Joe Bloggs said:How many ways are there of classifying hill/mountain tops?
1. Munros
2. Corbetts
3. SWEATS (HEWITTS)
That should be HEWITTs (SWEATs). The Sweats are now redundant. The Hewitts is exactly the same list
(by the same person with the same criteria) with errors corrected, plus Ireland added.
Quoted message said:4. Marilyns
5. Wainwrights
6. ?? 7 ?? 8 ?? ? Etc.
There are many different lists, some more popular and well known than others, but not that many
different ways of classifying them. Most lists are based on just two numbers - the height above sea
level and the "ascent" or "drop", which is the height the summit rises above the highest low point
that connects to a higher summit.
For example, the Brecon Beacons are topped by two summits, Pen y Fan and Corn Du. Pen y Fan is the
highest summit in the area, so that qualifies for almost the full height of the mountain (measured
from the low point where it connects to the higher summits of North Wales) while Corn Du, being
slightly lower, is only measured from the col where it connects to Pen y Fan, from which it rises
only 27m. So although Corn Du is 873m high, it only has an "ascent" of 27m, and thus isn't
considered very important (it makes it into some lists but not others).
If you were to climb Pen y Fan First and then Corn Du, you'd only climb 27m, however if you climbed
Corn Du first (from Storey Arms) you'd climb considerably more, then if you climbed Pen y Fan
afterward you'd only climb 41m, but Pen y Fan claims most of the ascent because it's higher. I don't
think this is really fair myself, but no one has yet come up with a better system (although I have
some ideas).
Some lists also consider the distance from nearby peaks, the further away they are the more likely
to qualify, scoring on points for ascent and distance.
Anyway, there's a big division between England and Wales on the one hand and Scotland on the other.
Many lists are exclusively Scottish while others only cover England and Wales. Few lists cover the
whole of Britain, but the Marilyns is one (the only one?) Some lists cover just Wales or just
England (or just the Lake District or just Snowdonia) but most tend to cover England and Wales
together. I don't think there are many lists for Ireland.
The Main Lists for England and Wales are as follows;
1. The Nuttalls. Summits over 2000ft with a 50ft drop (610m - 15m). This seems to be the most
popular list south of Scotland, presumably because of the two excellent guidebooks which are
well written and informative. I'd recommend these books. However, the drop of 50ft is a bit too
small in my opinion, resulting in the inclusion of many insignificant bumps in the list. It's
also a blatantly traditional imperial list, insisting on using feet as the criteria, even
though all our maps are now in metric. nuttalls.comnuttalls.comOpen ↗
2. The Hewitts. Summits over 2000ft with a 30m drop (610m - 100ft). This is a much better list
IMO, since the 30m drop eliminates most of the silly bumps in the Nuttalls list. In fact, this
can be thought of as "The best of the Nuttalls". It's a more traditional list in the sense of
using 100ft for the drop, but sensibly the author (Alan Dawson) has opted to use 30m instead,
since the list is compiled from metric maps. However, he still sticks with the traditional
2000ft even though he calls it 610m, which is clearly a daft number in metric.
bubl.ac.uktablesOpen ↗
3. Table of 500m tops in England and Wales by Michael Dewey. This is a list of all summits between
500m and 609m with a 30m drop. It can be combined with the Hewitts to produce a list of all
summits above 500m with a 30m drop. Although I think that 500m is quite high enough for a summit
to qualify as being significant, I think that the 30m drop is too small for summits of this
height - there are simply too many of them and many are boring IMO. It still includes many good
summits not included in other lists though. Worth looking at. kendal67.fsnet.co.ukkendal67.fsnet.co.ukOpen ↗
4. Bridges Tables. I don't know much about these, but I gather they were the old standard before
the more modern lists above. I think they were also 2000ft with a roughly 100ft drop, but with
distance factored into it as well. The list was divided into mountains and tops. No-one uses
this anymore, it was compiled from older maps which were less accurate.
In addition there are many others, for example, some purely Welsh lists;
5. The Mountains of Wales by Terry Marsh. 600m summits with a 30m drop. This one never really
caught on but it was the first list that I know of which used purely metric numbers, rounding
the silly 610m of traditional lists down to the far more metrically sensible number of 600m.
6. Hill Walking in Snowdonia by E.G.Rowland. This covers just Snowdonia and the qualification is
"A distinct peak of 2000ft or over". How he defines a distinct peak isn't clear, so this is a
fairly arbitrary list, and quite an old one too.
7. The Welsh Peaks by W.A.Poucher. This is more of a photo guide book than a definitive list. The
list is claimed to be of the "Principal Welsh Peaks" but with no definition. All the peaks in
the book are over 2000ft, but he misses out many that occur in other lists. Clearly a very
arbitrary list, but a very selective one so perhaps a high quality list. Probably mostly chosen
for their photographic merit.
There are many more lists available on the internet, for example;
8. Richard Moss's Peak Bagging Page. This page gives some very old lists by FHF Simpson and Edward
Moss. soton.ac.ukpeakbag.htmlOpen ↗
9. Our very own Richard Webb has created a list of "Furth Donalds" which is well worth looking at;
crux.pwp.blueyonder.co.ukFurthintro.htmlOpen ↗
10. Metric Mountains. This is a list of my own covering Wales only. I compiled it due to
dissatisfaction with existing imperial lists. The "metrically sensible" criteria are 600m with
a 25m drop. This is effectively a cross between the Hewitts and the Nuttalls, including some of
the better Nuttalls that the Hewitts miss out, plus a few lower summits. wilderness-wilderness-Open ↗
wales.co.uk/wm/mountains.html
I've recently compiled a new metric mountain list which is even more metrically sensible, 500m
summits with a 50m drop. The lower height causes hills all over Wales to be included (rather than
just the more popular areas) while the larger drop eliminates many boring hills ensuring that only
the best of the lower hills are included. This gives a much better spread of summits throughout
Wales in my opinion. I haven't yet put this list on my site but I plan to do so quite soon,
hopefully in the New Year.
As mentioned earlier, the main list covering the whole of Britain is called the Marilyns, by Alan
Dawson. These are any summits with a drop of 150m of any height, so many small hills are included.
This has the advantage of including hills all over Britain. There are roughly 1500 Marilyns in the
list. bubl.ac.uktablesOpen ↗
I'm sure that others here can give you info on the Scottish lists and the Lake District.
Quoted message said:Then again, why the need to group things together at all?
Why not? Collector's mentality I guess, or list makers' mentality.
Quoted message said:Is it not equally valid to want to climb all hills beginning with the letter 'A',
In a totally arbitrary sense yes, but in any meaningful sense no. At least with summit lists they
are collections of similar things, i.e. high significant summits. All hills beginning with the
letter A would be pretty random in nature and quality. The essence of a summit list is that it tries
to identify the most important or significant summits (although doesn't necessarily succeed).
For the novice to hillwalking, they provide a useful guide to arguably "the most worthwhile"
hills to climb, rather than being left to one's own devices and climbing hills in a totally
random fashion.
Quoted message said:everything within 10 miles of, say Fort William,
That's not such a bad idea, although the borders of the 10 mile radius might be a bit silly. One
approach is to climb all the summits in one well defined area, a local area perhaps, just as a way
of getting to know it really well, but it would be impractical to do that everywhere.
Quoted message said:hilltops with a trig point,
Not such a bad idea, since they are significant in the sense of being part of a visible network.
However, then you'd be bagging trigs rather than hilltops, because many trigs are not on the top
of hills, and many are on small insignificant hills, or even on the coast. There's an awful lot
of them too.
Quoted message said:hilltops without a trig point etc, etc.
Now that's just being silly.
Quoted message said:I know people like to collect things, to tick things off a list, but is this all there is to it?
No, that isn't even the point at all as far as I'm concerned. I don't climb hills to tick them off a
list (I still don't actually have a tick list as such, and I still don't know exactly how many of
each type of hill I've climbed). The whole point is to climb a hill and to enjoy climbing a hill. A
list simply tells you which hills to climb, which may well encourage you to visit areas you might
otherwise never visit. It gives a purpose to hillwalking. Instead of just wandering around randomly,
it give you clear objectives.
And if you don't like the existing lists, create one of your own.
Paul
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