Munros are no longer our bag

Published on Tuesday 26 May 2009 22:02

THE traditional practice of Munro bagging – climbing all Scotland's highest peaks – has started to go out of fashion, research suggests.

A study by a team from Durham University has found that even though Munro bagging is perceived to have increased in popularity, numbers of people ticking all 284 peaks off the list is actually falling.

The number of people completing the mammoth task peaked in 1999 at 247. Since then it has levelled off, averaging 204 between 2000 and 2008.

Paul Ormerod, co-author of the report, said: "It's presented as becoming more and more fashionable, but the people who are seriously intent on completing the whole set seems to have plateaued over the last ten years."

He does not think climbing mountains has become unpopular, just that there are other ways people also enjoy spending their time. He said: "If you drive along on a Sunday and suddenly see a cluster of cars you know that's where a Munro is.

"More and more people are actually enjoying the Scottish outdoors, but maybe they are not as dedicated to completing the whole set (of Munros].

"There are more things to do now. You can do mountain biking, kayaking; there's a whole range of things that, going back 20 years, were not available on the same scale."

Mr Ormerod said another once-popular challenge has gone even more dramatically out of fashion – that of bagging Munro "Tops". These are peaks that, like Munros, are above 3,000ft, but which are not separate mountains.

"They have clearly gone out of fashion," he said. "Only eccentrics complete them now."

He thinks the research adds weight to the idea that we generally copy other people when it comes to popular culture.

He added that a similar methodology could be used to analyse any market, to "identify how the strength of social influence, of imitating the choices made by others, evolves over time".

Dr Alex Bentley, also from Durham University, said whereas some fashions come and go quickly, others, like Munro bagging, change gradually over generations. "Something like the fascination with Crocs (shoes] is everywhere and then it has gone," he said.

"Then there are long-term changes. People going to pubs has been declining for the last decade and people buying beer at the supermarket has been increasing. That's a long-term generational change.

"The Munros have been a long-term sustained activity over the generations, but then there's this subset, the Tops, that was more of a flash in the pan.

"So it's an interesting way to look at the two phenomena."

The research is published in the Scottish Journal of Political Economy.