Scottish Corbetts

Scotland's 222 Corbetts

John Rooke Corbett, a Scottish Mountaineering Club member from Bristol, spent the 1920s and 30s listing every Scottish hill between 2,500 and 3,000 feet with at least 500 feet of drop on all sides. His list was published after his death in 1949, and it's a stricter test than the Munros: that 500-foot prominence rule means every Corbett is a distinct mountain, not a shoulder of something bigger, and many of them are better viewpoints than their taller neighbors precisely because they stand apart.

The 222 Corbetts are spread more widely than the Munros, which is both the appeal and the difficulty. They reach down to Galloway and the Borders, out to Arran, Jura, Mull, and Rum, and up to the far northwest, where Foinaven and Ben Loyal are as fine as anything in Scotland. Goat Fell on Arran and the Merrick in Galloway are the ones most people have done without realizing they were Corbetts.

After the Munros, or instead of them

Plenty of walkers prefer Corbetts outright: quieter paths, fewer people, and summits that often have the Munros as scenery. The list is also a better winter objective, with less time above the snowline. The handful of serious ones — the Cuillin's Garbh-bheinn on Skye, the Rum Cuillin, the remote Knoydart hills — are real days out, but there's nothing here on the scale of the Inaccessible Pinnacle.

Summits are grouped by area with heights from the Database of British and Irish Hills. Click a badge or its pin to mark one climbed, again for want-to-climb. The Grahams complete the Scottish trilogy below 2,500 feet.

A handful to start with

If you've never climbed a Corbett on purpose, Ben Ledi above Callander and Ben Vrackie above Pitlochry are the gentle introductions, both with paths to the top and good views over Munro country. Goat Fell on Arran is a ferry and a day. The Cobbler, properly Ben Arthur, is the most recognizable peak in the Southern Highlands and its true summit needs a short, exposed scramble through a window in the rock. Beinn Dearg in Torridon is the Corbett that most looks like a Munro, having missed the cut by about two meters — the sort of detail that keeps the Scottish hill lists interesting.