Munroists, Toppists, Furthists and more

[Charts corrected 13 December]

Having compleated the Munros last year and the Furth Munros last week, I was curious to know what company I was in. I turned to the SMC website and fired up my Excel spreadsheets. But I am a data fiend, so I quickly got drawn deeply into the world of Munroists, Toppists, Furthists and more.

Below I offer answers to such exciting questions as: how many people have climbed all the Furths? How many have climbed all the Furths and all the Corbetts? What is the typical gap in years between compleating the Munros and the Furths? Has anyone bagged all the SMC lists?

Of course there is the usual caveat that not everyone who compleats these lists necessarily logs the information with the SMC… And I also had to remove two Munroists before starting the analysis: #284 (the Unknown Munroist) and #666 with its blank data!

Overall popularity

Munros compleations grew rapidly during and after the 1980s and appear to have settled at around 250 per year – with 2001 and 2010 as notable dips, perhaps due to the impact of 9/11 and certainly due to the impact of the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull.

Ireland's Munros - an outline for Furth-baggers

Ireland boasts 13 delectable Furth Munros - a Furth being a mountain outside, or ‘furth’ Scotland but high enough to have been a proper Munro were it lucky enough to reside within Scotland. See Dave Hewitt’s account of the history of this term here; broad discussion here.

Based on my visit earlier this week, this post aims to help the Furth-bagger with the summary logistics, a taste of the routes, and pointers to detailed route descriptions as they are not included here.

My favourite Irish Furths are Brandon Mountain with its commanding views over the sinuous and convoluted coastline of Dingle; and the 10 summits spiking along the sometimes knife-edged ridgeline of Macgillycuddy’s Reeks (a ridge that invites you to risk traversing its full length in one go despite the fact that the preferred 10 hours of visibility does not fit into the 8 hours of sun up in early winter).

The Faha Ridge en route to Brandon Mountain: