TACit Press

Hill List Completions

Donaldists

Current Donaldists: 137
Last updated: 15 January 2009

Donald completion notes

Listing those who have completed the Donalds requires some explanation. One definition of a Donaldist is someone who has completed the Scottish Mountaineering Club listing of the time, ie has visited all points detailed in Donald's Tables as published by the SMC (initially in their 1935 Journal, subsequently as 'lesser heights' in Munro's Tables). Percy Donald's original criteria defined 'Hills' and 'Tops' and produced an initial split of 86 Hills, 133 Tops (now 89/140).

The modern layout of the SMC list, with subsidiary Tops indented, lends itself to walkers completing only the Hills (mimicking the Munroist listing, where only 16% have climbed all the Tops). Donalds seem more of an entity - almost everyone listed here has climbed everything - but the Munro precedent allows a walker to be regarded as a Donaldist on completion of just the Hills. Three people are known to have done this. Their final summits are listed in parentheses.

A first Donald in parentheses indicates that this was the person's first known Donald, but that there could have been prior ascents. Hence Matthew Moulton's visit to White Coomb on 7/12/68 was almost certainly not his first ascent of any hill in this category (he was aged 57 at the time), merely the first such day noted in his annotated copies of Munro's Tables.

A further definition involves New Donalds, first listed in the 1995 edition of The Grahams and the New Donalds (TACit Press; 2nd edition 1999). Anyone who has climbed all current SMC Donalds will have climbed all New Donalds too. Until 1997, the SMC Donalds excluded the Artney group; hence, before 1997, a Donaldist only qualified as a New Donaldist with the SMC Tops plus the Artney group.

The 137 known Donald completions have been spread over at least 65 summits, not all of them current Donalds. The usual trend of awkward outliers being left until last (see Ben More on Mull for Munros, Beinn an Oir and Clisham for Corbetts) is once again evident.

The list details final Donalds for first rounds only. One hillgoer (who wishes to remain anonymous) has completed three rounds. Three of those named have completed second rounds: the late Ken Andrew (Blairdenon Hill, 26/4/92), Colin Donnelly (Queensberry, date unknown) and Colin Crawford (Beninner, 5/8/06).

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