My passion for the mountains began through Scouting. As a Cub Scout, I first visited the Lake District over Easter 1976—a trip that sparked a lifelong love of the hills. From that moment on, walking became a constant thread in my life, taking me across the length and breadth of the UK and further afield to the Alps and the Himalaya.
A decade ago, I set out to bring greater structure and ambition to that passion. Rather than simply walking the fells, I began systematically completing recognised hill lists—starting with the Wainwrights and progressing through the Outlying Fells, Birketts, Nuttalls and Simms. Having completed a full round of English and Welsh mountains, I returned my focus to the Lake District, where I went on to complete the Synges.
My current work centres on a more comprehensive challenge: documenting every recognised hill and mountain from established “bagging” lists across each of the UK’s 15 National Parks. I refer to these collectively as The Definitive Lists© of the National Parks of the United Kingdom. Over the past 12 months, this has included completing all 1,045 summits in the Lake District National Park and all 200 summits in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Alongside this, I extended the same “Definitive Lists” approach to all English and Welsh mountains over 2,000 feet (600 metres), identifying and completing a total of 921 summits—culminating on Tryfan North Top.
In July 2020, I completed the English Dodds and Deweys, meaning that every English summit over 500 metres has now been climbed. I am currently working towards the Welsh equivalents and, closer to home, aiming to summit every hill in the historic county of Yorkshire.