Clockwise round of Glen Galmadale in Morvern today when I ‘should’ have been on Coll… bastard start through deep vegetation, ditches and holes in the ground where the SMC ‘Corbetts’ book merely says ‘climb steeply’, but lovely, gentle ridge to get back to sea level as nicely as anywhere! And, for the second walk in a row, I saw no-one else on the hill…
So why the apparent duplication in ‘Corbetts, Corbetts and Corbett Tops’? Well, apart from the Corbetts and so-called Corbett Tops (not listed by Corbett), there are also, um, Corbetts, with some 20-odd of Corbett’s list subsequently deleted for failing to meet the guessed ‘Corbett’ criterion that Corbett never actually specified. And, with Robin Campbell’s convincing research now pointing towards a prominence of 450 feet rather than the established 500, I’ve clearly got to do at least some of the Tops to make sure I’m getting all of Corbett’s Corbetts. But why stop there when 450 feet’s almost as broad a brush as 500 and there are clearly worthy peaks and mountain places meeting neither? For sure, adding the ‘Corbett Tops’ of Corbetts and Munros at 30m prominence triples the number of straight Corbetts, will take me back to some Corbetts and Munros I’ve already done and take far longer than just the Corbetts (probably already logistically more awkward than a straightforward Munro round), but seems in keeping with my already-achieved Munros/Tops/Deletions completion and probably (pending getting them plotted on my mapping software to evaluate properly) what I have to do. On which note it’s maybe also worth pointing out that today’s round takes in a Graham (no, I’m not collecting Grahams or Graham Tops… yet!) in Beinn na Cille, two Corbetts in Fuar Bheinn and Creach Bheinn and a Corbett Top in Maol Odhar. So Corbetts, Corbetts and Corbett Tops? Hmmm…
Might also offer a quick update on the cheap boots to say that today my feet got wet and stayed wet. Whether through the boots or down my trousers and socks I’m not sure, but it’s largely academic when my feet stayed (as they do in trainers) as comfortable wet as dry in these. And when you compare £35 boots to £16 return on the Corran Ferry for a day out (or a pair of these boots to half a tank of diesel when I relate everything to tanks of diesel!), that rather puts things in perspective!
