2014 Targets

Lists to tick

Entering 2014, I am doing a lot of work behind the scenes to work out walking routes to tick the remaining summits of the lists I have chosen to pursue in my now post-Wainwright days.

I have decided to aim for completion of the English and Welsh 2000-foot mountains, these being the Nuttalls.  However, there are a couple of historic lists of 2000-footers, particularly the Bridge list and Buxton & Lewis list.  As you would expect, there are a lot of common summits across all three lists, but there are a few summits on the two older lists that are not Nuttalls.  I have chosen Bridge and Buxton & Lewis as opposed to other similar lists for two reasons; these classifications are included in the DoBIH spreadsheet and many of the 2000-foot completions on the LDWA website are for these lists.

Another long-term goal is completion of the TRAIL100 summits.  Most of my remaining TRAIL100s are in Scotland but those left in England and Wales are also Nuttalls and so should be simple to tick.

The WASHIS is a Welsh-specific list of 600-metre mountains.  Most of these are also Nuttalls and the extra 5 that aren’t can be ticked with a little extra effort.

In the long term

If my sums are correct, I have 324 summits to tick to complete all of the above lists.  The summits range from the very far north of Scotland to Dartmoor and I have set myself a goal of 10 years to finish them.  It’s not very ambitious but it does allow a large contingency for whatever life events arrive in the coming years.

Of 444 Nuttalls I have 245 left to tick; of the 100 TRAIL summits, I have 54 unticked.

This year

In simple numbers, 10% of my remaining summits based on my 10-year plan seems reasonable.

Which means I’m aiming for 33 summits, amongst which should be 25 Nuttalls and 6 TRAIL100s.

Looking at a map of my unticked summits, I’d like to mop up the more isolated groups of English mountains this year.  These are :

• the Cheviots                  (6 summits)
• the Peak District           (3 summits)
• the Malverns                 (1 summit)
• Dartmoor                      (3 summits) 

In addition, one English summit that I’d like to climb is Pillar Rock.  Strictly speaking, it is beyond the reach of ordinary hillwalkers but my previous rock-climbing experience gives me the confidence that this otherwise tricky summit shouldn’t pose me too many problems.

Keep an eye on my forthcoming blog entries and I’ll let you know how I’m doing.