To walk up a mountain or into the mountains? That is the question

The old arguments are often the most entertaining, and the debate over whether it is better to walk up Scotland’s mountains, à la Hugh Munro, or to walk into them, à la Nan Shepherd, has had hill-goers hurling metaphorical crampons at each other for well over 100 years. In his new book, The Munros: A History (Luath, £11.99), Andrew Dempster tackles the age-old stooshie head-on, acting as a sort of twinkly-eyed referee between those for whom Munro-bagging is a way of life, and those who believe that the idea of “list-ticking” must somehow get in the way of a more meaningful engagement with the wonders of the natural world.

In a lively chapter entitled The Why, the Wry and the Whimsical, Dempster charts the whole, vexed history of this bothy-based back-andforth, and for the most part he does an even-handed job of examining both sides. Despite his best attempts at impartiality, however, it’s clear that his loyalties lie with the baggers.

Given his CV, this is understandable. Not only is he currently finishing off his third Munro round, he has climbed all the Corbetts and Grahams, too, as well as writing a guidebook to the latter. He has also compiled a list of Hughs and has published the first volume of a projected two-volume guide to these sub-2,000 foot summits. At this stage in his career, he’s about as likely to go over to the other side as James Bond.

As Dempster explains in one of several thoroughly researched chapters detailing the exploits of the early Munroists, the first person to climb all the peaks over 3,000 feet identified by Sir Hugh Munro was the Rev AE Robertson, who “compleated” his round in 1901. Not all of the Reverend’s pals were blown away by this feat, however, and one sourpuss commented “Why would you want to climb every hill? No one has kissed every lamppost in Princes Street, and why would anyone want to?”

Springing to Robertson’s defence, Dempster points out that, in contrast to lamppost-kissing, Munrobagging offers “variety, adventure, challenge, freedom and appreciation of beauty.” Fair enough, but what if a group calling themselves the Lamppostists got together and drew up a table of the most scenic streets in Scotland – places where 30 or more lampposts could be kissed in front of an aesthetically pleasing backdrop? Would kissing all the lampposts in these different locations not provide “variety, challenge, freedom and appreciation of beauty”? And could this activity not provide a modicum of adventure, too, if undertaken shortly after pub closing time?

Dempster may seem a little blind to the arbitrary nature of Munrobagging in this instance, but he does acknowledge it elsewhere. In one telling passage, he refers to a letter he received several years ago from a man called Bernard Beal, who wondered why “it does not seem to have occurred to anyone else that all mountains have a second measurable attribute besides height.” Beal was referring to the distance from a given mountain to a higher summit. In his list of 110 British "supersummits", Ben Nevis is at number one, some 480 miles from higher ground in Norway, Snowden is number two, 227 miles from anything bigger, and Ronas Hill in Shetland is number three, being 132 miles from Ward Hill in Orkney. Dempster considers Beal’s system “both logical and fascinating”, and it’s hard not to wonder: if Beal had come up with his list a decade before Munro published his tables, would today’s Munro-baggers all be Bealbaggers instead?

Dempster’s fundamental point is hard to disagree with: that having a list of Munros to climb is “an inducement and encouragement to some, who perhaps would not have ventured out otherwise.”

He lines up various big hitters from the hill-going community to hammer this point home, too, notably Hamish Brown (“Lists are a means to an end and not an end in themselves”) and Chris Townsend (“Collecting summits means collecting experiences.”) But apart from Munro’s lamppost-licking associate, the only voice from the other side comes from “one of Scotland’s finest nature writers, who shall remain nameless... a self-professed hater of Munro-bagging, regarding members of the ‘climb-every-munro-brigade’ as ‘deniers of the greatest of all mountain joys – the joy of being there.’”

Given her centrality to the debate, it’s odd that Nan Shepherd doesn’t appear in this chapter, so it seems fitting to give her the last word here.

In The Living Mountain, she writes: “Given clear air, and the unending daylight of a Northern summer, there is not one of the [Cairngorm] summits but can be reached by a moderately strong walker... Circus walkers will plant flags on all six summits in a matter of fourteen hours. This may be fun, but is sterile. To pit oneself against the mountain is necessary for every climber; to pit oneself merely against other players, and make a race of it, is to reduce to the level of a game what is essentially an experience. Yet what a race-course for these boys to choose!"

It’s hard not to wonder… would today’s Munrobaggers all be Bealbaggers instead?