Corbet’s Gap at Knuckles Range

Corbet's Gap is a high mountain pass and viewpoint in the Knuckles range, about 19 km along the road from Hunnasgiriya towards Meemure, the road that serves as the main route into that remote village. At roughly 1,218 metres, the opening between the ridges gives wide views across forested valleys and layered peaks, though mist can close the scene within minutes.

The pass is locally known as Attala-Wettuwa, said to come from a Pali word for tower or high point. Its English name is said to come from a British surveyor, Corbet, who mapped the area later in the 19th century. The wider range's English name is likewise said to come from British surveyors, after peaks, including Kirigalpottha and Gombaniya, that they thought resembled the knuckles of a clenched fist. The range's own Sinhala name, Dumbara Kanduvetiya, means misty mountains.

Within the wider Knuckles range lies the Knuckles Conservation Area, about 18,512 hectares straddling the Kandy and Matale districts, where the massif sits at a junction of wet montane forest and drier, rain-shadow scrub. The Knuckles massif is one of three component zones — with Peak Wilderness and Horton Plains — of the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.