When I returned from my mountaineering expedition to Greenland<\/a> in June 2004, I did not know what I was going to do with myself for the rest of the year and, having only 46 Munros left to do, I set myself a hard target of finishing the Munros before the year was out.\u00a0It was just feasible but there\u00a0were few\u00a0contingency days built in so I had to go out in all kinds of really foul weather.<\/p>\n

On Saturday 18th December 2004, at the age of 26,\u00a0I completed my 284th Munro to become Munroist 3326<\/a>, one of only about 0.005% of the UK population that have completed this grueling challenge.<\/p>\n

My round of the Munros was completed on Ruadh-stac Mor on Beinn Eighe in Torridon.\u00a0For my \u201cfinal\u201d Munro,\u00a0I was joined by a group of friends to celebrate the achievement.\u00a0The ascent was in full winter conditions and the final walk out was in the snow and dark – definitely a quality mountain day.<\/p>\n

The Munros have given me many memorable experiences and a few scary moments as well.<\/p>\n

Some of the frightening experiences include:<\/p>\n