Saturday 30 September 2017

Prominence and a new mountain characteristic

Most modern mountain lists are defined by three characteristics –

  • geographical boundary
  • height
  • prominence

I have talked about the Nuttalls in my previous two blogs so that list seems appropriate to use to demonstrate the point.  For a summit to be classed as a Nuttall, it must;

  • be located in either England or Wales
  • have its summit at or above 2000 feet
  • have a prominence of at least 50 feet – later amended to 15 metres (49.21 feet)

Of the 3 criteria, the least known and understood is prominence.  So what is it?

Otherwise known as topographic prominence, Wikipedia defines it thus:

“prominence characterizes the height of a mountain or hill's summit by the vertical distance between it and the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it. It is a measure of the independence of a summit.”

In other words, if you were at a summit and wanted to travel to higher ground, what is the least possible descent you would have to make on that journey.  The amount of vertical descent is a summit’s prominence.

Prominence gives an indication of how far a summit is above its surroundings and becomes more obvious on steep sided hills and mountains; it is far less obvious when on plateaus or rolling terrain such as the Peak District or the Pennine hills.

Prominence-based lists use a fixed figure in their criteria; 15 metres for Nuttalls, 150 metres for Marilyns and 500 feet for Corbetts and Grahams.

But there is no proportionality considered when prominence is used.  For the Nuttalls, a 2000 foot summit with 15 metres of prominence has the same validity of classification as a 3000 foot summit with the same prominence, despite the lower summit being 50% more prominent if you compare prominence to height.  It could be argued that the 3000 foot summit is “less” prominent.

I’ve thought about this for a number of years and I don’t know whether I came to the subject independently or whether I had subliminally remembered an article I had previously read.  However it happened, a mountain chronicler called Eberhard Jurgalski had written (in 2001) about this much earlier than I had thought about it.  He had considered “proportional prominence” and called it “orometrical dominance” which is known more simply as “dominance”.  So despite the sensational title of this blog, dominance as a mountain characteristic isn’t that new – it’s just not used much!

Because dominance is a proportion of a summit’s height, it is a value that is written as a percentage.  The maximum value of dominance is 100% and this would apply to the highpoints of individual land masses, usually islands.

For instance, Scotland’s highpoint Ben Nevis has a height of 1345 metres and a prominence of 1345 metres.  Divide the height by the prominence and you get a result of 1, which expressed as a percentage is 100.

Other selected examples of dominance are…

Scotland’s second highest summit, Ben Macdui – dominance 72.57%
Scotland’s third highest summit, Braeriach – dominance 35.57%
Wales’ highpoint Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) – dominance 95.76%
England’s highpoint Scafell Pike – dominance 93.25%

I am not aware of any mountain lists covering the UK (or anywhere else) that uses dominance as a criterion for selecting summits.  But now I’m going to create one!

Friday 29 September 2017

What is a Mountain?

And therein lies the sixty-four thousand dollar question!

I’m sure that many words have been written about the physical characteristics of mountains, such as location, elevation, prominence or shape.  Perhaps the answer is as philosophical as much as it is physical and just to add confusion, what is the difference between a hill and a mountain?

To keep things simple, I’m going to restrict myself to the “mountains” of England and Wales.

The website of the Long Distance Walkers Association maintains a register of those who have completed the “the 2000ft Mountains of England & Wales”.  The LDWA gives details of a number of hill lists that contain “mountains” and you can be included on the register if you have completed just one of those lists (within certain restrictions).  Quite a few have completed more than one of the lists but out of all who have completed at least one, over 70% have completed the Nuttalls.

John and Anne Nuttall had their two volumes of “The Mountains of England and Wales” published in 1989 and their list has probably become the nearest to being definitive.  They defined a mountain as being at least 2000 feet high and having a prominence (I’ll talk about that in the next blog) of at least 50 feet.  And of course it has to be in either England or Wales and as the Isle of Man is not part of England (or Wales!), Snaefell was excluded from the list.

Whenever a mountain is surveyed and found to be higher than 2000 feet, the British press inevitably publish a headline similar to “New mountain found!”  There is no official minimum height criterion for defining a mountain but it has generally become accepted that anything under 2000 feet doesn’t make the grade.  The press, the Nuttalls and the LDWA all seem to agree.  Even the Ordnance Survey makes reference to 2000 feet as the benchmark in some of its blogs.

There is some dissention however.  Some people regard 1000 feet as the minimum limit and Emily Rodway – the current editor of “The Great Outdoors” magazine – says in the September 2017 issue that a mountain is “usually defined as a hill over 600 metres” which is of course a metric alternative.

But I was born into a world of feet and inches which means that I’m going to take the imperial view of the majority.  So 2000 feet it is!

As mentioned earlier, there are quite a few lists of “mountains” in England and Wales so which should I aim to complete?

I’ve said in previous blogs that I’m working my way through the Nuttalls which I regard as the definitive list.  But to be pedantic and for the sake of a comprehensive completion, would it be reasonable to complete ALL of the lists?  It may be taking things a bit too far as a number of the summits are mere moorland bumps, but it would be a challenge to give it a go.  According to the LDWA register there has only been one person who has completed all of the 2000 feet England and Wales lists.  By aiming for all of the summits on all of the lists, there is no doubt that extra effort would be required but I’d be compelled to visit some remote corners of the country and my navigation skills would inevitably improve!

Although the lists are different, there is a lot of overlap between them with many summits appearing on most of the lists, which means that there aren’t that many less-favoured summits that will need to be visited.

So that’s the decision made, I’m aiming for them all!

Thursday 28 September 2017

The Lure of the List

I’ll admit it, I do like a good list!

To do lists, ticklists and spreadsheets all feature prominently in my day-to-day life, both professionally and personally.  But it is as a hillwalker that they have the most influence.

Most hill lists fall into one of two types; those that are fixed with no possibility of additions or removals and those that define the criteria for inclusion.  For those lists of the second type, there may be the possibility of hills being added to or removed from the list, mostly as a result of ever more accurate surveys.

The hill list that started it all for me is the Wainwrights; 214 fells in Lakeland that were the focus of my hillwalking ambitions for 30 years.  Alfred Wainwright gave no clear definition for his list and although he outlined (literally!) the geographical area to be considered by using the outer limits of the major lakes, he had to tweak the resulting area by extending the boundary to include Caldbeck and Longsleddale.  His list of 214 fells was purely his personal choice and the beauty of the list is that it will never change.  His inclusion of Mungrisdale Common still perplexes many but Andy Beck gives a plausible explanation in his superb book “The Wainwrights in Colour”.

After completing the Wainwrights and to fill my aspirational void, my attention has turned to the TRAIL 100 and the Nuttalls.

The TRAIL 100 is a list of “the finest UK mountains” and like the Wainwrights, it is a fixed list.  There are many of the 100 that are absolutely worthy of inclusion but, having trudged up to the top of Clougha Pike in Lancashire, I wondered whether those that compiled the list were trying to include a geographical balance.

Many of the modern hill lists have specific criteria and the Nuttalls is one of those.  There is a clear definition of location, height and prominence which when combined, produce a popular list for hillwalkers.  There have been occasional changes to the list as a result of surveys of some of the more marginal inclusions (and exclusions) and in the last ten years there have been ten hills added to the list and six that have been removed.  To their credit John and Anne Nuttall (who original compiled the list) welcome the accuracy and have no hesitation in amending their list if a change is required.

Another hill list with specific criteria is the Donalds but its definition is convoluted.  If you want an intellectual challenge you could do worse than to try to fully understand the reasoning; I’ve never properly got to grips with it!

Probably the most famous hill list is the Munros, mountains in Scotland that are at least 3000 feet high.  Sir Hugh Munro never gave specific criteria but there appears to be a broad consensus reached by the Scottish Mountaineering Council which oversees the list and any changes; Robin N Campbell’s book “The Munroist’s Companion” has some interesting reading on the subject.  But in recent years when surveys have judged that mountains previously thought to be higher than 3000 feet actually aren’t, the SMC has been reluctant to comment and officially update their list.  I suspect the reasons are political but it is frustrating that such a respected organisation fails to act on accurate (as confirmed by the Ordnance Survey) data.

You may have concluded by now that there are many hill lists, each with their own characteristics.  One (or more) can be picked up off the shelf in the form of the many guidebooks available and there is likely to be one that suits your own ability and ambition.  A lot of lists claim to include “mountains”, but what is a mountain?

That’s something I’ll explore in my next blog.

Sunday 3 September 2017

Striding Edge

I organised this club walk and chose an old favourite and a Lakeland classic – Striding Edge is probably the most famous English ridge and scramble, offering a challenge for the novice and straightforward enjoyment for the experienced.

Place Fell from Little Cove

The steep path through Little Cove from Glenridding to Birkhouse Moor got a big chunk of the day’s ascent out of the way early on and after a refreshment stop we followed the path up to the Birkhouse Moor ridge.  I turned left to claim the north top and then followed the group over the highpoint and then over the south top and extreme south top.  Both of those were quite insignificant and I suspect their true summits lay on the south-east side of the wall, but I’m claiming them anyway.

Helvellyn from Birkhouse Moor North Top

Striding Edge from Birkhouse Moor

Helvellyn above Red Tarn

Catstycam

From the Hole-in-the-Wall I followed the ridge directly over Bleaberry Crag and met up with the group at the point where the main path joined the ridge, just below High Spying How.  I tackled the easy scramble to this Nuttall summit and wondered whether my previous logging of this top was valid – anyway, it’s definitely ticked now.

Striding Edge

the Dixon memorial

Striding Edge

We all started along Striding Edge ridge and stuck as closely to the ridge as we could, taking in the ups and downs until we reached the “Bad Step”.  A couple of the more experienced of us I guided a couple of the novices from hold to hold and we congratulated ourselves at the bottom as that marked the end of the difficulties.

looking back along Striding Edge
back to Striding Edge

looking back along all of the Edge

the Gough memorial

The easy scramble and walk to the summit plateau was a pleasant end to the day’s ascent and we gathered at the cross-shaped shelter for a rest before taking summit photos.  We carried on past the trig pillar to the top of Swirral Edge and as we descended it the cloud came in and a few spots of rain teased us with a threat of a bigger downpour.  We strolled alongside Red Tarn Beck and it was just as we neared the Glenridding mine that the rain fully graced us with its presence.

Helvellyn trig point

looking up Swirral Edge

Although the walk ended in the wet, we took solace in the White Lion in Patterdale where we took advantage of the hearty menu – the fish and chips or Cumberland sausage Yorkshire puddings are recommended, as is the Thwaites Wainwright ale.

Arenig Fawr

The start of the day was better than the start of the walk!  We convened at the Rhug Estate for early morning coffee before driving to the quarry car park to the north of Arenig Fawr.  Boots on and eight of us set off into the rain, along the road and then up the track towards Llyn Arenig Fawr.

We stopped at the bothy and got chatting to a chap who had cycled in and stayed for a couple of nights.  It’s not the most welcoming of places and any plans that I had to perhaps stay there at some point in the future quickly dissipated.  An early lunch set us up for the ascent of the Y Castell ridge.

The group took aim for the summit of Arenig Fawr but I stayed right and headed for Moel Llechwedd reaching the cairn and then after following a faint ruined fence to the true highpoint.  The summit of Arenig Fawr was not far away with good ground underfoot leading me to the rest of the group.  The unrelenting mist denied us the views.

Just to prove I was there!

The south top was marked by a small cairn and again I left the group to tick the south ridge top.  Once again, I caught up with the group at the col below Moel Llyfnant which was below the mist and we started to enjoy the views.

Before we started the walk, an “unavoidable bog” had been mentioned and a more apt description can’t be conveyed.  The area of Amnodd-wen was certainly a test of how waterproof footwear was and I don’t think my boots have ever been as wet!

We returned to the café at Rhug where my hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows was somewhat disparagingly described as an “energy drink”!