Back on the Boulders

Well, it seems we are well into bouldering season again and despite some hefty rain showers, September had some pleasant days as the leaves turned golden and the air cooled and cleared after the mugginess of August. Time to get off Willie Arrol's sports walls and get the boulder mat out again.

Richie Betts took advantage of some fine weather to revisit the Coire nan Arr boulders in Applecross, some of which look like the most perfect rock imaginable. A visit to try The Universal (below) is high on my list, but time and weather has so far conspired against a visit to the north. Hopefully we can get the area mapped and topo'd for the new Torridon and Applecross guidebook for next year.

The Universal - Photo by Richie Betts

Speaking of guidebooks, I've just received the proof of the Dumbarton Rock guidebook by Stewart Brown. It looks terrific and I should have stock by mid October in time for those returning from Fontainebleau to test their mettle... it's an 80 page guide and so far the most complete guide yet to the bouldering (it also includes the sport routes and Dumbuck).

Below is a wee vid of a good 7a eliminate of the Zig Zag sit . I dug some stones away and this allowed a better position for the tricky first move of the sit start. I think a good digging session might link the base of this to the black cave...anyone brave enough to dig down further under the Eagle boulder?

And check out Betaguides new bouldering venues in the UK: this site is a terrific resource for the itinerant boulderer and has plenty of PDF topo's embedded in its pages.

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...

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...

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...

Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

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