Stone Country Bouldering Movies and Topos

I'm just updating the main website www.stonecountry.co.uk with new material, including lots of topos that didn't make the new guide (eg. The Whangie is downloadable in Pdf A4 format on the Clyde page), as well as lots of recent new movie clips of classic problems. I'll continue to add more material to the site to complement and update the Stone Country Guide to Bouldering in Scotland, which is just about to be published and can be advance ordered from the Books page or the Paypal link on the sidebar - you benefit from Freepost if you order now!

There'll also be a launch for the new guide in Glasgow at the end of March, along with a preview of the new Bouldering in Scotland movie by Pete Murray -'Elements' - which will feature some of the best venues and hardest problems in the country, as well as some insightful exploration into the various 'elements' which all go into making bouldering adventurous, magical and meaningful in Scotland.

The Whangie Bouldering - Fingaripper Font 6a

So the weather has become spring-like and perfect for bouldering, a time to get to your favourite places if you can escape work! The Whangie is a beautiful place to hang out when the weather is like this, yesterday I had a full cloud inversion with only the distant peaks of Ben Lomond, Ben Vorlich etc. joining me in the clear blue air above the mist. I did the circuit of the best problems here, which I've topo'd for the curious on the main site, with about 14 quality independent problems up to font 6c+. Attached is a wee video of the excellent new problem 'Rune Wall'.

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...

Scotland's Iconic Mountains #Broad Law

BROAD LAW The rolling hills east of the modern motorway of the M74 hold much more character and history than they appear from the west, where they are now flanked by forestries of spruce and wind-farms. In medieval times this was a Scottish royal hunting ground – the ‘Ettrick Forest’. Further east towards the Tweed valley, there are echoes of a deeper Scottish history in the border towns of Hawick, Selkirk, Galashiels, Peebles and Kelso, all on the banks of the historic River Tweed and famous for their medieval forts and abbeys. Looking west from Broad Law to the monoculture forestry and wind-farms of 21st C Scotland This range of hills, along with the northern flanks of the Cheviot hills, marks the geographical transition to the once-contested border with Northumberland, with its high pass over Carter Bar on the A68. The more useful sense of boundaries are suggested not by the roads but by the watersheds: to the north the waters drain into the River Cly...

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...

Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

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