Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

Many volumes have been written on risk from the point of view of Economics, Evolutionary Theory, Society, etc.but risk on the hills is becoming a lot more topical with the sheer volume of people approaching mountains as something akin to 'instant freedom' from the urban world or as a monetised escape. The recent criticism of mountaineering as rich people building their CV and measures to limit ascents of Everest, for example, have brought this issue to the fore. What are our mountaineering responsibilities and rights in a 'post-exploration' world? Our author Francis Sanzaro (author of 'The Boulder'), now editor of Rock & Ice, has written an intriguing piece for the New York Times on our right to take risks in the mountains.

We've just signed a deal with  Vertical Life  to license Stone Country guides on their terrific app. Check it out and download to  IOS or Android . Buyers of the book will soon find a stickered code inside the book which allows them a free download of the app. It's very functional, clean and easy to use, plus they have dozens of other guidebooks available to use on the app. We hope the app is available from January 2018. Those who have purchased the book already can  email us for a code to unlock the app .

Bouldering might feel just appear to be just a bit of athletic fun on some rock, but some take it very seriously indeed ... even archaeologists. The latest issue of the academic journal 'World Archaeology' features an article on the idea of 'counter archaeology', as practised by boulderers at Dumbarton Rock (amongst other visitors such as graffiti taggers/artists). It's always worthwhile taking some reflective time to consider what our activities mean in the greater scheme of things, and how they might appear to someone who has never witnessed this activity. In more imaginative contexts, some might see bouldering as 'costly signalling behaviour' (showing off), or consider it a pure form of non-representational theory (talk to John Hutchinson ), and some might just call it 'bonsai mountaineering' (my term). Anyway, it was all a collective effort instigated by some kind archaeologists at ACCORD, an enlightened group of enthusiastic people who beli...

Hamish Fraser's energies and enthusiasm for king lines has added to the burgeoning wealth of bouldering on Rum over the last 5 years. Despite the weather, midges and difficult logistics of approaching these allivalite giants, high under the looming presence of Hallival, it's all truly worth it! Some of the first ascents from this year's trips can be viewed on this video. Rum Bouldering 2017 from Hamish Fraser on Vimeo . His updated guide for 2017 is now released. You can download it here on the   Boulder Scotland website.

In his famous 'allegory of the cave', the Greek philosopher Plato pondered the artificiality of reality in imagining how we could be fooled into thinking shadows on the wall (i.e. virtual reality) could be seen as 'real' life. I'm paraphrasing, of course. What has this got to do with climbing? Well, I was pondering this myself recently while sitting on an artificial concrete boulder at the new Cuningar Loop bouldering park in Glasgow. Does it really matter that a boulder is made of concrete, surrounded by plantation and skirted with kind gravel traps rather than tree roots and spikey boulders? Isn't the 'real' thing so much better: the isolated erratic bloc deposited by geology's long-term aesthetic artwork? Well, yes, that's entirely up to you, but sometimes the artificial saves the day ... I was scuppered by Glasgow's cross-town traffic and turned back to my local artifice that is Cuningar to climb the blue circuit I had imagined as...

Dumby gets an academic approach in this article published by World Archaeology . This multi-authored article was the result of archaeologists, climbers and heritage professionals examining the meaning of Dumby for those who frequent the place, especially climbers. Abstract The notion of counter-archaeology is echoed by the opposing faces of the volcanic plug of Dumbarton Rock, Scotland. On the one side is the ‘official’ heritage of Dumbarton Castle, with its upstanding seventeenth-century military remains and underlying occupation evidence dating back to at least the eighth century ad. On the other side lies a landscape of climbing, bouldering and post-industrial abandonment. This paper develops counter-archaeology through the climbing traditions and boulder problems at Dumbarton Rock and brings to the surface marginalized forms of heritage. Climbers and archaeologists have co-authored the paper as part of a collaborative project, which challenges the binary trope of researcher and...

Sketch of fake (?) runes, Whitehill, 2011 The Whitehill 'runes' - real or fake, it matters ... The danger with fakes, if they are done well, is that they legitimise every construct built upon them. Any archaeology, but especially one with faded logics and contexts, is susceptible to imagination. A few years ago I found this petroglyph beside a grouping of cup and ring marks in the sandstone outcrops of Cochno Hill on the Clyde, and it recently surfaced in my memory as the nearby  Cochno Stone was briefly unearthed  for laser scanning, (which Ludovic Mann 'matrixed' with a grid in the 1930s to force on it his interpretation of astrological significance to the ancient markings). The sandstone outcrops of the Kilpatrick Hills have long been known for their remarkable collections of rock art such as the said Cochno Stone, Whitehill, Craigmaddie, Auchentorlie (Greenland Quarry), but the Clyde is also no stranger to fakery and the persistence of human ...