Stone Country News November

Image from 'Stone Play' - can you guess where it is?

It's been a hectic period putting books together, but finally Stone Play has been released and is receiving some good reviews. Two years in production, it maybe took a while, but hopefully folk will enjoy a bouldering circuit of historical photos and literary musings! Now I'm full time, I'm seeking publication ideas and commissions, so if you've something you want to publish, drop me an email at stonecountrypress@btinternet.com

Stone Play is available in shops now, or order online for Christmas from Cordee

On the Scottish bouldering front, I heard that Dave MacLeod, newly resident at Fortwilliam, is cleaning up the bouldering mythologies of Glen Nevis. He climbed the first confirmed ascent of the problem formerly known as The Morrighan which is the awesomely steep crimpy line under Pinnacle Ridge crag - we await a reappraisal. A few other projects fell in the glen and will be reported soon, John Watson having cleaned up an excellent traverse (Sylvestris Font 7a+) on the Pine Alp boulders above Whale Rock.

At Dumbarton, a young Glasgow Uni crew is eating up the 7c's and breaking down the 8a's rather too quickly for this veteran's liking! Ben Litster repeated Silverback, committing to the final move with an ear-shattering power yelp! There was an unassuming and impressive repeat of Pongo SS by Simon Westway (name correct?), and the harder lines seem a little closer to repeats by the younger generation.

'Silverback', Ben Litster cranking out another 7c

The North: earlier in the autumn Mike Lee did the first ascent of the Brin roof Susurrus Font 7c, which is an impressive line and an excellent testpiece for the campus kings. Richie Betts, Dave Wheeler and friends continue to develop the Inverness area, with new problems up to 7b at Duntelchaig, Cummingston, Kessock, Scatwell and Meig. Ian Taylor, Richie Betts and Lawrence Hughes have added more class problems to the Torridon Celtic Jumble, which is by no means worked out! Dedicated guides for these areas will follow in 2008. Clashfarquhar on the Aberdeen coast is now the new hard area to visit, with Tim Rankin having put up a number of impressively hard lines on the Big Grey boulder cluster, including Sweet Cheeks 7c+ and the hardest 7a on the planet (Clash Arete sit start!).

Clash Arete, Clashfarquhar

So what's next? Hot on the heels of Stone Play is the new Bouldering in Scotland guide, which we expect to be out early February. 80 venues or so, most of them refreshed, updated or just plain new... so get your projects done by Christmas if you want them in!

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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