A few people have asked about whether we are changing our list of Donalds to also include the Donald Tops.
If you are not a keen bagger then you should skip this thread! For those who are into the lesser lists, the background is that in the Donalds lists kept by the SMC there are 89 Donald Hills (which is what we currently list on Walkhighlands), and 51 Donald Tops, that are not considered separate enough to be classed as Donald Hills. This has not changed.
When we were asked to add the Donalds by various users, most wanted us to list the 89 Donald hills, though a couple preferred something called the New Donalds, which include some but not all the Donald Tops
We went with the majority view of having the Donald Hills, partly because the Donalds already have generally less separation than any of the other hill lists, and so having more meant climbing some really minor bumps.
So what's changed? The Scottish Mountaineering Club have something called doing a 'Full House', which means climbing all their lists (Munros, Munro Tops, Corbetts, Grahams and Donalds). It's an amazing bagging acheivement, and I know several WH members have done it
The SMC have recently announced that to complete the Full House you also need to have climbed the Donald Tops (but not Corbett or Graham Tops which they don't list). Fair enough, but they also say they now regard 'a round of the Donalds' (no qualifier) as including both the Donald Hills and the Donald Tops. This isn't consistent with the Munros, as for most people including SMC a round of Munros is a round of the Munros mountains and not the Tops, even though the Tops are explicitly part of the Full House. Also the Corbett and Graham categories have the most separation and therefore have by far the more significant unlisted summits, but although lists of tops in those height bands exist there seems less interest in those from the SMC. For clarity an SMC Full House also doesn't include any hills under 2000 feet (like the Sub 2000s). The SMC keep a list of those who have done the Donalds, and have said they will not delete the names of those already on the list that have climbed the Donald Hills but not the Donald Tops, but you need to do both to get on it in future.
A Full House is an SMC thing - it just means all the lists they include (so Munro Tops and Donald Tops but not Corbett Tops or Graham Tops). There are many more hills on the lists on Walkhighlands (e.g. Sub 2000s), but it's a different set of lists and doesn't include all the same hills. That won't change whatever is decided about Donalds.
The question here is whether the Donalds as listed on Walkhighlands should continue to be what Percy Donald's list regarded as being a separate Donald Hills, or whether it should also include what he regarded/ the Donald list has as Donald Tops.Obviously many people are already intent on a round of these hills and is it fair to change goalposts on them?
Why you might think we should keep the list the same- Although we keep our lists up to date with the various resurveys etc resulting in an odd hill changing now and then, it feels a bit like shifting the goalposts on people part way through their long-term objectives to suddenly make a wholesale change one of our lists to include another 51 extra minor summits.
- Keep consistent with the other lists that don't include Tops.
Why you might think we should change our Donalds list to include Donald Tops as well as separate Donald Hills- The downside is that even if you climb all the Donald hills as we list them on Walkhighlands the SMC won't regard you as having done a 'round of the Donalds'.
If there is a majority of those interested in Donalds who want us to change our Donalds to include both categories of summit then we're happy to do that. What we don't want to do is split the list into two separate categories as it would just take up too much profile space (and be confusing /offputting for those with a lower level of interest in lists).
So there are a couple of options - if you are a Donald-er, then vote away
