The Cat Scree Crags

I have glanced at these crags many time passing along the Loch Lubniag road, trying not to wipe out bikers as I veer over the white lines. They are really obvious just across the water above the new fancy chalet community and there may be sports potential. I certainly haven't heard of any trad action there.

I walked up today into the impressive steep wilderness of Sgearnach a Chait (the 'Cat Scree', presumably there are or were wildcats here) to check a couple of walls named on the OS map as Creag na Comh Sheilg. I got bogged in poor cleared forestry ground, which blew my mojo a bit and I retreated. However, it seems there is one particularly impressive 25m sport wall at a hellish angle above the larch forest (which might be a better approach from further north along the shore path). It looks featured and clean and might be worth a drill, does anyone know this wall? it's above and left of the impressive but messy lower crags which might provide hard sport as well...

Here's the Googlemap:

View Sport Crag at Loch Lubnaigh in a larger map

A Crow Dictionary

A Crow Dictionary Feannag – black asterisk of the sky, fitheach – a quartz-glinting raven’s eye, starrag – the hoodie prowling the shore, cathag – the sea-eyed jackdaw, cnàmhach – blood-billed chough of the machair, pioghaid – chuckling, piebald joker, ròcas – the belfry’s raucous rook, garagg – what the carrion bird took, sgreuchan-coille – my own oak-guide jay, we look to each to show us the way. In their very names the Scottish hills call out the dwelling place of birds. A toponymical survey of most Scottish mountain ranges or lochs reveals the legacy of Scotland’s familiar montane birds. Around Loch Lomond and its parent hill we have: Meall an t-Seabhaig (mound of the peregrine), Creag na h Iolaire (rock of the eagle), the high stony Ptarmigan Ridge on Ben Lomond, or Coire na Baintighearna (corrie of the mountain linnets). By far the most common toponym is for crags and hills named after the ubiquitous mo...

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...

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...

Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

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