Some spring boulders

Along with the spring flowers, it seems quite a few new boulders have sprouted with the better weather.

Nic Ward found some fine new Torridonian rock above the Sanctary cave at the Applecross bealach boulders, with a classic line:

Don't Mess with the Shek 7a/+

Pull on using the right arete and a small undercut in the middle of the face. Aim for the obvious sidepull above. Then a tricky move to a couple of jugs, which offer some respite, before a long reach to small holds and finally the top. Awesome!

Colintraive in Cowal hides some good boulders on the old road by the shore north of the village. About halfway along this road there is this giant, needs a little clean but some good looking beefy roof problems:

I had forgotten what a fine little venue Loch nan Uamh is. In baking Easter sunshine, it felt magical climbing over the peppermint waters on the rough feldspar'd schist, or smearing up the wave washed slabs...perfect therapy for a climber back to basics after a year of injury!

And a visit to Gigha will lead you naturally to the highest point of Creag Bhan at 100m and some fine leaning rock and slabs on the other side:

Richie Betts seems to have followed a tip off and found some awesome rock in Lewis in the wilds not far from Mealaval I think...

And a meet soon on Arran will reveal the whereabouts of these beauties:

And Dave the Mac seems to have found some few hundred new boulders, check out his blog!

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...

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

Search This Blog