Bagging hills is a common approach people take to hill walking. This involves picking a list of hills or mountains and ticking them off or ‘bagging’ them. Many people in Scotland choose Munros, in England the Wainwrights. But there are many other lists to choose from, each with their own criteria to include a hill – height, prominence, or region to name a few. Marilyns are a fairly straight forward list requiring a hill to have 150m of prominence, no minimum height, and from anywhere in Great Britain.
For me, Marilyns offer several good reasons to takle them:
- 150m prominence means some are really small, and can be completed when time is short, or the weather is poorer.
- Some areas have several clustered together and allow for days of multi Marilyn bagging with much less effort than say a multi-Munro day.
- Often a Marilyn has a surprisingly good view over their surroundings.
- if you’re an avid list bagger then many Marilyns also appear on other lists… yes some hills are a Marilyn Munro!
March was an ideal time to get out on some small Marilyns, and since we could not leave Aberdeenshire there were a few ideally placed to bag in a day. A run up towards Huntly led us to a total of 5 Marilyns bagged in the area with a good variety of terrain.
The bin of Cullen was the highlight of the day, with fantastic views out to the coast.
The knock near Huntly was rough with very little path but a very short steep sided hill meant the ordeal to the summit took little more than 30 minutes.
Next time you’re looking for something different, easier, or in passing, a small Marilyn might just be the hill to climb. Walkhighlands lists all smaller Marilyns (lower than 2000ft) on their site so finding a walk description there is an ideal place to start.