Rob Woodall became the first person to complete the ultimate hill-bagging list – the Marilyns – when he completed ascents of Stac Lee and Stac an Armin on the St Kilda archipelago on Monday. Also in the group was Eddie Dealtry, who became the second person to complete the Marilyns.
Stac Lee – Photo: Alice Haywood
The Marilyns are the 1,556 British hills to have at least 150m of descent on all sides, based on a list originally drawn up by Alan Dawson in his book, the Relative Hills of Britain, and updated many times since. In the book, published in 1992, Dawson predicted that someone would have climbed all the hills by the end of the century, but it has taken another 14 years for the feat to be completed.
Stac Lee and Stac an Armin are two immense sea-stacks, considerably higher than the famous Old Man of Hoy which is not tall enough to be a Marilyn; videos of an ascent of each are available via the links.
Others hoping for a first need not fear though. To quote Alan Dawson, “… the challenge of the Marilyns is not just the race to be fist. There are lots of other challenges – the first winter ascent, the first to complete the Marilyns in one calendar year or one continuous journey, the first to complete them in alphabetical or height order… and so on.”