The Munros are arguably the best known summits in Scotland and provide the focus for many walkers who enjoy a “bagging” list. Yet, there are other summit collections that are also attractive, including the Corbetts, Grahams and Donalds.
I have been mostly bagging the tallest mountains, the Munros, over the last decade. However, I have also climbed increasing number of Corbetts in recent years as friends who have finished a round of Munros have turned their attention to the Corbetts.
And then there are the Donalds and Grahams. I had never considered these hills as bagging targets until my friend Ben suggested we walk a few. On days when the weather is less favourable, we have been walking to multiple Donalds and Grahams on one outing.
Last month, we walked a Corbett and two Donalds in the Galloway hills.
The Donalds first…
In fact, Ben started with the Donalds a few years ago because he thought they seemed to be more achievable for someone who was just getting into hill walking and and because wanted to become a bit fitter.
He has walked dozens of Donalds and then moved on to Grahams, before starting to walk Corbetts and Munros.
What is a Graham?
A Graham is a Scottish hill between 2000 and 2499 feet high with a drop of at least 150 metres on all sides.
The list of these mountains was first published in 1992 by Alan Dawson in The Relative Hills of Britain as the Elsies. “LCs” was the shortened version of “Lesser Corbetts”.
They were later named Grahams after the late Fiona Torbet (née Graham) who had compiled a similar list around the same time.
What is a Donald?
The Donalds are named after Percy Donald and are identified as hills over 2000ft in the Scottish Lowlands. They are based on a rather complicated formula for determining separate hills, and originally comprised 87 hills plus a number of other named “tops”.
There are also the “New Donalds”, which are an attempt to rationalise the qualifying criteria, being “hills in central or southern Scotland at least 2000ft high (610m) with a drop of at least 30 metres (98 feet) all round”.
All New Donalds are either a Donald or a Donald Top, but some of the Donald Tops do not qualify as New Donalds. Blimey!
Note: Some Donalds can be Grahams, too, just as some Donalds can be Corbetts.
Grahams and Donalds in the Ochils
With a poor weather forecast but a keenness to be out walking, Ben and I chose the Ochils as our destination. This range of hills is easy to reach for Ben, who is in Edinburgh, and from Glasgow, where I live.
I have often run to the summit of Dumyat at the western end of the Ochils and I completed a 50k ultra run through the Ochils last year, but I had not explored the paths and summits of the eastern end of the Ochils.
Ben plotted at route from Tillicoutry up to the summit of the Graham, Ben Cleuch, the highest hill in Ochils (also a Donald), then on to Andrew Gannel Hill.
I had a look on-line to find out why the hill was so-called and came across this: “Andragannel, which overlooks Gannel Burn, comes from the Gaelic “An Struth Gainmheil”, meaning the sandy bottomed burn.
“Some people reckon that Andragannel is be named after a man who lost his life there in the late 1800s although others dispute this. These days, the summit it is marked on a OS map as Andrew Gannel Hill.”
It is also a Graham top and a Donald top.
We continued further east to King’s Seat, a Donald, before descending Dollar Glen past magnificent Castle Campbell to the village of Dollar.
Low clouds covered many of the summits but we still enjoyed some great views down beautiful glens and across the wider landscape. I actually like a walk in the clouds because it feels atmospheric, more daring and when you do have a view it seems all the better because it is unexpected.
The hours of walking passed quickly, too, because Ben and I always have a lot to chat about. In any case, it was good to be out when many others might have chosen to stay indoors in the warm and dry.
We also felt we deserved the fantastic cakes and coffee at the end of the walk in the welcoming and busy Cafe des Fleurs in Dollar.