Talk:Mounth

Please clarify for other users
"The Mounth is the range of hills on the southern edge of Strathdee in northeast Scotland." Although I was familiar with the word Strathdee I could not place it geographically without using your link. Your link turned out to be the River Dee, Aberdeenshire, the basis for the historic county border. Why not simply use the River Dee in the definition of the Mounth?--Oldontarian (talk) 15:55, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Geographical range/extent of 'the Mounth'
The article currently states:

"Some sources regard the Mounth as extending as far west as Drumochter Pass (A9),[1] but it is now generally agreed to start at the Cairnwell Pass (A93 - highest main road pass in Britain, Glen Shee ski centre).[2]"

I cannot see the second source since is not online but I do not view this as being at all "generally agreed". The article appears to have just ignored the first source! The Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC) - a pretty good, long standing authority on mountains! - regards the Mounth as stretching from Beinn Dearg (N of Blair Atholl) to the eastern hills of Lochnagar massif (The White Mounth). In a section of the SMC publication "The Munros" called "The West Mounth" they state:

"The Mounth is the high ground south of the Cairngorms, stretching from Beinn Dearg to Lochnagar, conveniently split into two by the natural route through Glen She taken by the A93 Perth to Braemar road." (They later go on to clarify that Mount Keen further east is in a northern spine of the Mounth too).

Further, in defence of this definition I would add that the Glen Shee road is not a very obvious natural barrier at which to regard the range as ending since it is a actually a very high pass. (Glen Tilt further west is for instance a much lower more obvious barrier glen and yet the definition regards even the hills further west as part of the Mounth - presumably since Glen Tilt is still high and a narrow defile through a greater range.)

I suspect at best we need a section on the extent/range that suggests there are competing views. I think there is possibly:

1/ a name for a wider obvious contiguous mountain range - rooted in Brythonic/Pictish (monadd -> Mounth) and Gaelic (monadh). This range is obviously separated from the Monadh Ruadh (Cairngorms) by the Feshie/Dee glens and watershed. This contrast well with obvious Monadh Ruadh and Monadh Liath which article explains well.

2/ a more eastern located view - I suspect/guess that a predominately eastern located (ie Angus/Mearns/Aberdeenshire) viewpoint, understandably, looks westward and regards only the hills closest to them - and possibly including some very low foothills rather than the main high mountain range - as 'the Mounth'?

Possibly latter is also a modern view influenced by the very modern barrier of the A93 road (and possibly even just the placing of a map label - they sometimes get placed on empty areas and avoid crossing roads!). I would note that geographical names 'drift' and we may be seeing it here....

--Iainmacg (talk) 12:36, 17 September 2020 (UTC)