It's a perennial topic of debate, which are the best hills in Scotland? Of course there is no definitive answer, though there are hills which would crop up on pretty much everyone's list – the Torridon 'Big Three', An Teallach, Suilven and the Buachaille for a start. There have been many magazine lists, but even those lists arrived at by fairly large polls suffer from two related disadvantages, in that both the obscure and the really popular hills tend to be under represented. The really obscure ones haven't been climbed by enough people, so don't garner enough votes to figure in the totals, while there's a tendency amongst the more experienced respondents not to vote for the really popular hills. So on the one hand the likes of Foinaven, Askival, Baosbheinn and Beinn Dearg Mhor get downplayed, while on the other hand Bidean, Ben Nevis and the Cobbler don't get their rightful deserts either.
Beinn Dearg Mhor, often forgotten
Back in the dawn of time a busload of us got snowed in at Glenshee, luckily on the section of road that contained the (now burned down) pub. The bar stayed open as long as people were willing to buy drinks, in fact most people slept there. Inevitably at some point the 'best hills' question was discussed, the point being made that the relationship between quality and height is a fairly tenuous one. It was argued that there are more good Corbetts than good Munros (I disagreed, and still do). Paddy Earle and I came up with the idea of getting slightly more objectivity by giving each hill a rating for each of five categories, Rockiness, Independence, Shape, Wildness and Complexity (and definitely not height) and adding up the results.
Obviously there's a certain amount of subjectivity in that, but it gets rid of the twin problems I mentioned above, and eliminates many of the stronger biases, like the tendency to vote for hills where the ascent was important to you. Sleep (or alcohol?) cut short the subject before we'd made a complete list, and I doubt the paper it was scrawled on survived the weekend. The idea stuck however, and some years later I did make a list of 284 hills using those criteria (there were 284 Munros at the time). More recently I found that list while clearing my mum's house and have now put it into a spreadsheet, which I'm happy to send to anybody who is interested. I adjusted the number down to 282, which conveniently fell exactly on the boundary between two totals, and made a few minor changes of the "how could I only give Sgurr Craggaidh only 3 for rockiness" type of thing.
Blaven, perhaps the rockiest Munro?
Here are the top couple of dozen (points out of 25, five for each category).The order within the numbers is just the SMC guidebook districts, so south to north then the islands, no judgement of quality implied.
23 Liathach
23 An Teallach
22 Beinn Eighe
22 Foinaven
21 Buachaille Etive Mor
21 Sgurr na Ciche
21 Beinn Alligin
21 Baosbheinn
21 Beinn Dearg Mhor
21 Suilven
21 Blaven
21 Askival
20 The Cobbler
20 Ben Starav
20 Bidean Nam Bian
20 Bidean a' Chabhair
20 Ladhar Bheinn
20 Beinn Dearg (Torridon)
20 Slioch
20 Ben Mor Coigach
20 Quinag
20 Sgurr nan Gillean
20 Sgurr Alasdair
20 Cir Mhor
Bidean a' Chabhair, as wild as they come
I think it's a fairly uncontroversial selection in the main. Bidean a' Chabhair and Ben Starav surprised me, and I suspect few people would nominate them in a 'best of' poll, but they score well on all five criteria. Most surprising of all was the omission of Stac Pollaidh, one of my favourite hills, and I'm sure many others feel the same. It scored 19, so not far off, but is let down by not being particularly wild. Inevitably you could quibble with individual scores, but I doubt that many people would change them radically.
Beinn Starav's rugged northern corrie
The omission of anything in the Cairngorms will jump out to some, but this is obviously a result of the criteria – they rate highly on wildness and occasionally on complexity but low on separateness and (in most cases) shape. I think that fits anyway, as the attraction of the Cairngorms is the range as a whole rather than individual hills. I love Jim Crumley's comment "Nevis is bulk, the Cairngorms are space", which is exactly right.
On the longer list Arthur's Seat getting into the top 80 might surprise some, but it's very rocky, very separate, distinctively shaped and middlingly complex, it's only on wildness that it scores poorly, being in the centre of Edinburgh! I lived at the bottom of it for three years and it was almost certainly my most climbed hill until Covid came along and Rushup Edge overtook it. It's a strong contender for being the most climbed hill in Britain.
Arthur's Seat, apologies for the photo quality, didn't have many pics as most of my ascents were in the dark!
Thirteen of the two dozen are Munros, nine are Corbetts, with Suilven the solitary Graham. Three lower hills nearly make it in, Conachair on St Kilda with 19 and the Sgurr of Eigg and Sgurr na Stri with 18 each. On the bigger list the ratio is 143 Munros, 75 Corbetts, 31 Grahams and 33 hills not on any of those lists, so just over half are Munros and nearly 30% are Corbetts. The unlisted hills are mainly lower island hills but do include a few peaks that don't have enough drop to qualify for the main lists but feel separate when you're on them, Bidean Druim nan Ramh and Clach Glas, for instance. The alert might also notice that I've put Liathach, Beinn Eighe and Beinn Alligin in as single mountains – my only justification is that they feel like that to me! Years ago there was a poll of Marilyn baggers as to the best one, which An Teallach won, largely because it said on the form "You cannot vote for Liathach as it has two Marilyns". This implies that the poll compiler was well aware that many people saw Liathach as one hill, and I suspect the same is true of the other two Torridon leviathans.
Liathach, one hill or two?
Obviously the criteria for selection reflect a bias towards wilder and rockier hills. Someone else might think that accessibility is a plus, or alternatively that remoteness is. Others would put more emphasis on the natural environment and have a rating for the interest of that, as opposed to subsuming it into a general "wildness" category. A keen climber might perhaps add something for the quality of the climbing routes on it, or you could include historical or cultural interest. An obvious option is to have a criterion for a good view but for me this is a quality of the setting rather than of the hill itself. But then perhaps the setting ought to be a criterion? It's certainly a factor in where people choose to go for a walk. For simplicity's sake I gave equal importance to all five criteria, but it would be easy enough to decide that, say, wildness was more important than complexity and weight them accordingly. The possible variations are endless.
Beinn Alligin, another surely on everyone's list
In any case listing hills is only a game, a chance for hill junkies to do something hill-related when not actually going up them. If you disagree with my criteria feel free to make your own (or not!). Some people disagree with the whole idea of lists of course, to which I would just reply that nobody is forced to follow them, they're just a bit of fun, "pub and cafe fodder" as a guidebook once described the climbing variety. Personally I've always liked a good list (of anything, not just hills), and enjoy having long term targets and a bit of structure about things. The only foolishness in my view is if you start saying "I'm not doing that, it's not on the list".
Anyone who has climbed all 24 will have had a good introduction to many of the best hill areas of Scotland. Certainly each one is a cracking hill, and given the 'complexity' criterion most of them deserve multiple visits. For the truly obsessive the 'best 282' would get you into a lot of superb places, including a few that not many hillwalkers get to. I'm happy to forward the list to anyone who wants it, just message me via the comments.
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