Craigmore Bouldering

Having been beavering away at autumn projects at Craigmore, we thought we'd produce a guide to the bouldering here which will be available soon, but I was shocked at the amount of problems which have vanished under the moss. Have a look at the two pictures below, the first is of Cammy Bell on Leech Direct, a photo which famously graced the 90's edition of the SMC's Lowland Outcrops, while the second is the same wall today...

Cammy Bell on Leech Direct in cleaner days...

Leech Direct wall today...

I've started a mini campaign to clean up some classics here, starting with Wide Eyed Wall. Hopefully by next spring we'll have rersurrected some neglected classics at this magical little venue.

Possibly the growth of trees is shading more of the crag and global warming wetness has maybe encouraged the moss. The blocs in the forest are being left well alone as it's environmentally more important than climbing, but some of the classic crag walls could do with some attention: White Hope, Sunday Wall, Spinal Wall, Preliminary Exercise, Autobahn area (yikes, what happened to that?!), Sunshine Arete, Wopitee Wall etc

On a plus note, the leg-breaking excavations which occurred under Jamie's Overhang have been filled in with turf/pine leaves and the landing is now flat and bouncy... if anyone fancies a go at Surprise Attack 7b which is a superb dyno sloper problem.

Also, anyone with any historical notes or memories/photos, please get in touch, as we're trying to bring together some history for this neglected local crag. Email John Watson.

The Lost Township of Grulin on Eigg

‘The Stony Place’ as it translates, the archaeological notes on the RCAHMS database for Eigg, state baldly the lost humanity of Grulin as early as an 1880 OS survey map: ‘…eighteen unroofed buildings, six enclosures and a field-system’. Now a scheduled monument and memorialised as a ‘depopulated settlement’, though it is not obvious if the verb is passive or aggressive, Grulin Uachdrach (Grulin Upper) is, like Hallaig on Raasay, a place of violent silence and resonance. Who lived here and why was the site abandoned? If it were not in Scotland, suspicions might fall to the climate, remoteness and apparent unsustainability of the stony place, a rabble of large rocks under the steep slopes of An Sgurr, but the carefully constructed walls tell us it was once a thriving township – the kilns, folds and blackhouse walls integrated with the giant boulders such as Clach Hosdail. In 1853 the whole of the village of Grulin, both upper and lower, housed fourteen families who were forced to l...

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...

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...

Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

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