I Have Climbed Highest Mountains

The news that three walkers have provided measurements which make Mynydd Graig Goch in Wales slightly higher than 2000 feet, thus designating it as a mountain, makes one wonder if perhaps they should get a life. However, it would seem that there are those for whom such classifications are important. And the Ordnance Survey is prepared to change its maps to reflect the discovery of two and a half feet that bring Mynydd GG into the mountain range, so to speak.

Until reading all this, I have to confess that height as a determinant of a mountain or not had never quite entered my consciousness. It is the sort of pointless thing that would fill a school geography lesson, along with oxbow lakes; perhaps it did, but I must have had a note from my mum that day. A mountain, I had always thought, was, well, a mountain; you just knew it was - somehow. Locally though, this is not a matter without some relevance. Mallorca has mountains, so we are told, but does it? It all depends, it would appear, on the height. Unfortunately, the local names don't help in the regard.

Both Alcúdia and Pollensa have imposing singular elevations - the Puig Sant Martí at the back of Bellevue in Alcúdia and the Puig María that rises above Pollensa town. Both are commonly referred to as mountains. But the names belie that status. A "puig" is a hill, not a mountain. It had occurred to me that "puig" might have some association with the English "peak", but there is another Catalan word that is more similar - "pic", which does indeed mean peak. So puig is hill, as also is "turó", which sounds vaguely like the word "tor". Whatever, the high rises above the towns are not mountains, as such.

This might seem all clear enough until one gets to the question of the Sierra de Tramuntana. The sierra, taking its name of course from the Ford Motor Company, which bequeathed other names to geography - Granada and Capri, for example - means mountain range. And yes, one does refer to the Tramuntana mountains. However, the highest elevation in the Tramuntana, and therefore Mallorca, is the Puig Major, which stands at 1445 metres, or 4740 feet, well above the classification that the Welsh, at least, insist upon, and also the Scots who reckon a mountain is something higher than 3000 feet. So there should be little debate. The Puig Major is a mountain, but it isn't because it's a hill - a puig. The Catalan for mountain is "muntanya". Nowhere does it say Muntanya Major.

Despite the apparent contradictions in terminology, there is one thing that makes for a mountain; it's sheer imposing nature. Puig Sant Martí is 235 metres (770 feet), Puig María is higher at 330 metres (1082 feet). Neither would be a mountain, under the Welsh scheme of things. However, both so dominate the landscape that it is hard not to conceive of them as being mountains, even if they aren't actually that high. There is also the not insignificant propaganda of the brochures and gushing websites. These will typically wax lyrically about the "mountainous" terrain of the island, which is true - by height classification - in certain instances; but not all. "Hilly" doesn't have quite the same resonance or romance. So mountains they are by means of marketing.

Whatever the real designation, there is one question that remains - how on Earth do you pronounce "puig"? I've never known and tended to believe that my way, which makes the word sound like a public schoolboy who wubbles his r's - "you dashed pwig" (as in prig) - is almost certainly wrong. Tell you what - stick to mountain.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Pink, "So What" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJZDsJ8UU64). Today's title - first line of one of their finest.

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