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What is a Marilyn?

Written by Fiona

October 14 2016

I have been writing about Jenny’s record breaking walk of all the Marilyns. But do you know what a Marilyn is?

What is a Marilyn?

The chances are you have heard of a Munro – a mountain in Scotland that is more than 3000ft.

There are 282 Munros and a list was first defined by Sir Hugh Munro in 1891.

A Marilyn is a mountain measured metrically, rather than imperially.

The list was first compiled in the early 1990s by Alan Dawson in his book The Relative Hills of Britain.

A Marilyn is a summit with an independent peak – or prominence – of at least 150m.

The name is claimed to have been coined as a pun on the Munro, a Scottish mountain with a height of more than 3,000ft, as in (Marilyn) Monroe.

However, this is unconfirmed and may just be a hill walking myth.

At 1344m, Ben Nevis is the highest Marilyn and more than 200 Munros are also Marilyns due to their prominence.

The Marilyns include all of the Corbetts (Scottish hill of between 2500ft and 3000ft) and Grahams (Scottish hill of between 2000ft and 2500ft).

There are 1218 Scottish Marilyns in total.

Of the 175 English Marilyns, the highest is Scafell Pike at 978m. In Wales, Snowdon at 1085m is the highest of the 158 Welsh Marilyns. There are five Manx Marilyns.

Maol Domhnaich is the smallest Marilyn at 154m located on an uninhabited island to the south of Barra in the Outer Hebrides.

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