Sunset tripper wrote:I'm pretty sure the number that have done all munros but are not on the list was thought to be 10% at a very high estimate
As one of those who studies the lists and statistics (and has done for years, although less so latterly), the suggestion of 10% extra for unlisted folk is the *low* estimate. Some researchers reckon it's as much as 25% extra, but personally I think that's a bit too high. Goodness knows, really - by definition it's impossible to know - but somewhere in the 15-20% range feels quite likely. I've got a partial list of several hundred unlisted Munroists (if you can have a list of unlisted people!) and one thing that's interesting is that the proportion of women in that - admittedly from a much smaller sample - is about 25% compared with (at the last count) 18% in the main list.
The whole thing is very complicated and vague, though - eg there are several people in the list twice for the same round. That's without even beginning to get into people who maybe haven't done anywhere near a full round but who are listed anyway - eg I know someone who in turn knew someone who basically wasn't much of a hillwalker but who suddenly appeared in the list. My friend's estimate was that they might have done 20-odd Munros. (I'm not saying for a minute that there should be any formal policing and proof of completion required - heaven forbid - just that this kind of thing does appear to happen, perhaps because a round of Munros looks good on the CV.)
Incidentally, the SMC is still very much in charge of the list, and rightly so in my opinion given all the work it's put in down the decades. The "people list" of completers was a Grampian Club thing from about 1959 to 1970 (courtesy of Eric Maxwell, one of the forgotten heroes of Scottish hillgoing), but has been maintained by the SMC since that time. To an extent I agree with Moriarty - doing a round of Munros has become so commonplace (and certainly much easier than say 25-30 years ago) that it's a less notable achievement in broader terms than it once was, although of course very significant for any individual who does it. There was discussion when the people list reached 1000 whether a line should be drawn; clearly that hasn't happened, but there could well still be a case for this, say when the "official" figure reaches 10,000.