Far away... close up




What is it about some stones? They can look meaningless from a passing car window -you stop, pull the binoculars to the eyes just in case and they still look ignorable... a lot of boulders you walk into shrink to sad lumps like deflated footballs. However, I've long learnt to keep an open eye and mind...sometimes you are rewarded, the stones swell in size, you downsize next to them as though you stepped through a shrinking machine - I'm convinced there are cosmic wormholes next to some of these things! Point in case: I pulled up at some boulders I'd spied in the burnt tangled wreck of an old forestry plantation, convinced they weren't worth the effort and was pleasantly surprised to find one of them at least almost highball... with some super slab problems and a clean granite roof (with holds!) which proved to be a superb V6.



It's been a good period for boulder hunting - tall blue skies and still cold days when you sweat into your boulder mat and your fingers enjoy the dry rasp of chilled rock. Folk have been busy working projects or exploring new areas and I like to think of all these touched stones going on like lamps across the country... it's all just a temporary illusion of course, but it's meaningful for that day, turning the stone a different colour for a while... why not?

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