Mountain Weather

Cir Mhor in May

Well, what happened to spring? It just seems to have jumped straight into high summer, but the ones we remember from long ago: mild winds, hazy sun, crisped grass and no rain... how long will it last, and without midges to boot? Maybe this will be the trad summer we have been waiting for!

I took a day off working on the new Font guide to head over to Arran, the large boilder plate slabs of granite gleaming like broken mirrors. The streams bubbled in full jacuzzi mode and confused buzzards circled high on the unseasonable thermals. Expecting a rash of parties on Cir Mhor, we were surprised to note only one other party on South Ridge. We meandered up West Flank Route, enjoying the sunny belays and cooling updrafts of air, listening to the endless cawing of ravens. Looking down over the vast U-bowl of Glen Rosa, the boulder fields caught my attention and it was tempting to go and look at a few unclimbed (but probably holdless) roofs after the route, but it's too warm for bouldering now and the body yearns for long sequences of dry rock in fine situations, which Arran provides.

Angus Murray on West Flank Route

After a lazy start on the second ferry over, the walk-in and climbing had eaten the hours and it was 5pm already, so we stomped back down, foodless, as the ravens had stolen all my baby-bels and a stack of four pancakes from my rucsac. The new path makes for a quick descent and we had time for the obligatory and welcome pint in Brodick.

Clouds over Glen Rosa

Ben Lomond - a Gaelic palette

Loch Lomond, Wednesday 28th December 2016 Mist, water and silvery light: a very Gaelic palette in midwinter between the storms, which these days all have names - we've been through Barbara's tantrums and Conor's backlash, but today was one of those steamed-up car sort of days. Warmish air from the southwest is rolling about Loch Lomond and gathering a chill as it picks up speed towards the snow-patched summit, so I take the clockwise 'wind with my back' option, steeply up the Ptarmigan ridge from Rowardennan, hearing a chuckle in the mist which is either a red grouse or the eponymous bird. Each landmark on the map is a clue to the Gaelic landscape - Tom Fhithich I think may be the raven's beak-nosed boulder or crag half up towards the knoll of Ptarmigan, which just breaks the mist, and assumes the role of target summit for the meantime as the main peak is in cloud. The small hidden tarns are full of slushy grey ice and the 'yellow bealach' is a...

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...

Circuit bouldering Scottish style

Arran Bouldering , a set on Flickr. The biggest, meanest, longest bouldering circuit? I'd say Arran has a good chance of winning this one. Hop the 7am ferry, get a bus to North Glen Sannox and walk up into Coire nan Ceum, do about 20 of the best problems there (mostly slabs but a few choice roofs up to 6b), then nip up the Witch's Step to the Caisteal Abhail ridge. This has some fine bouldering all the way to the summit on some isolated blocs and on small tors beyond. Drop down along the big arced ridge to the Cir Mhor summit and some architecturally challenging domino blocs with body-munching properties (and the Rosetta Stone, if you can find it). The silvery slabs on the south west flank of this hill have some compact rock and balancy problems. At this point you might want to stop for some lunch, you'll be about 40 to 50 problems in. Got enough water? I couldn't find those springs marked on the 1:25,000 map, though I was convinced I could hear bubbling water...

Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

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