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Wild Scotland - new map published by SNH
16 July 2014, 12:18 pm



Scottish Natural Heritage has published its 2014 map of Wild Land Areas of Scotland - designated areas of coast, upland and undeveloped land - or 'wilderness' - which should be considered inviolate. Some of the areas are notably under protection via bodies such as National Parks, the John Muir Trust, or the National Trust and other private bodies, but the worrying note is that since the draft map was published in 2013, 0.8% of wild land has been developed (20.3% down to 19.5%). If it continued at that rate we'd have no wild land left by 2039 . . .

The conclusions of the report and mapping were as follows:

• The concepts of wildness and safeguarding of wild land enjoy strong support from the public and many stakeholders in Scotland. Areas of wild land are widely acknowledged as important assets, providing a number of significant ecosystem services that support a range of social and economic benefits and outcomes.
• Despite the inherent subjectivity of the concept, the physical qualities most strongly associated with wildness and identification of wild land can be mapped in a robust and repeatable way through applying a systematic and transparent methodology.
• A map of wild land areas important in the national context is required in order to provide greater clarity to all stakeholders and better inform decisions affecting them.
• The name ‘Core Areas of Wild Land’ resulted in some confusion and we therefore propose the use of the nomenclature of ‘Wild Land Areas’. We suggest that the application of this name should be restricted in use to those areas shown on the map.
• The map of wild land areas should be considered a useful and important strategic tool in decision making. Its application will be enhanced by two further pieces work that are being developed during 2014-15: descriptions of the character and nature of each of the areas, and revision of our interim guidance on assessing the effects of proposals on wild land which allows a case by case assessment of proposals in relation to wildness character.

I like the fourth point that there s no such thing as a 'core' area of wildness, it either is or isn't wild. However, there are some who may consider the issue of remoteness and wildness much more complex. For example, what about wild urban areas and brownfield sites (landlocked 'waste' land, no matter how small); underwater wildness; community (commons) wildness versus private, estate-managed (landlorded) wildness . . . it's a complex issue but it's welcome seeing SNH producing a map which can be used practically to inform major policy decisions on what we should just leave alone if we can.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Bealach Feith Nan Laogh
27 July 2014, 8:16 am



 

First of all, having a couple of 'refreshing pints' in the Strontian Inn was a bad idea . . . the hottest day of the year at the fag-end of July, the tarmac bubbling, it seemed wise at the time. The Bealach Feith Nan Laogh could wait a bit. I checked the specs of the climb, which seemed less electrically-shocking at a pub picnic table in the sun: 2.6 km with an average gradient of 11.8% . . .  steep, but no killer, I reasoned. Something at the back of my head crawled and writhed, trying to fathom what higher gradient would average it to 11.8! I clipped into the bike and set off, my mind a fuzzy blank of summer bliss.



Turning north off the main road at Strontian towards innocuous-looking hills, the wooded first few kilometres are flat and surfaced with new rolling tarmac, I was in a pleasant dream of cycling paradise, spinning without a chain, listening to birdsong, still on the big ring. A small sign turned me left up a short wooded hill towards 'Pollochro 8m'. Not far really . . .  I knew the climb began shortly but the small ramps weren't difficult and I was still outstripping the chasing horse-flies until a sign above a lost hub-cap said 'RAMP' in big capitals on a red background. The road didn't seem that steep, I was still spinning off the beers, marveling at the rock-garden scenery. Things focused down to the width of my front tyre as I got out of the saddle at Belgrove House and dropped to the wee ring to turn some sharp corners through the old pines. No biggie.



Then the vista suddenly opened up and I looked uphill to a shocking sight. The strip of gravelly tarmac took off up a hill that seemed to be a painted grey vertical line on a green background, a Rothko painting on its side. Half way up the hill, a camper van and two chairs sat perched precariously on a rocky ledge of a layby, looking out over Loch Sunart and the punishing evening sun. I endured a mild gut panic, there was an audience, and the beer was making me feel suddenly queazy rather than refreshed. Oh well, down to the second-last gear, out of the saddle. I passed the run-off for the old lead mines, clunking up to the big  ring's last-chance-saloon, grinding at just above fall-off pace, trying not to go into the red. Jeez, this was steep. Just 50m or so to the camper-van, then I'd be okay, it flattened there, I said to myself.

The people in the deck-chairs watched me like an old curious tractor from the 60s, going to an agricultural fair. Not far off. I passed them and gasped a greeting, more like a plea for help. The horse-flies had found me, mocking my pace, so I spun a bit and went into the red, rounding a corner to a sudden and sickening rise in gradient to a hairpin. Jeez, that must be 25% I thought! I ground up it, heart racing to the max, sweat washing my eyes with battery acid. I rounded the corner and another rise of the same punched me in the gut and I unclipped, steeping a foot to the ground just to catch my breath. Hell! I wheezed for a minute, eyes full of tarmac, then turned and rolled down to a layby, reclipping, turned again tightly and ran at the beast this time, grinding out the switchbacks and trying not to spin in the melted tarmac and gravel. If I didn't dig a little deeper, I would end up a tarred and Ruskolined mess on the Bealach Feith nan Laogh.



The road finally straightened a little but continued to rise at a punishing gradient, bellying up through the rocks and whispering grass towards what looked like a mobile mast - perhaps the pass, a sign of the end to this punishment? It ended thus, hung over the handlebars beside an old gas storage tank, it was full, I was empty.

I've never burned off two beers quite as quickly in my life.



... the downhill ...

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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3D Dumby blocs - a new beginning
29 August 2014, 5:33 pm

What is the future of climbing topos and guides? It's a question which has been evolving rapidly in the last decade as we get more and more used to accessing data online, or viewing topos on our phones or tablets. Guidebooks, like vinyl records, are collectable objects and still useful and resilient formats for getting the beta you need.The Youtube/Vimeo revolution has changed bouldering beta for good and a realtime topo might include a video, a description, and, perhaps now a 3D model of the boulder.



In collaboration with the Glasgow-based ACCORD project, we've been exploring the conceptual and practical challenges (and the usefulness) of exploring our sporting heritage in a 3D-modelling project. This has involved collaborative approaches to record the climbing and geology at Dumbarton Rock. The history of climbing at Dumbarton is now rich enough, and has built up enough generational layers of development, that a statement of intent has to be made in terms of voicing our heritage here. Historic Scotland has been proactive in listening to the climbing community, but it really took this summer's project with the Glasgow School of Art/RCAHMS and local climbers to recognise Dumbarton Rock as a valuable community heritage to place alongside the castle heritage and the community/industrial heritage on the banks of the River Leven by the Rock. The SMC and the MCOS have always dutifully recorded the history and routes at Dumbarton, and represented its climbers nationally, but this project is motivated by bringing climbing into the community as an integral part of its local history.

To see the work and projects we have initiated, you can download a sample bloc (the Sea Boulder) here, you just need Adobe Reader to play around with it. let me know if the link and the 3D works for you, we want to make these models freely available under Creative Commons >>>

Sea Boulder 3D model in Acrobat PDF



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Driest September 2014
27 September 2014, 3:17 pm



September has brought crisp dry weather unprecedented in Scotland in recent years, with opportunities for walking, climbing and cycling in fine dry conditions. It has felt almost continental in the sense of blithely venturing out any day, or at least being able to rely on the weather setting fair to coincide with your time off.

Mark Garthwaite took advantage and subdued the mighty Dalriada on the Cobbler with a sports-style pre-placed gear ascent (perhaps an opportunist methodology best for our weather), on the notoriously unreadable scooped schist of the Cobbler. Fraser Harle was on hand to take some stunning and inspiring shots of this modern classic rock route, check his photos here >>>

Dan Varian amongst others has been exploring the tidal reaches of the Solway to add a new, as yet unreleased, venue on this pleasant and sunny coast. Sea-washed rocks and eliminating foothold limpets seem to be the character of these coves, topos to follow shortly.



Tom Charles-Edwards is back climbing and he prefers big lines and stones over the 600m contour, discovering king lines for anyone who can show the legs to get there, if you are brave enough to camp out high in the boulderfields amongst the rutting stags that sound like Minotaurs hunting for you when you're in a tent! John Watson continued his plus-800m exploration of granite Arran tors and fought losing shoes and chalk-bags to the winds now presaging the changes of October.



Alex Gorham and friends developed some big stones in Crianlarich, again around the 600m contour and despite the long walk-in, these stones are some of the best in Britain but are unlikely to get much traffic due to the remoteness, a story many stones in Scotland are happy to tell...



The Ayrshire Coast has also unearthed some steep cave bouldering, with fine weather, low tides and a west wind needed to maximise conditions.





Source: Stone Country Blog & News

[sherlock]

Looks like you've been keeping busy John! Any details on the Crianlarich blocs?

[SA Chris]

Might be better messaging him on his blog, this is just a feed from it. Crianlarich stuff does sound good though.

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Great Mountain Crags of Scotland
21 November 2014, 4:55 pm



Ages ago, oh, well only 7 years I'd say, I recall discussing the idea of a grand book on Scottish mountain crags with Guy Robertson and Adrian Crofton, a kind of regional upgrade and remix of Extreme Rock/Cold Climbs. They wanted to create something grand and poetical, giving the landscape as much presence as the climbing, and mixing the best writing with the best photography. It was a 'Big Stone Country' project and one too big for a small independent publisher. It gradually grew into a concept requiring significant resource and commitment, possibly even beyond Trustee based publishing such as the SMC.

The history of publishing Scotland's climbing has now over a century of documentation. The first SMC journal was in 1890 (the journal including a chapter on Arran bouldering in 1897!) and it has kept a diligent and accurate record ever since, as well as including fine articles and writing over the decades.

W.P. Haskett Smith produced volumes of guides in the 1890s to England, Wales and Ireland, but neglected Scotland. A. Abraham produced a Climbing in Skye guide in 1908 (and G. Abraham produced British Mountain Climbs in 1909, at a time when regional nationalisms had yet to fracture Britain's unity and consolidate boundaries again). The Scottish 'master' Harold Raeburn published books, such as Mountaineering Art (T. Fisher and Unwin, 1920), but this was for an Alpine age and Scotland, let alone Britain, was still considered a practice ground, or drilling square, for technique which was to be taken to the Alps and higher ranges of the Himalayas.

A compiled narrative of the Scottish experience of climbing wasn't produced until the resilient W.H. Murray rewrote from memory (after his first prisoner-of-war draft had been destroyed) the now classic and poetic Mountaineering in Scotland (J.M. Dent,1947). This captured the wealth of philosophies, geologies and moods to be found in the Scottish mountains whilst climbing, from the Cuillin's sticky gabbro flanks to the lonely step-cutting epics on the Ben in winter.

W. A Poucher brought out his classic hill guide to Scotland - The Scottish Peaks - in 1965 with some very suggestive photos for climbers (such as the overhanging beak of the Cobbler's north peak), but again the black and white photography seems gloomy to a modern eye, though perhaps originally it captured the imagination of black shadow and silvered, watery light that Scotland does so well.

It was Hamish MacInnes' 1971 twin volume guide Scottish Climbs: A Mountaineer's Pictorial Guide To Climbing In Scotland (republished in one volume by Constable, 1981) which was the first 'complete' compilation of Scottish mountain rock and winter routes, though its pictorial claim was dulled somewhat by poor paper stock flattening a lot of excellent (and now historical) climbing shots. Its photo-topos of the great shadowy monoliths in the hidden corries still managed to spell out a hefty dose of adventure and character.

Then came the legendary Ken Wilson 'quadrilogy' - Hard Rock 1974; Classic Rock, 1978; Cold Climbs, 1983; Extreme Rock, 1987 - which published in large format and in colour, mixing narrative with topos and photography. Despite Scotland getting a more-than-fair share of crags and dwarfing some English craglets (quite naturally due to its topology), the books rapidly became the go-to reference for keen British craggers out to 'tick the lot'. Not many did, as 'The Scoop' (Sron Ulladale) saw to almost everyone in the Hard Rock challenge! These books in the 70s and 80s have now thankfully been reprinted, though the plates were lost for Extreme Rock and its rare editions now fetch hefty prices on the second-hand market.

The laudable SMC/SMT area guides (and 'The Journal')  continued documenting Scottish climbing and the endlessly re-editioning and morphing ticklist of The Munros (first edition 1985) gave an approach-led introduction to discovering new crags, often mentioned in passing as the walker was led to the summit tick. For climbers, the mountain area guides provided the best narrative introductions to the climbing conditions and main routes on the mountain crags: North-West Highlands, Islands of Scotland Including Skye, Southern Highlands, Southern Uplands, Central Highlands, The Cairngorms, Ben Nevis - Britain's Highest Mountain (2009), whilst the pocket climbing guides to each area are renowned for their detail and accuracy and are in every climber's nearest access pocket.

Yet still a comprehensive tribute to Scottish mountaineering and cragging was missing. In the 'modern' era of decades since the 70s, ever since cams, sky-hooks and RPs, and since modern precision-designed rock shoes, new rock routes proliferated and grades jumped to E5 and above, now up to the famous E11s by Dave MacLeod. Technology, especially in winter kit (drop-head axes; front-point crampons; thinner, longer ropes; thinner clothing and gloves), allowed a surgical rather than bludgeoned approach to the rimed cliffs, and consequently the 'mixed' tradition in winter has upped the scale of technique and boldness above grade IX.

Excellent modern guide compilations include Kevin Howett's self-illustrated (these crag drawings are now classics) Rock Climbing in Scotland (1st ed. Constable, 1990), though again the imagery was black and white and the text had to be limited to pitch descriptions rather than expansive narrative. Even at 480 pages, this was subtitled 'a selected guide', but it was the only guide that had all the classic extremes (not to mention the famous midge-rating system!).

The proliferation and popularity of climbing set in train a number of new guide-books to Scotland in the 2000s, such as the excellent SMC guides, including the full-colour selected guide: Scottish Rock Climbs, (ed. Nisbet, 2005) and Scottish Winter Climbs (2nd ed. 2008, ed. Anderson, Nisbet & Richardson). Gary Latter's Scottish Rock in 2 volumes (Pesda Press, 2008), focused on colourful photo-topos (and remarkably Mediterranean weather!) but they of course, as guidebooks, could not make room for too much narrative. Even bouldering had a look-in as a 'mountain activity', with the first Stone Country Guide to Bouldering in Scotland publishing in 2005, focusing on the stony landscape, narrative and photography of Scotland.

Still, no-one had ever really thought to collate the massive geologies of Scotland into one giant book of photography and narrative. The guidebooks were there, but the coffee table was empty of tribute. Thankfully Vertebrate Publishing has fixed this and we have, like a thunderous alpenhorn of calling: The Great Mountain Crags of Scotland (Vertebrate, 2014).

Vertebrate Publishing has stepped into Scotland with a genuine enthusiasm for the unique character of climbing here. It has brought a coffee-table commitment to the format of the book, which is laudable in a digital age when publishers are reining back from costs and large format printing. For those long years, Guy Robertson and Adrian Crofton kept gathering and editing (and climbing!), as well as cajoling reticent writers and talented photographers to buy in, at their own cost, to the project.

The result is a collection of everything dear to the Scottish climber (or 'climber in Scotland', whatever you prefer, though climbing here does tend to make you a 'Scottish' climber if you stay long enough). The book is a compilation of the main mountain crags represented through the words of climbers, the eye of photographers such as Colin Threlfall and Dave Cuthbertson (amongst other talented snappers), and the clarifying lenses of poets. Perhaps climbers performing are just physical poets, at least when they get the moves right!

Each section is introduced by a stunning landscape photograph and a poem from Stuart Campbell. He sets the climbing in context to the land in each area, combining stone and ice with resonant geologies of human presence in the Highlands, and some of these really stand out, my favourite from 'The Islands' containing these echoing lines:

'Here you can look over the edge

into the half-life of the earth,

see: the spoor of the dinosaurs on the Jurassic shore.

We camped on the footprints of a croft

a man once kept at Coruisk;

little remains, everything so far removed ...

pinnacles, geos, ridges ... Crimps, smears ...

You give everything; to risk it,

not the falling, but that exaltation ...'

Some of the photography is the best yet published. Dave Cuthbertson's shot of Dave MacLeod on Dalriada on The Cobbler, in MacLeods's 'apprenticeship' piece on the venue, with the black sea of nothingness behind him as he crimps up a bottomless wall, ropes telegraphing commitment beneath him, is beautiful to behold in print. Colin Threlfall's broad panoramas of the Cuillin, and crag shots such as the remote winter cliffs of Mainreachan Buttress, as well as his frontispiece spreads for the sections, are some of the best landscape photographs out there. The individual 'action' shots from belay partners are remarkably good and often unposed, due to the nifty digital cameras available today: Tony Stone on Sron Ulladale's The Scoop is at once both inviting and terrifying.

Highlights in the writing include:

• Mark McGowan's candid account of soloing Shibboleth (E2) on Slime Wall, the photographs make me shiver with disbelief every time
• Guy Robertson's account of a winter ascent of centurion on The Ben - thrilling and elemental stuff leading to a summit experience more akin to the Himalayas
• Ian Taylor's baffled account of finding Church Door Buttress apparently dry and having to climb its classic extremes...
• Jason Currie's puzzlement at a marginal guidebook scribble leading to a technical and physical resolution on Beinn Eighe
• Roger Webb's tale of the fickle Quinag and new-routing in winter
• Kevin Howett's historical entertainment of competitive tradding on Arran
• Grant Farquhar on climbing and nostalgia and the Great Prow of Bla Bheinn

Possibly my only criticism would be that there were no female writers in the collection, despite a number having contributed to Scottish climbing over the years (Cynthia Grindley, Jo George etc.). The ratio of male to female is certainly not to zero. Perhaps in future the gender imbalance on the extreme routes will not be so obvious as climbing abilities between the sexes narrow, due to the opportunity to train and the precedence of a few notably talented and active female traditional climbers raising the expectations, such as Tess Fryer.

The selection of crags and venues in the book is well balanced between rock and winter, and of course it is a selection, as many major cliffs remain almost devoid of routes for their size, such as the mighty Sgurr on Eigg, though it has a few modern classic extremes and seemed a glaring omission from this collection. Then again, there are plenty of large crags that didn't 'make it' and Scotland is a massively folded, 3D landscape with many hidden and remote crags, so this is hardly a criticism, and the book is really meant to be inspirational rather than completist. It couldn't be, considering the territory and the history of climbing we have.

This is an essential book to own if you are a climber. It is truly inspirational. And the thing about this book is its dual end-product: its archival worth and its visual and literary inspiration. As an archive, it is a document of a community's soul, each climber's experiences adding to the spirit of the Scottish mountains, despite it all being necessarily personal and individual at the crux moments! And inspiration, because a book like this shows that the climbers in this book are channeling something much bigger than themselves - an energy of challenge and adventure which will send an electric charge through every reader, youthful and experienced alike.

Amazon are selling the book at discount here >>>



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Invisible Archaeology  –  Dumbarton Rock
5 December 2014, 5:30 pm



When I first arrived at Dumbarton Rock, I never thought the dramatic geology I saw – the square-cut overhanging main faces, the giant beaked boulders, the moody facets of black and orange rock – were anything but solid and unchanging. I never thought there would be a character to the rock other than its intimidating immediacy and its industrial ‘clash and bang’ of sheer physicality and its contextual setting in the post-industrial decline of Dumbarton and the Vale of Leven.  

Maybe that’s what happens on all first visits to a climbing venue  –  a kind of heightened sense of the place’s physical presence  –  but if you spend years repeating visits to a place, it becomes a more temporal or invisible thing, in fact it almost vanishes before your eyes, first impressions rubbed out, to be replaced by folded-in memories of faced-down failures and subtle successes, and countless other small details. In fact failure and success become meaningless terms and there is just a space between these two almost irrelevant ideas, there is just a long memory of ‘being there’. Despite the apparent unchanging background of geology to us, the crag and boulders disappear over time and in their place I now have, after two decades visiting ‘Dumby’, a resonant space of movement, change, plasticity and memory.

Dumbarton Rock has layers of history and generations of climbing to its name, it has what we would now confidently call a ‘sporting heritage’. Though these generations often overlap, there is often a sense of different camps, of ‘new-school’ versus ‘old-school’. So it goes with climbers. When I started climbing at Dumby in the 90s, I was aware of the legacy of the 80s generation of Cuthbertson, Latter, et al, but I was just vaguely aware of the 60s and the 70s generation, with occasional ‘remnant’ climber such as Tam McAuley turning up to scoff at my fancy new boots, but more often my shoddy technique on the treacherous basalt of Dumby. Frank Yeoman occasionally swung by and blithely repeated the highball circuit problems, while I was more wrapped up in the powerful ‘new’ problems and traverses being created by Andy Gallagher and Cameron Phair. It felt like there was a conceptual gap, but a thread of history between the generations nonetheless. My respect for previous generational visits only grows as my own sense of newness is gradually subsumed by levels of knowing, and perhaps the fossilisation that happens to all sporting endeavour.

 Climbing is a singular visitational activity locked into a philosophy of risk and release. We arrive, we climb, we tick the route, we move on, like a raiding party of colourful leisure-locusts. This can happen in swarms, to which anyone who has been to Fontainebleau at Easter can testify. Boulderers in the US invented the term ‘rampage’ to suggest a kind of mercenary raiding of something valuable and collectible, but also maybe disposable – a spoil of war, a dismissive trinket of vertical pleasure. But has climbing finally evolved a mature language and philosophy of meaning, or at least its own canon of sporting literature (like boxing or football has its classic works of journalism), despite this apparently disposable/replaceable attitude to its substrate, or its arena?  

The problem with developing a philosophy of climbing, a sense of place and even a 'sacred ground' attitude (a unique sense of ownership in landscape, ‘dwelling’ as Ingold might name it), is the fact that it is an invisible tourism of sorts: in Britain particularly the ethic of ‘leave no trace’ has been  prevalent. The climber visits a swathe of vertical rock and can now leave practically no trace, utilising a running technology of temporary protection or ‘gear’ such as ‘friends’, ‘nuts’ and ‘sky hooks’, rather than an older technology of ‘in-situ gear’, such as ‘pegs’ and ‘tat’. Climbers come and go, they vanish, usually without trace, making their own archaeology largely an oral history. Sure, they can now leave a noisy colourful trail online via Facebook and Vimeo etc., as well as the traditional print media of magazines and guidebooks – perhaps that's our archaeology – but despite the digital/print trace, what remains of the climber at the crag or boulder? What have I left at Dumbarton to mark my heritage aside from so many hours staring blankly over the time-lapse tides of the River Leven?

Is it possible to leave a coherent archaeology as you do it, as it is performed? Or is all this for future anthropologists of 21st century leisure – and is it really your duty as a climber to actually think about it, or just do it? We can of course ‘just do it’. This is the primal attitude of youth, the desire to better, the incentive to be unique, the performance towards the end of everything before (cue Hulk-pose and roar). The drive to perform, without necessarily understanding that history in terms of ‘dwelling’, is fine as it goes in our scale of numbers and their excession. Sport does this all the time, it’s the Olympics, it’s the 100m sprint, and youth understands this so well, it celebrates its current technology of power, its ‘body’ and the older generations accept it with grace, just as youth comes to accept it in time as they age, and its remains are ‘coached’, to another generation. This is all healthy and the natural rhythm of sport. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

In the summer of 2104, an interdisciplinary archaeology project, with the acronym ACCORD (Archaeology Community Co-design and Co-production of Research Data), came visiting at Dumbarton Rock, curious at the recent drama of 'graffiti-gate', or basically the dilemma of climbers trying to determine if graffiti-artists were fellow 'rock-artists', or simple delinquents with nothing to add to the heritage at Dumby. It had created something of a minor stir in 2013 and the BBC even did a brief feature piece on radio and online. It was all a pickle of access issues, heritage bodies, community rights, and Health & Safety concerns, as well as the aesthetic argument over paint on rock. But what it did do was bring together concerned individuals who all valued 'The Rock' from differing perspectives. For climbers, we mostly wanted graffiti artists not to mess with the friction and aesthetic qualities of the rock, whilst Historic Scotland naturally wanted the rock to appear in its pristine state in a Commonwealth Games year. The community wanted to resurrect an old right-of-way path ('Washingstone Way') round the north of the castle mound. Some climbers suggested 'de-scheduling' the rock's north-west faces and boulders (classified as a protected or 'scheduled' monument) and allowing climbers to create their own 'climbing park', involving Dumbarton's community. There was a lot of positive talk and genuine community action. ACCORD saw this archaeology in action and stepped in with a project to scan the physical climbing arena with 3D imagery-techniques, thus archiving the physical sporting heritage and the older layers of community involvement at Dumbarton Rock (such as the carved graffiti and painted graffiti), deliberately recording outside its more static and traditional status as an ancient castle. It was effectively trying to capture the living archaeology of Dumbarton Rock as it is experienced in the early 21st century – a 3D postcard if you like.

To us as climbers beginning to fret about the invisibility of this heritage, and the threats against our activity (whether legal, developmental, or other), I felt a strong sense of 'Commons' ownership of this area, without wishing to fence it off to others in the slightest. I felt we had rights which needed expressed, even if the exercise of those rights happened mostly invisibly to the outside world, beyond  its concern and frame of reference. As a small community, we valued the place as 'sacred', in the sense that we'd be distraught if it was quarried away, fenced off or somehow forbidden to us. Maybe this was an over-reaction, or paranoia, but it seemed more like an opportunity, provided by the kind people at ACCORD, to express our heritage and voice our natural delight at a place most people thought post-industrial, grotty, and no more than a brown-field curiosity. To us, these perspectives fell far short of our connected feelings for the place, the landscape, as regular climbers.  

So what is our archaeology as climbers, beyond the personal? Climbing has its own language, boundaries and ethics, these are all understood without the need for a rule book or dictionary. This is unusual, as most sports rely on a statute book or set of rules. Climbing does as well, but these rules are curated by a community of oral historians who hold the keys, the ‘beta’ and the ethics of an ascent. Any crime committed is apprehended through a well-developed communal conscience, though nowadays legitimised by video footage more often than not. We are a self-regulating lot, our own police, judge and jury. We do have official bodies such as the SMC and the BMC, but whilst they suggest ethical behaviour codes, these are created by climbers first and foremost and there is no equivalent of a Football Association with a rule book for outdoor climbing. Nor do they create the field for our play, this is given to us by nature, and we approach it with all the conscience we can muster to such a variable arena, so it does tend to fall outside the remit of 'regulated sport'. That is not to say climbers do not value their environment and their substrate. Far from it, they just don't want to regulate it unless entirely necessary.  

Over time, visiting a place regularly, purely for leisure reasons, like a round of golf, but in this case to climb on rocks, leads to profound and gradual changes in perception and perspective. I have to ask myself: what is it that vanishes and what takes over, what long silent process has carved out my perspective from the sheer physical geology of the place I first saw 20 years ago or more, sounding out of the Clyde like a large bass note? For me, it has been a growing sense of community, a place of belonging, almost of habitation, (with Commons rights only, no fences please!). Nature, place, history, environment, seem to have reasserted themselves over the personal interventions we perform such as climbing. It is a good and positive thing and leaves me with a sense that, if Dumbarton Rock's familiar double-humped profile suddenly vanished from the Clyde's shores, a deep and wounded hole would open in my heart.

ACCORD 3D image of Pongo Face >>>

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Essential Fontainebleau 2nd edition - OUT NOW!
9 December 2014, 8:17 am

The new edition of Essential Fontainebleau is now available to order at £11.99 (plus a little PandP), we've just got copies in and it looks terrific, we think! Order it now and we'll post out first class for next day in the UK.

The full-colour guide introduces the climber to the classic bouldering in the forest of Fontainebleau. This new edition has been expanded and improved to include:

? Classic circuits and highlight problems

? Walk-in oriented topos to over 30 key venues

? Test piece tick-lists 5+ to 8c for 320 classic problems

? Photo topos for multi-problem blocs

? Visual index, maps and detailed access notes

? Essential information for first-time visitors

? Feature bloc photography

Have a look through the preview on Issuu below:



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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New Year enfolded in Kintyre
9 January 2015, 3:55 pm





The years fold into one another, and layers appear...

We ran away to Kintyre over New Year, to the sheltered nook that is Carradale, on the east coast of Kintyre, facing the west coast of Arran, to ride out the storms and see in the New Year, a convenient 10-yard meander from the Cruban Bar (and an old-fashioned pool table I came to know well). In the short 6 hour window of light (and the 3rd of January was spectacular in its stillness between the fronts), the plan was to find some bouldering on the east coast -  I'd never found much aside from the shark-fins at Skipness which were not that satisfying. Finding the perfect line in a remote corner of Scotland is always invigorating and you just know the fractal coast will reveal something amazing just round the next bay if you keep going.



So I took off round the headland south of Carradale, which on Google Earth looks like a giant pointed-finger cursor pointing south to the open sea. Most of the headland is a rhododendron-jungle populated by wild goats, but it is fringed with a unique schist geology - heavily banded, juggy lateral rock, folded and crimped into bizarre scalloped features, giant blocs and endless caves. It doesn't make for hard bouldering, it's too generously featured, which was good as my shoulder was wrecked, but rather provides remarkably steep roofs and prows climbed on juggy ripples of mostly-solid rock, but snappy enough in places to provide the thrill of insecurity. The best I found was just opposite the headland fort on the path down to the shore - a rising traverse up a prow not far off the tracking bank of grass, and not much more than 6a. An excellent place to explore if you like steep hauling and monkeying around footless.



The whole point of exploration I think, certainly on your own, is getting enfolded in the landscape, losing the mind for a while and coming 'back to consciousness' in a different moment. There's a lot of words written about this by many philosophers, not least Heraclitus and his idea of not stepping in the same river twice, so I'll not labour a good point badly, suffice to say Carradale is a good place to dissolve yourself for a while . . .



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

[Fiend]

That is some funky looking rock there!

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February bouldering
8 February 2015, 4:53 pm

With the high pressure settling over most of Scotland and providing windless weather and cold temperatures, the bouldering conditions are pretty good at the start of February. Some new projects are being worked on across the country.

On the Moray Coast, a new sandstone roof venue akin to Cummingston looks excellent, if this little video is to go by, thanks to Hamish Fraser, Dave Wheeler and friends.

from North West Outdoors on Vimeo.

om/117063792">New Bouldering Project, Moray Coast from Hamish Fraser on Vimeo.

In Glasgow, Serious Climbing is putting the finishing design touches to the Commonwealth Games legacy project that is the Cuningar Loop Boulder Park. This park is due to open in the spring sometime, and first glimpses look jaw-dropping. The site features what appears to be about a dozen moulded blocs on a forested plot of land in a loop of the Clyde river, near Dalmarnock.



Alex Gorham has blogged a picture of a nicely-cleaned sandstone bloc near Milngavie, hopefully we'll have some hard projects to work soon when he reveals where. The sandstone escarpment that runs under the Campsies from Faifley to Lennoxtown has a number of undeveloped spots, dank roofs and lost blocs, often requiring significant cleaning, but this looks like another belter to rival the Lennoxtown roof.



Kintyre has seen some exploration round Carradale, where a tortured schist geology provides unusually juggy steep climbing and some giant highballs.





In Arrochar, a number of large blocs have been discovered recently, with Dan Varian about to reveal an awesome hidden bloc sure to be a new classic in the area. John Watson has been developing some new areas in remoter parts, just waiting for the elusive combination of conditions and form...



In Coigach, it seems slabs are the fashion of the day, perhaps because they are so often ignored due to the profligate ubiquity of roofs and steepness on the sandstone. 'Flexor Strain' is the 'hardest slab in Coigach':



from North West Outdoors on Vimeo.



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Bouldering rampage Scotland-style
29 March 2015, 7:55 pm

I hate the term 'rampage', as though boulderers are locusts devouring some resource and moving on, it's an awful term and I'll talk about it in another post, but it's maybe an apt term to explain the pent-up energy released when weather and new blocs coincide in Scotland. Cabin-fever can lead to a frenzy of sudden activity after the long winter months, on boulders so good they crave movement and release themselves.

We've had a good spell of weather recently (now over!) and the usually dank blocs have dried out. I won't release any location details out of respect for the hard-working and civic-minded pioneers, but the Highlands in particular have always held project stones generally ignored by the global bouldering community, maybe they have good reason. If they want 8c's and 9a's, they are here for the taking, though we're hoping some home-grown talent finds a way to move Scotland onto new levels. After all, this is the home of Malc Smith and Dave MacLeod, amongst others, who have somehow found international levels of strength and grace on rock, despite the weather!

Here are a few tasters of Scottish bouldering stones currently in development, if you do stumble on stones with chalk and cleaning marks, please respect the projects, though it's unlikely you'll find these stones without a highly developed radar which only kicks in when you've lived in Scotland for a while ... or you have something to trade!

Hige Girvan bloc awaiting a low tide...'USS Enterprise'

New Traverse from Pierre Fuentes at Agassiz Rock 7b+

Pierre's new traverse at Salisbury - 7a

This giant arete sits in someone's garden unfortunately...

Loch Lomond giant awaiting someone strong...

Giant roof with a possible 9a for someone who likes huge spans...Pierre Philosophale but harder

Colin Lambton on the Aberfoyle project bloc, coming soon...

Dan Varian near Strontian...on the project bloc

Tom Charles-Edwards on his Arran project

One of the giant blocs at 'Mini Magic Wood', details from Alex Gorham forthcoming



Glasgow sandstone bloc topo to be released soon...



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Spring bouldering Scotland 2015
15 April 2015, 9:16 pm

Social media is good at one thing: telling us how good the weather is elsewhere. There's nothing like the itch aroused by hearing that pop-up alert sound and a cobalt blue sky behind a climber on Facebook/Vimeo/Flickr etc. But sometimes good weather does coincide with a day or two off and it all works out. Here are some examples of people timing some good conditions with a bit of fine bouldering weather in a Scottish springtime...

Dan Varian on his new direct on the States bloc at Garheugh - Big Mac 7c

Richie Betts on his 6c (???) at Reiff



As the forestry is gradually being cropped round Arrochar, dozens of new stones are appearing. Luckily, after decades in the pine-dark gloom, they are silvery and clean, and require little gardening. Topos for the new stones will appear in the new Bouldering in Scotland guide, hopefully with all the other new areas, though venues are being opened faster than I can map them!



The Creagh Dhu always said there was 'another Craigmore' at Carbeth, but I never found anything other than the scrappy outcrops further east. I've scoured the whole west flank of the West Highland Way, giving it up as a typical red herring, until I found this little red-striped wall east of the Queen's View car-park. It gives a superb and slopey vertical  test-piece we call Tiger Wall 7a from the sit and maybe 6c from the stand, if you get the conditions!



Dan Varian has been exploring Arrochar, and made short work, in a good spell of weather, of his project The Beast of Succoth, a new 8a at Glen Loin. The Arrochar Caves area has always attracted boulderers but there were never any obvious king lines, perhaps we were looking in the wrong place! The hillside above the parking, up towards A Chrois, hides some awesome blocs and good rock under all the old moss and lichen.



Nearby at Ben Vane, Tom Charles-Edwards has been meandering higher and higher looking for the perfect boulder. He climbed the obvious south groove line on the Dinosaur Egg bloc (above), calling it The Dragon's Eye is Always Watching, at a reachy 7b (SS).



Girvan and Lendalfoot has benefitted from a fluke of nature as tidal gravel has filled in some awful rocky landings, so it's worth stopping off if you're on the Stranraer road, it's got a lot of potential but suffers a little from tidal damp, so choose a low tide with a drying westerly. Dave Redpath and Paul Savage and friends climbed here years ago and put up most of the obvious direct lines, so apologies if some of these are repetitive descriptions. The bouldering is powerful and technical, with precision footwork required on sea-washed toe-holds. John Watson repeated some of the old lines on the toffee-textured south wall of the big orange bloc near the Varyag memorial. The pick of the bunch is Paddy's Milestone, the left arete of the south bulge.The Scoop problem is also a classic line with a technical sequence.

Paddy's Milestone, a 3 star 6th grade problem at Lendalfoot

Richie Betts on Worlds Collide at Torridon

I'll not talk too much of the north-west,as I've not been up to see all the recent explorations, but Gaz Marshall has put up a good post detailing some new explorative stuff >>> Inverness

Enjoy the spring weather...



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Bouldering updates April 2015
25 April 2015, 6:47 pm

Dan Varian visits Glen Nevis and confirms two hard lines by climbing them and filming them, no edits, no doubt... the first is 7c+ and the second the amazing arete of the Cameron Stone at 8a+.

Nice conditions at Reiff-in-the-Woods, Ian Taylor repeating The Rasper:

And Ian again on a nice looking line, Unknown Air, near Stac Pollaidh, which would have made a nice walk-off:

And a nice topo from Ian Rankin for the highball bouldering at Cairnrobin Point, which looks good, and incredible geology to boot:



Some new backwoods bouldering round Glasgow as things dry out in the good weather:

from John Watson on Vimeo.

from John Watson on Vimeo.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Cochno Stones: Archaeology and Bouldering
26 April 2015, 5:40 pm

High above the residential northern shores of the Clyde is a strip of sandstone geology outcropping all the way to Craigmaddie Muir in the east. It lies hidden under a mossy understorey mostly, and varies in consistency and quality, but was once the attention of neolithic archaeologists, until they had to bury what is one of Scotland's greatest rock-art sites.The 'Cochno Stone' was uncovered by the Rev James Harvey in 1887 on open land near what is now the Faifley housing estate. It is covered with dozens of cup and ring marks, grooved spirals, along with a ringed cross and a pair of four-toed feet. It was briefly a chalked-in tourist attraction until it was buried to prevent vandalism in 1964.



Rock-art these days is a kinaesthetic thing, recorded as bouldering on photo-video networks, rather than pecked out on rock plinths. I've always like the connection between the vibrant, fluid circles and lines inscribed on the rock and the modern tracery of bouldering; there is a long connection of being in the same place, despite the different physicalities, changed rituals and contexts. Bouldering is a ritual of uncovering climbing movement, moving on in stations to the next problem, a kind of sporting religion. Every climber knows the call, the Sunday bells of unclimbed rocks...

The Cochno Stones, as I call them, are nearby crags and blocs at Auchnacraig car-park which have seen the light after a rhododendron cull. Under their mossy garb are various gritstone-like problems complete with embedded river pebbles from an ancient flood. Drying out nicely and desperate for traffic, they sit at the entrance to Auchnacraig House by the car-park for the Faifley walks. Take a wire brush and go make some modern rock-art!

Smithless Wall 6a

Cochno Prow 6b



Punjab Buffet 7a+



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

[SA Chris]

If it really is gritstone, surely a wire brush is a bad idea?

[andy_e]

I think that was slightly tongue-in-cheek... Looks like a great venue anyway!

[SA Chris]

Hope so! Looks good though, might stop by.... once it's been wire brushed clean

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Summer Bouldering on the Scottish coast
10 August 2015, 2:45 pm

  from John Stewart Watson on Vimeo.

from John Stewart Watson on Vimeo.

Escaping to the coast has been the only bouldering option in the summer heat, especially in a summer where the bracken seems to have gone Jurassic. The first video shows the excellent 'Wind Oyster' boulder problem on Gigha, and the second video is of the fine little Pinbain pinnacle at Girvan.

Good news for those new to bouldering in Scotland - the third edition of the guide is well under way and we hope to have it available by early 2016. These two new venues feature in it, amongst about 150 other venues. It's almost impossible keeping up with all the localised developments and this will be the last gazetteer of Scottish bouldering before it goes entirely fractal and into area guides, so email me your venue information if you want it featured >>>



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

[andy_e]

 

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Submerged Bouldering
17 August 2015, 10:56 am



Fancy bouldering underwater, floating up holds? Try 'The Ark' blocs at Loch Arklet, beside the Stronachlachlar boulders. Usually submerged, they emerge clean and smooth and rippled in late summer, when the thirsts of Glaswegians drain this feeder loch enough to reveal a pair of conjoined blocs. There are a few nice sit starts on perfect schist, with a tough wee roof on 'The Arklet'. Being 3 minutes from the road, they are a perfect summer's picnic venue, with often a breeze rippling the loch to keep the midges to the higher blocs in the bracken up at An Garadh.

from John Stewart Watson on Vimeo.

from John Stewart Watson on Vimeo.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Primrose Bay
14 September 2015, 7:48 am

Some quality new sandstone problems from Hamish Fraser near Cummingston:

from Hamish Fraser on Vimeo.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

[andy_e]

Good work Hamfunk.

[SA Chris]

Yeah, some good stuff on offer there now. Guided tour?