I sat down with Rob Woodall to talk all things peak bagging. After completing all the Munros, Corbetts and Donalds, Rob progressed to more obscure categories such as HuMPs (hundred metres of prominence) and TuMPs (thirty and upwards metres of prominence), via some long distance hill running rounds (The UK Big Three, the Rigby Round, and his Cuillin Round to name a few).
From an early age Rob was interested in maps, and as one list led to another in 2016 he became the first person to visit all 6190 British Trig points - a huge feat which required negotiation with not a few landowners, and even special arrangements to visit trigs within military facilities.
We chatted about his recent trips to Norway and Turkey, where he has been ascending P1000 mountains (mountains with a prominence of 1000m or more).
In 2014 he became the first person to complete all 1556 Marilyns, UK peaks of P150m (150 metres prominence). The final crux of this endeavor were the 6 summits on the remote archipegalo of St Kilda, two of which - Stac an Armin and Stac Lee - are stacks rising vertically out of the Atlantic and requiring not only calm sea conditions and an approach during October and March to avoid gannet restrictions, but also careful landing stretegies and roped climbing techniques.
Rob has always been a collector - he describes initially 'completing' classic symphonies eg by Brahms, Mahler and Sibelius, then also collecting logs of birds, plants, and long distance hill running rounds, as well as his astromonical number of peaks worldwide in a whole range of categories from TuMPs and HuMPs, right up the Ultras - which have 1500m prominence. I also mention a list of P4000m Peaks - but this is a worldwide list not a South American list as I state.
Further information on these categories and more can be found at www.peakbagger.com, where Rob is ranked #1 worldwide for his P-Index (a calculation designed to indicate the number and quality of prominent peaks the person has climbed).
Rob has even been involved in some work to relocate 'lost' trigpoints, and to find previously uncategoried hills. Many thanks to Rob for giving us a glimpse into his world of prominence and relative peaks.
If you want to buy me a cuppa to help support the podcast, thank you and please do at: https://ko-fi.com/finlaywild
