From First Munro to Compleation: How to Record Your Round

Somewhere around your fortieth or fiftieth summit, the question stops being hypothetical: am I actually doing the round? And if you are — even slowly, even unofficially — it is worth keeping a record that will stand up decades later, when summit number 282 comes into view.

What counts as "climbing" a Munro?

The rules are gloriously informal. There is no governing body checking your work; the tradition runs on honesty. The accepted standard is simple: reach the true summit under your own power. Walk, run, scramble or climb — all count. Sitting in the summit cafe car park does not, and most Munroists would say a cable-assisted ascent of the Inaccessible Pinnacle's rock is fine, but being hauled up is a grey area between you and your conscience.

Repeat ascents count once for the round (though many people log every visit — repeat counts are their own quiet pleasure). Climbing a Munro by its dullest route counts exactly as much as the classic line.

What to record

At minimum: the peak and the date. That is all the Scottish Mountaineering Club asks for when you eventually report a compleation. But the records Munroists treasure decades later contain more — the route, the weather, the companions, the dog, the photograph from the cairn. Whether that lives in a notebook, a spreadsheet or a tracker app matters less than recording it while the day is fresh. Our app logs all of it in a few taps on the summit, with dates, photos and conditions attached to each climb, and running totals that update themselves.

Compleation — with an "a"

Finish all 282 and you become a Compleatist — the archaic spelling is a tradition borrowed from Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler and guarded with some affection. The SMC maintains the List of Compleat Munroists, which began with the Reverend A.E. Robertson in 1901 and passed 7,500 names in recent years. Registration is voluntary, free, and done by writing to the SMC's Clerk of the List with your name and final-summit details. Many compleatists save a special hill for last — Ben More on Mull and Ben Hope are popular finales — and mark the day with champagne at the cairn and as many friends as the summit will hold.

Start the record now

The common regret is not starting the log at summit one. If your early climbs are a blur of "I think it was 2014?", reconstruct what you can from photo timestamps and move on — an imperfect record kept from today beats a perfect one that never starts. Print the free checklist, or log your round so far in the app, and let the count take care of itself.