North West New Bouldering

A week's ferry chasing on the ERT fares saw us through Moidart, Knoydart, Skye, Harris and Lewis, ending up in Ullapool. It was good to see Harris getting some bouldering attention, especially Aird Mighe, which is a terrific venue on the Golden Road, where it is almost impossible to keep your eyes on the road as you wind from Tarbert down to Rodal. I suspect there are some superb gneiss roofs hidden in this wilderness of water, light and rock. A walk through the vastness with binoculars and tent is a must for the next visit, though I am conscious that once in this eye-level maze, I might never come out again!

A new topo for the accessible Aird Mighe can be found on Scottish Climbs, I managed the excellent short roof problem of Crystal Voyage, which feels hard in the summer heat as the ultrabasic crystalline nature of the rock makes it a bit soapy. 6c in winter I'd say, but you'd probably not want to be here in winter, unless you have tent pegs to stake out your mat and tarp. The crag is typical of Harris: a rounded barrel of glaciated gneiss, but what makes it attractive to the boulderer are the undercut roofs that lead out to the walls.

Aird Mighe - Crystal Voyage 6c

In Ullapool, Ian Taylor and friends have been busy developing new routes and bouldering all around Coigach. Ian has produced an excellent new booklet guide to Ullapool New Routes, including the excellent technical bouldering at Ardmair, new routes at Rhue, Reiff, Ardmair and Rubha Dunan. The superb photo-topo booklet is a worthwhile addendum to the SMC Northern Highlands North. You can buy a copy in Ullapool's only real Outdoor shop at Northwest Outdoors (opposite the post office and beside Costcutters) , as well as Ian's Ullapool Bouldering guide.

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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