Moonwalker - Adventures of a Midnight Mountaineer

I HAVE to admit to becoming increasingly irked with the unnecessary use of the F-word when it comes to a certain mountain list.

Not that F-word. Although there is an argument that is tediously over-used by a whole raft of stand-ups trying to disguise the paucity of their material.

No, I'm talking about Fionas, the name adopted in some quarters to refer to Grahams ever since the custodian of that list, Alan Dawson, changed the lower height criteria which preferred a metric line over the imperial system.

Under the latter classification, a Graham was defined as a separate hill between 2,000 and 2,500 feet (762-609.6m) with a drop of at least 150m between each peak and any higher ground. From 1993 to 2014 there were 224 listed peaks but a series of surveys and re-measurements saw that number drop to 219.

The Grahams were named by Alan in memory of the co-creator of the list Fiona Torbet (her maiden name was Graham) who was murdered while on a hillwalking holiday in the West Highlands. Her body wasn't found for nine months, her killer the son of the owners of the B&B where she had been staying.

The Scottish Mountaineering Club were happy to recognise the Grahams list – it still forms part of the Full House – but unlike the Munros and Corbetts they have no real say over its operation as it remains the property of Alan Dawson.

It's not surprising that his decision to go metric and radically alter the parameters caused a quite a stir. After all, there's nothing like an argument over a mountain list to set the outdoors community alight. And this one really did.

But here's the thing. As the owner of that list, he is entitled to do as he pleases with it. And at the end of the day, it's merely a list. Anyone can create their own and call it what they like. If you don't fancy doing some of the more testing Munros for instance, just ditch them and do the rest then give them a new name. No one else will pay attention to it of course, but it's not illegal.

The main difference with that scenario and the Fionas situation is that these hills are still Grahams. They haven't suddenly been dumped or cherry-picked in favour of a completely new list, they all remain in place as part of an updated standard.

By reducing the lower barrier from the 609.6-metre mark to a more rounded 600, 12 hills were added to the list, including three re-instated, taking the total to 231. This caused consternation for a variety of reasons but particularly among those closing in on a Grahams completion who thought they faced having to hang on a bit longer and chase even more hills. They don't.

While acknowledging the changes, the SMC has stated that anyone who completes the 219 hills on the pre-metric list will still be regarded as having done the Grahams for their records. Whether this changes in future is anyone's guess. And apart from personal satisfaction, there's no need for those who have completed to go back and do these extra hills. Every list has been tinkered with over the years but the general rule is that you complete as it stands at the time. 

The confusion came to the forefront again recently when Lorraine McCall became the first woman to summit all 231 Grahams in a continuous round. The BBC report, for example, on her remarkable achievement had to be updated a couple of times: it started off with 224 hills then correctly changed that to 231 while incorrectly keeping the old measurements.

Alan has his reasons for introducing the changes and has been as meticulous as always with his hill measurements. But the main fly in the ointment is that it is unavoidably piecemeal as any alteration is constricted by the Corbetts and Munros figures above. To truly go metric would require these lines to be redrawn and as these are historic lists held by the SMC that's not going to happen.

Munros are mountains over 3,000 ft or 914.4m and the low base for Corbetts is 2,500ft (762m) so changing everything to rounded metric figures would cause all sorts of mayhem. Munros at 950m or 900m, Corbetts at 900m or 850m? The Grahams would then likely have to be 750m. 

Imagine trying to sort that lot out. All these spare mountains kicking around, nowhere to go. But here's an idea. We could gather them all together and create another new list. We could call them the Limbos. Might be worth it just to see the volcanic eruption of fury that followed.

Or we could all calm down and take a step back, starting with the so-called Fionas. So just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, close your eyes, click your heels and repeat: There are no Fionas … there are no Fionas … there …

Now excuse me, I've got these Rowans to get on with.