From the Dibidil path all the way up to Coire nan Grunnd under Hallival lie hundreds of the cleanest boulders in Scotland in a wild lunar landscape of volcanic scale . Pristine 'allivalite' rock which feels grippier than gabbro - salt and pepper coloured, sculpted for the climber, generous grades on ridiculous angles and some big lines and perfect boulders... I hope to get back in the summer with Hamish Fraser who is working on a complete guide to this astonishing array of blocs.
'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...