Rob Woodall summits Stac an Armin. Photo: Pete Ellis
A walker from the flatlands of Cambridgeshire has become the first man to complete a round of all 1,556 marilyn hills.
Rob Woodall of Peterborough bagged his final peak on Monday – a sea stack in the remote Outer Hebridean archipelago of St Kilda.
Not far behind the 54-year-old was 66-year-old Cumbrian Eddie Dealtry, who summited Stac Lee about an hour later.
The pair are only people to have made it to the top of the UK’s marilyns, hills with at least 150m prominence.
Woodall, an Anglian Water sewerage computer modeller, ascended his first marilyn in the 1970s. The St Kilda sea stacks, Stac an Armin and Stac Lee, presented the biggest challenges, with their owners the National Trust for Scotland banning landing on the rocky peaks during the summer months due to nesting gannets.
Stac Lee, Rob Woodall's final marilyn, with Stac an Armin to the left and Boreray on the right. Photo: Russel Wills CC-BY-SA-2.0
Sea swells in the winter months make landing on the stacks difficult.
Woodall and others who successfully ascended the 196m (643ft) Stac an Armin and Stac Lee, 172m (564ft), both off the isle of Boreray, used either microspikes or filed-down crampons to gain purchase on the greasy and guano-covered face of the stacks.
The ascent of the two both involved technical climbing. Three other baggers who only need the two stacks to complete their marilyn round made the boat trip out, but were unable to complete the ascents.
The marilyns, back-formed in a jokey word-play on the munros – Scottish 3,000ft mountains – were first detailed in Alan Dawson’s The Relative Hills of Britain book in 1992.
The Angry Corrie editor Dave Hewitt has an interview with Rob Woodall on the Munros website.
Stigofthenest
18 October 2014How many Marilyns have you climbed? - This is an insanely big achievement in my mind.. I'm on a paltry 206 Marilyns.
Charlie Leventon (summitsup)
18 October 2014Rob's achievements in the hills - usually done at some speed and over considerable distance, makes the label 'walker' a stark understatement (all respect to walkers - of which I am one).
Jhimmy
19 October 2014Great achievement! Well done. I've over 300 Marilyns to date, but decided to abandon them many years ago as most seem to be small pimples or bog trots, so there's admiration from me at compleating (sic) them, but no jealousy as I'd never have the heart to do them.
Jon
21 October 2014Well Jhimmy, as over 200 of the Munros are also Marilyns, and so are all the Corbetts and all the Grahams, and as quite a lot of the lower Marilyns, particularly many of the island ones, are fine hills, there are plenty more if you ever have a change of heart. But all Marilyn baggers do find themselves on a lot of bog trots, tussocky moorland, and heather or tree covered nightmares too; an acquired taste.
I'm unlikely to get near completing them, but I've had a lot of good days out on obscure hills, and like a lot of other Marilyn baggers I'm delighted that Rob and Eddie have had the satisfaction of finishing a very tough list on a superb day in dramatic surroundings.
mattcymru
29 December 2014ive only done 8 marilyns (3 this year) spend most of my time on lower hills as so unfit.. but the will is there!
well done to Rob. sea stacks i will probably never do..
ill stick to small hills in north wales for now..