Ben Vane: is a demotion imminent to this munro? Photo: Nick Bramhall

As I write, we’re only 48 hours or so from the first change to the list of munros for quite some time. As has been widely reported, including here on grough, the Munro Society commissioned two amateur surveyors, John Barnard and Graham Jackson, to take precise measurements of four hills just either side of the 3,000ft (914.4m) munro line.

Over the early part of what has passed for summer in Scotland, three existing munros were studied: Ben Vane to the west of Loch Lomond, Sgurr nan Ceannaichean near Achnasheen, and Beinn Teallach on the north side of Loch Laggan, along with Sgurr a’Choire-bheithe, an edge-of-Knoydart corbett. At present the munros are all mapped as 915m, or 3,002ft, while the Corbett is 913m, or 2,995ft.

The surveys followed similar efforts in 2007 which looked at two high corbetts, Foinaven and Beinn Dearg in Torridon. Beinn Dearg stayed at 914m (but below 3,000ft), while Foinaven dropped to 911m – so there was no change to the status of either hill. This time things appear to be different. John Barnard himself leaked some information in August when he said “I cannot give a clue to the results but all I will say is that the munro list will not be the same!” – but he cannily didn’t say which hills were reckoned to have list-hopped.

This of course led to considerable discussion in bothies and on bulletin boards, and your intrepid reporter has had his ear close to various bits of ground ever since, trying to ascertain the likely outcome. What follows is a bit of runners-and-riders speculation, allied to the results of some sleuthery. Of course, come Thursday afternoon and the actual announcement (which will be swiftly reported on grough), I could be left looking rather silly; on the other hand, if I get it right, a bottle or two will be clunked in celebration. It’s worth a punt.

The first question is how many changes there might be. From what Barnard said in August, it could be anywhere from one to all four. Even before Barnard’s comment, however, I’d heard from a well-placed source that just one change was in the offing. Nothing I’ve heard since has caused me to think that this is wrong, so let’s work on that basis.

Might Sgurr a’Choire-bheithe gain a few extra centimetres and become the 285th munro? This has been discussed over many years, well before the recent survey; the summit area is notoriously knobbly, and it must have been two decades ago when I first heard someone express the view that the 913m spot height was not on the highest ground. Were that to be the case, then Sgurr a’Choire-bheithe would be a strong candidate for change. I’ve climbed it once, but back in 1987 and I can’t recall the summit layout; a case of “Whether ’tis knobblier in the mind…”, perhaps?

However, the ear-to-the-ground process has included hearing of a conversation between a munrobagger who is still working on a round and a person in the know as regards the resurveys. The incomplete bagger has not yet climbed Sgurr a’Choire-bheithe – hardly surprising given that it’s an awkward-to-get-at corbett – and the in-the-know person knew this. A comment was made along the lines of ‘don’t worry, you’re all right’ – which, to me at least, implies that the bagger not need do any additional legwork. In other words, Sgurr a’Choire-bheithe stays as a corbett.

Sgurr nan Ceannaichean: unfashionable. Photo: Nick Bramhall

So that means a munro-knockdown. Which of the three is it? Beinn Teallach and Sgurr nan Ceannaichean are unfashionable hills, Sgurr nan Ceannaichean being the more visually impressive and boasting a splendid stalkers’ path up its southern side, while Beinn Teallach is, quite frankly, a bit of a lump. Both are relatively recent additions to the munro list, having been promoted from corbett status in the late 1970s and early 1980s respectively, in each case via the traditional route of a new Ordnance Survey spot height being reported to the SMC. Each hill has a twin-bumped summit, and in this there is perhaps a clue to what might happen come Thursday.

To take Sgurr nan Ceannaichean first, I have a recent memory of this, having climbed it last November, on one of those windless, grey, high-cloud days that are so atmospheric. My notes say ‘popped out at quite a large cairn [having come up from the Moruisg col], with a smaller cairn on the edge of the southern slope seeming to be higher’. The cairns are both marked on the large-scale map (Explorer 429), and the large one has the 915m spot height – so if the other is indeed higher, than the hill’s height is likely to nudge up rather than down.

The amateur surveyors have kept their results under a cloak of secrecy

Beinn Teallach is similar, and again I was there last year, on a fine sunny day in May. The summit bumps are a couple of minutes’ walk apart, and my friend Mike and I were confident that the south-western one (which doesn’t have a spot height) was slightly higher than its north-eastern neighbour, even though the latter is where most people seem to stop for their snack. I mentioned this to John Barnard a couple of months ago, and he said this: “I can tell you that for Beinn Teallach the SW bump is about 0.5m lower. Having established the NE bump was the higher and confirmed it qualitatively with level and staff, we did not do an accurate heighting on the SW bump.” Which goes to show how the eye can play tricks, and also suggests that Beinn Teallach is a more likely candidate for change than is Sgurr nan Ceannaichean, if only because the 915m spot height is on the highest bump.

Then there is Ben Vane, an impressive near-isolated hill in the heart of the Arrochar-Inveruglas cluster. It’s never going to be as feted as the Cobbler, but it’s not shabby when it comes to crags and steepness. As with many people who live in west-central Scotland, I’ve been up it several times over the years: eleven ascents thus far, although none since early in 2006. The normal route is via a messy and slightly scrambly path up the east ridge, but I’ve come to prefer a bespoke route that continues along the hydro road to just before the Coire Grogain trees, then straight uphill. This is steeper than the tourist path, but is a fine way up, not difficult if the route-finding part of one’s brain is switched on. (I took a bad line here on that 2006 visit and so learnt how to put on crampons while standing on an icy ledge with no way of sitting down.) The summit, when you get there, seems unequivocally where the cairn is.

The standalone nature of Ben Vane comes into play in a largely overlooked aspect of all this: how people will feel if their completion munro suddenly gets kicked off the list. There is a history to this, as at least eight munroists completed on various long-gone munros: three on Beinn an Lochain, two on Carn Cloich-mhuilinn, two on Sgor an Iubhair and one on the Feshie Geal Charn. Did these eight people feel a mixture of disenfranchisement, quirky amusement and possibly even annoyance when their chosen last munro got the chop?

Three people are known to have completed corbett rounds on Sgurr a’Choire-bheithe, twelve first rounds of the munros have ended on Beinn Teallach, and rather curiously no one is known to have finished on Sgurr nan Ceannaichean. But as for Ben Vane… standalone western hills see plenty of celebratory days, and Ben Vane is no exception: I know of 22 first-round finishes here, plus two repeats. Curiously, given the low proportion of female munroists, the first four known Ben Vane finishes were all by women, starting with Angela Soper of the Pinnacle Club and the Fell and Rock in February 1991.

A pint of beer for a correct munro forecast? Photo: Tim Dobson

Right, enough of the analysis; it’s stick-the-neck-out time. Feel free to pour all manner of scorn in my general direction if this proves to be a laughably bad prediction, but please buy me a pint next time you see me if it proves to be on the money. What your grough resurvey correspondent reckons will happen on Thursday is as follows. Sgurr a’Choire-bheithe will stay as a Corbett with a slight decrease in height. Sgurr nan Ceannaichean will stay as a munro with a slight increase in height (due to the summit location changing from the big cairn to the southern-edge cairn). Beinn Teallach will stay as a Munro with little or no change in height. And Ben Vane will lose a couple of metres, switch to being a corbett as soon as the SMC ratify the change, and so, after 118 years as an undisputed part of Hugh Munro’s list, it will start a new career as a markedly quieter hill.

How confident am I? Well, I went to the top, as it were, and put my Ben Vane prediction to Iain Robertson and Derek Sime (past and current president of the Munro Society), John Barnard the surveyor, and Derek Bearhop, editor of Munro’s Tables (and himself a quadruple Munroist). All, it must be said, played an admirably straight bat and refused to give anything away – Bearhop’s “I am privy to the impending announcement so I’m afraid I am unable to speculate as to what it will encompass” being a masterclass in discretion.

Over the past couple of weeks, however, I’ve heard enough murmuring, muttering and mood music that I’ve decided to climb Ben Vane again tomorrow, the day before the announcement, in an ‘end of something’ kind of way. Even if I prove to be wrong come Thursday, it will have been a pleasant day out on a grand lump of rock and grass, regardless of what list-label gets slapped on to it.