Читать книгу Walking in the Southern Uplands. 44 best hill days in southern Scotland онлайн

11 страница из 58

And away in the west is something even better.

Here is where the uniform greywacke of the main Southern Uplands is suddenly broken. The grim granite country of the Merrick is unlike anywhere else in the UK. Slabs of bare rock give easy walking across the humps of the Dungeon Hills – easy walking until the granite ends at knee-deep tussocks or a swamp of black peat. A wild goat stands on the skyline, and all below you are silver lochans trapped in the hollows of the rock.

Lists of hills

The Scottish Highlands are dominated by their list of the 282 Munros, the mountains rising above the 3000ft (or 914.4m) mark.

Southern Scotland has none of these. The next category down are called Corbetts. These are hills of 2500ft (762m), with the added requirement of having a clear drop around them of 500ft (152m). The Southern Uplands can boast seven: Merrick, Corserine, Shalloch on Minnoch and Cairnsmore (Section 1 of this book); Hart Fell and White Coomb (Section 3); and Broad Law (Section 4). Add an eighth when we count in the Cheviot, just a few miles into England in this book’s Section 6.