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The Scottish Mountaineering Club has just published the second
edition of The Corbetts & Other Scottish Hills guide and this hardback
full colour book can only help increase interest in this group of
hills.
This new edition draws on both previous and new authors to provide
fully updated routes and information on all 219 Corbetts - hills
between 2500ft and 3000ft - as well as many other popular lower
Scottish hills.
Despite being viewed by many as more lowly hills The Corbetts &
Other Scottish Hills reveals these hills as being anything but lowly
with some spectacular and striking landmarks among their number
like the Trotternish Hills on Skye and The Cobbler.
The new SMC guide, edited by Rob Milne and Hamish Brown, contains
more than 200 colour photographs, many of which are new and also
has new maps clearly indicating whether hills are Corbetts, Corbett
tops, Grahams (between 2000 - 2500ft) or others.
Since The Corbetts are not as well known as the Munros the introductory
section of the guide is very useful explaining how the list came
into being thanks to keen SMC member James Rooke Corbett.
The Corbetts are in fact more clearly defined than the Munros given
the stipulation that they be "hills of height between 2500ft and
3000ft with a drop of at least 500ft between each listed hill and
any adjacent higher one."
However this formula also throws up some interesting situations,
as explained in the notes section, where two hills are listed as
Corbetts although only one can be as the drop between is insufficient.
"Sgurr a'Bhac Chaolais (south Glen Sheil) and Buidhe Bheinn both
have summit heights of 885m, but the drop between them is less than
the requisite 152.4m to make them separate Corbetts. No one, including
the Ordnance Survey, knows which is higher and hence which one of
the pair should be considered the Corbett summit. A prudent hillwalker
should visit both summits."
The Corbetts is a companion guide to the SMC's Munros book and
as such Scotland is broken down into the same areas as for the Munros
with the obvious addition of Galloway and the Borders as Section
0 and the addition of Section 10a to cover Morvern, Sunart, Ardgour
and Moidart (where there are no Munros).
As with all SMC guides there are useful introductory sections with
notes on issues like access, litter and pollution, bird life and
safety which are just as relevant for seasoned walkers as they are
for people who are new to hillwalking.
The new area maps give a good overview on the first page of each
section and the hill maps in this edition are clear and easy to
follow with some being quite large scale taking up to half a page
in some instances.
All the vital data is given for each hill with the name, height
(in metres), Landranger map number, summit grid reference and translation
given for each and for those readers ticking a list the Other Hills
are marked with an asterix and indexed separately to avoid confusion
with Corbetts.
Hill and route descriptions are clear and concise too with plenty
of points of interest pointed out and for many hills alternative
descents or suggestions to extend the route into a more fulfilling
day out instead of a quick 'tick'.
Like all SMC publications the profits from The Corbetts guide go
to the charity the Scottish Mountaineering Trust - that has given
away more than half a million pounds in grants over the past ten
years.
These include grants for footpath repairs, education and training,
land purchase, rescue equipment and facilities and core funding
for the Mountaineering Council of Scotland. Recent grants have gone
to the John Muir Trust for purchasing the tourist track and summit
of Ben Nevis and to rerouting the footpath on Schiehallion.
When the SMC produce a guide they invariably do it well and it
really is hard to find fault as they cover all the stops from route
descriptions to information on how to reach them.
The only observation I can make is that a few of the pictures are
not reproduced crisply but to be honest this takes little away from
the overall look and attractiveness of The Corbetts & Other Scottish
Hills and I think it could already be on its way to another SMC
bestseller.
Lorraine Wakefield
21/11/2002
The Corbetts and Other Scottish Hills is also available in a CD
version and you can read
more about that here. Both publications are available to
buy online at www.smc.org.uk
You can win a copy of The Corbetts book and CD in our great competition
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