Monroe Bagger

The next stop was Aberdeen, on the coast of northeastern Scotland. Before I talk about the activities there, I have to thank my friend Clara’s sister Marianne for her outstanding hospitality while I was there. Marianne picked me up from the train station and let me stay in her flat, as well as tag along with her and her friends (Mary, Fiona, Morag, Mike and Steven) into the hills for a weekend outing as part of celebrating Mary’s birthday. The outing was awesome. We got up early Saturday morning, drove about an hour outside the city, then got onto mountain bikes to ride a few miles into the hills. It has been years since I have spent much time on a bike, so my but is still sore. Once we got to areas that we couldn’t ride anymore, we ditched the bikes and started hiking deeper into the hills. After dropping our camping stuff off at some old ruins, the real hiking began…and kept going, and going, and going. This is when I found out about the Scottish tradition of the Monroe Bagger. A “monroe” is any peak that is over 3000 ft. There are a little under 300 of them in Scotland. The challenge is to climb to the top of every one of them in your lifetime. On this trip I was inducted with my first two ‘bags’. I am officially a Monroe Bagger. Good luck to my gracious hosts in their journey to get them all.

After hiking all day (guessing over 20 miles when it was all said and done) we set up camp at ‘the secret howff’. I was honestly sworn to secrecy on when this it at…but since I had no idea where we were, I think the location is safe. It was quaint little stone hut built into the hills that been there for generations. Some eating, drinking, and general merriment followed through the night. Broke camp in the morning and then hiked and biked out in the typical Scottish summer rain.

Sunday night at Marianne’s again, then just enough time to get in some rock climbing along the coastal cliffs in the morning with Mike. Ironically, Mike knew the best option was to go to a regular spot nearby that was called Clash Rodney. It was a great opportunity to get some experience doing trad leading.

A quick drive to the train station early Monday afternoon just in time to catch a ride to Edinburgh.