New Bouldering Summer 07

Lee Robinson on 'Soap', Trossachs

Despite the bracken, the heat and the midges, boulderers continue to find new stuff around the country... Richie Betts is busy developing Duntelchaig with Dave Wheeler, Lee Robinson and Craig Henderson did a couple of new lines on the Fight Club boulder at the Trossachs: the best being the 'Soap' dyno at about V3 which is a direct line through the start of Fight Club (Lee named this after the bar of soap they make out of human fat in the film, yecchhh) and BBT V4, the wall right of Fight Club from a hard move off the flatty (Craig named this after Meat Loaf's character in the film!).

Ross Henighen repeated the full hard version of In Bloom at Dumby (7c), a good effort in the warm season as the rock gets impossible to handle this time of year!

Richie Betts has topos developed for the next Stone Country Companion to Bouldering in Scotland - check out my main site local map for some easter egg draft topos to Kessock boulders Inverness (conglomerate!), as well as Carn Liath on Skye (thanks to Lee Robinson) and Kev Howett's Glen Lednock and Ben Ledi guides in Perthshire...

Richie did an excellent-looking new V6 Font 7a called The Dagger at Duntelchaig, the vid makes this look a future classic... Richie, you've a good eye and obviously good knee-technique!!

I'm sure more areas will be developed this year and look out for some hot autumn action when conditions cool down, especially Glen Nevis now Dave MacLeod has decanted to Fortwilliam! Tim Rankin has a few big lines in the NE as well. The Southern Highlands have a few good lines to go yet, and continue to throw up classic schist bouldering in odd places. A gritstone venue will even be revealed if we can formalise access.

As for the meantime, I'm going into the mountains as they dry out over the summer...

The Metadata of Being Human

Shamanistic zoomorphs, lithic graffiti, hallucinogenic tableaux, territory markings, knife-sharpeners … rock art – l'art rupestre – is so far beyond our traditional 'linguistic' history, it does not have an interpretative alphabet or a single line of confirmed meaning. There are many interpretations of the 'gravures' (carvings) and 'abris ornés' (decorated caves) in the hidden bivouacs throughout the forest of Fontainebleau. The sandstone marks easily under the nib of a hard flint from the deeper calcareous geology and this soft stone canvas has allowed our European ancestors to carve the stylised and modernistic strokes we might note as remarkable in a Picasso painting. Most of the carvings involve complex hash-marks and grids, overlaying each other, occasionally with mandala-like boxes. Sometimes there have been carved astonishingly beautiful anthropomorphs, (stylised human-like figures), or zoomorphs, (deities or humans manifesting in animal form) or argu...

Beinn Dòrain

Viaduct and Beinn Dorain Once you cross the bealach under Beinn Odhar north of Tyndrum, the shapely peak of Beinn Dòrain is a visual fanfare to the Highlands. The mountain and its environs are richly detailed in the poet Duncan Ban MacIntyre’s poem Moladh Beinn Dòbhrain (‘In Praise of Beinn Dòrain’). [i] Its symmetrical convexity, deeply gullied flanks like pencil sketch-marks, and stern domed summit, make this a moment to instinctively reach for the camera. It is a steep but invigorating mountain to walk, which is more leisurely explored from its eastern corries, though the traditional ascent from Bridge of Orchy, up to the toothed ‘Am Fiachlach’ ridge quickly brings fine views from the heart of the Central Highlands, encompassing Cruachan in the west to Lawers in the east and the Mamores to the north. If you were set the task to name the features and character of this mountain, before a Gaelic toponymy, you may have come up with a similar voc...

Timeline Walks of Scotland #Hallaig to Screapadal on Raasay

'Tha tìm, am fiadh, an coille Hallaig ...' Hallaig - the lost village of Raasay - is a powerful place. Arguably, it has become a shibboleth for the soul of Gaelic culture. To visit it, to just be there momentarily and feel the resonance of the place, is to know the fragility of place and home, of how kinship can be shattered and how loss can invade a land. Aptly, Hallaig is now a site of pilgrimage for those who value the universal lessons of history. There are t errible reasons for the loss of Hallaig. Its silent mouths of abandoned shielings, the dumb sheep meandering amongst the ruins, whisper with Sorley MacLean's poetry. The place misses the sounds of day-to-day community, and all around the woods and burns and slopes this tough but rich landscape once made this a hardy paradise under the eastern cliffs of Raasay. Facing east to the dawn and overlooking the peninsula of Applecross and the berry-dark depths of the Inner Sound, the walk to Hallaig leads quietly...

Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

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