What is a Munro?

A Munro is a Scottish summit over 3,000 feet — 914.4 metres in new money. There are 282 of them on the Scottish Mountaineering Club’s list, and between them they hold most of the highest, wildest ground in Britain.

The name comes from Sir Hugh Munro, who published his Tables of these mountains in 1891. Before he went through the maps nobody really knew how many 3,000-foot summits Scotland had; the guesses were around thirty. He found nearly ten times that many, and the hobby grew out of it.

Climbing all of them is called “compleating” — the old spelling has stuck. People have been finishing the round since 1901 and thousands have done it since, most over a lifetime of weekends, a few in one continuous walk.

They vary a lot. The Cairnwell is a roadside half-day where you start at a ski centre two-thirds of the way up. The Inaccessible Pinnacle on Skye is a proper rock climb and the one Munro that needs a rope, and for most people a guide. The rest are somewhere in between, so the height on its own doesn’t tell you much about the day you’re in for.