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Perfect start to December
2 December 2012, 12:48 pm

  There is no better feeling than cyan-blue skies and the first winter shroud laid down on the distant Highland tops... the rock conditions have been perfect and holds which were soap-bars in summer now feel like emery boards.

Craigmaddie and Craigmore have been in good condition, with new link-ups and traverses for the locals creating grade confusion - everything in these conditions feels two grades easier, which is why Font grades can feel so hard in the heat (they tend to be graded for the 'magic day' of perfect friction).



Craigmaddie now has over 50 documented problems, from Font 2 through to Font 7c, with the sunniest winter aspect in Central Scotland. This makes it a glowing and popular venue for those who can't afford the petrol for 'The County'. For the Central belt boulderer, this venue offers an under-rated alternative to Northumberland sandstone and you can get over 6 hours of sun in mid December, if your skin lasts that long! Colin Lambton has added a superb direct finish to Easyjet 7a, making this the classic problem on the High Tier roof.

from John Watson on Vimeo.

Fiend here shows us some nice contortionism at Glen Clova :

from Fiend on Vimeo.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Archipelago Review
4 December 2012, 10:03 am

 If you're interested in landscape writing, perhaps the finest collection can be found in the biannual literary magazine ARCHIPELAGO. It is published by Clutag Press and collects the best of landscape writing and poetry from the likes of Michael Longley, Tim Robinson, Robert Macfarlane and Seamus Heaney.

Issue 7, Winter 2012, contains a section from our very own Rathlin: Nature and Folklore, an extended version of 'Foorins and Cuddens' telling of the isanders' seabird-fowling and natural climbing skills akin to the 'guga' hunters on St Kilda:

'...some descended on homespun ropes from cliff tops, the ropes secured to an iron stake driven into the turf, or, in the case of one famous nineteenth century climmer (island name for a cragsman), from a rope tied to the leg of his horse.'

There is some terrific writing in this 'journal' of poetic landscapes. I liked Katherine Rundell's 'Ghost Storms', describing a Scottish storm '...like a German opera, like a drunk with a gun.'

Tim Robinson is typically fractal in his approach to place names in Ireland in his essay 'The Seanachai and the Database', echoing the magic of Scotland's more mysterious Pictish/Brythonic/Gaelic pasts:

'The giving or using or remembering of a placename stands for the primary act of attention - a discrimination, an appreciation of uniqueness - that turns a bare location into a place. Thus a placename is a creative force, a word of power ... it sits at the centre of many webs simultaneously, a hyper-spider.'

Michael Longley never fails to draw emotional blood, his poem on dementia ('Insomnia') being particularly poignant:

'In the asylum

Helen Thomas took Ivor Gurney's hand

When he was miles away from Gloucestershire

And sanity, and on Edward's county map

guided his lonely finger down the lanes...'

This volume also contains Roger Hutchinson's essay in honour of Sorley MacLean's poem Hallaig. Raasay's clearances echo painfully from this poem and it is here translated by Seamus Heaney, for those not lucky enough to 'have the Gaelic':

'...

The road is plush with moss

And the girls in a noiseless procession

going to Clachan as always

And coming back from Clachan

And Suishnish, their land of the living,

Still lightsome and unheartbroken,

their stories only beginning...

back through the gloaming to Hallaig

through the vivid speechless air,

pouring down the steep slopes,

their laughter misting my ear...'



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Skye (a land of myth much-missed)
26 December 2012, 4:20 pm

 

In the early 2000s, a mysterious stranger began claiming a number of hard ascents, first in Glen Nevis (The Morrighan, Jupiter Collison...etc.)and then on the Isle of Skye (Extradition, It's Over etc.). In particular, the boulders of Coire Lagan held some great-looking lines which began appearing on a local blog featuring photographs of a lithe-looking climber on very steep lines, but usually static on one of the jugs and never on video. Many climbers had visited and tried the lines, coming back claiming they were futuristic and impossible. Dave MacLeod walked away from the mythical 'It's Over' with its wee undercut holds and obvious-but-out-of-reach double-sloper. The forums, for a year or two, were alive with debate as to who this stranger was and how the hell he had got so strong.

The legendary O'Conor blog, its posts notably created in the dark hours, like some intricate verbal death-star, has mostly been dismantled by its shamed owner, who was, at considerable expense and frustration, visited by John Watson on the Isle of Lewis to winkle out some element of truth to the whole debacle. Was this O'Conor the new Sharma? Him and his faithful dog padding up to the boulders, bivvying out in extreme temperatures, pulling off 8c problems 'out of the air'? Where did he train? How did he get so strong? Did the climbs actually exist? O'Conor, in person affable and personable, was at the same time evasive and only once put his shoes on in anger, struggling to get off the ground on his own 8a (6c) Atlantic Bridge at Port Nis (Watson flashed this and was bitterly disappointed to have to downgrade it so - he thought he'd pulled off a miracle). Who was the mythical 'Finn' he climbed with, who O'Conor claimed had spotted him on first ascents, but whom no-one had ever spotted themselves? The whole thing was an expensive outing for Watson (building to a whisky stand-off at 2am), who like others had been forced to mention these problems in early Scottish bouldering guides, giving the creature the benefit of the doubt... that he was indeed the Finn MacCool of legend, breakfasting on 8a's and crushing all under his fists of fury.

Well, things have quietened down a bit since those heady days, which is a shame since the online rants were legendary and much-missed by the Scottish climbing community. We wish Si well on his new ventures, whatever they may be - SBS extreme kayaking or some such -  and we are at least delighted to witness, on video, and indisputably, the reality of some of these climbs under the audit of peer-reviewed boulderers. Climbed by boulderers with a propensity for detail rather than tall tales, these legendary Skye problems now exist - thanks to Mike Adam for his dedication to such remote imaginings. But maybe, just maybe, the legend will return, tripod in hand, pair of old 5.10 Moccasyms in the other...?

from Mike Adams on Vimeo.  



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

[Wood FT]

His hands must have been bloody stumps after that trip 

Nice video, it's been a few years since I was there but that brought it all back, midges, marshes and a stunning landscape.

[Fiend]

Good report on the Lie O Conner legend

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Fallen Rocks
5 January 2013, 2:36 pm

Fallen Rocks, a photo by Stone Country Press on Flickr.3rd January and finally a still day with no wind and rain. These blocs provide conglomerate pebble pulling in an idyllic location with some big project blocs higher up the hill...

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Arran North Glen Sannox
5 January 2013, 2:39 pm

Arran North Glen Sannox, a photo by Stone Country Press on Flickr.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Arran Blocs
5 January 2013, 2:41 pm

Arran Blocs, a photo by Stone Country Press on Flickr.If you enjoy insecure pebble pulling and can't walk further than 20m from the road...

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Maol Donn
5 January 2013, 3:13 pm

 

Maol Donn, a photo by Stone Country Press on Flickr. Maol Donn is the indistinct brown lump above the Corrie shoreline and, despite a painful approach through rough ground and forestry, provides remunerative bouldering on numerous tan sandstone blocs...topo forthcoming...

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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New Year challenge
5 January 2013, 3:54 pm

      Reading through old books and perusing maps on dark winter nights leads to ambitious fantasies not unknown at this time of year. This little topo of the Arran hills got me thinking...would it be possible to summit every granite peak in 24 hours? I think it may be time to get the 25 thou. map out and plot a midsummer escapade.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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The Arran 24 peaks
16 January 2013, 7:22 am

     Reading through old books and perusing maps on dark winter nights leads to ambitious fantasies not unknown at this time of year. This little topo of the Arran hills got me thinking...would it be possible to summit every granite peak in 24 hours?

Climbing every distinct granite peak would include:

1. Beinn Nuis 792m

2. Beinn Tharsuinn 826m

3. Beinn a Chliabhainn 653m

4. A Chir 745m

5. Cir Mhor 799m

6. North Goatfell 818m

7. Goatfell 874m

8. Mullach Buidhe 829m

9. Am Binnein 665m

10. Ciche na h' Oighe 661m

11. Suidhe Fearghas 631m?

12. Ceum na Caillich 758m

13. Caisteal Abhail 859m

14. Beinn Bhreac East 575m

15. Beinn Tarsuinn North Peak 556m

16. Beinn Bhiorach486m

17. Meall Mor 496m

18. Meall nan Damh 570m

19. Meall Bhig 438m

20. Meall Donn 653m

21. Beinn Bhreac West 711m

22. Mullach Buidhe 721m

23. Beinn Bharainn 717m

24. Sail Chalmadale 480m



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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The fishing season begins...
17 January 2013, 12:21 pm

   

I always think bouldering is a little like fly-fishing. I was at Dumby on a still January day as the River Leven flooded at high tide. A large seal wallowed in the slack water looking for salmon, sandwich terns screeching and plunging about his head. I was stood under a cave in bitingly-cold conditions,with an extended rod with a brush on the end attending to a chalk-caked hold.

Each attempt at the moves is like the cast of a fly line: it's got to be timed perfectly, with all strength in balance, waiting the optimum time between casts, and hopefully the line lands without a splash and the sequence goes smoothly. If not, it is all chaos and disruption and a large wake in the smooth waters of gravity, scaring off the big salmon of the send... I'm stretching the metaphor a little, but it's the same process of cast and cast again, trusting to the belief that everything will come together eventually in one perfect sequence. And like fishing, I could stand there for hours, absorbed in an obsession of tiny perfections. No better way to spend an afternoon and even if I didn't land a fish, I know the tide will come in again...

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

[Sasquatch]

That has to be one of the best analogies I've ever heard for bouldering.  Too true....

[andy_e]

Have you ever flashed a salmon?

[Sasquatch]

Have you ever flashed a salmon?

YES!!!!  More than once I might add, and in more ways than one 

Hooked a Sockeye(red) salmon first cast on a new to me creek a couple of years ago. 

[Fiend]

Have you ever flashed The Salmon?

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'Oceans' 5 star classic 'rediscovered' at Dumby
27 January 2013, 7:25 am

    Dave MacLeod's 'Oceans' - the attractive orange scoop on the southwest face of the Eagle Boulder, has always repelled strong climbers, and appeared as a total mystery to most. Given 7b+, it seemed within reach of the indoor-trained beast, but this is Dumby and requires a more tenacious and arcane approach! It was good to see it reclimbed and classed as one of the best at Dumby by Niall McNair and Fraser McIlwraith, before the rain returned on Saturday 26th January 2013. They rated it a 'hard 7c' and one of the most unusual and classy of problems at Dumby. The first move twisting up to a poor undercut, then stepping feet through on poor slopers to a vicious cross-through to a crimp only leads you to a further, heart-fluttering power sequence to the lip... many mats and much spotting help secure this, which makes a lone ascent even more impressive. Now on the list of favourites to do, this approaches the magical formula in bouldering: poor footholds, masonic handholds, unusual moves, technique, torque, power and commitment all melded into one.  

from Fraser McIlwraith on Vimeo.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Scottish Bouldering Update
5 February 2013, 7:47 am

  As we move forward gathering the simply frightening amount of good bouldering in Scotland for the Atlas of Scottish Bouldering, it's worth looking through a few recent videos from those avid stone hunters on this Stone Country Vimeo group. Please feel free to follow and add anything...

I thought some recent highlights would be the new Arrochar blocs (expect BIG LINES in 2013), such as the Flying Pancake, courtesy of Tom Charles-Edwards' vision, which to me looks like a doable version of Font's Carnage, almost verbatim...

from Timothy Cross on Vimeo.  

Also, Fiend's continuing tour of Scotland's best problems (and whiskies), such as Laggan 2, which Gaz Marshall has discovered, shows an awesome looking line in Gale Force:

from Fiend on Vimeo.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Iron and Stone - The Ross of Mull
23 February 2013, 6:58 pm

     

A week on the Ross of Mull. A high pressure settling over Scotland in February. Sunshine and pink granite... iron and stone. The week is a lesson in learning how not to shred yourself on large quartz and feldspar crystals, learning what can and cannot be climbed; the subtle differences between a blank wall and a smearable slab...  

  Danny's Wall Fionnphort  

If you turn left off the ferry at Craignure on Mull, you’re heading west along a gradually ageing sequence of geologies, through the tertiary gabbro lavas of Glen More to the earlier basal lavas at Pennyghael and the older still Caledonian schists of Bunessan and beyond. Then it all goes pink-panther and you hit a very old and colourful granite around 413 million years old, lavishly outcropping around the ferry port of Fionnphort, like so many bald monk-heads poking out of the machair and turf, occasionally sunburnt to a deeper red. Then it gets all historical on the ferry to Iona and its ancient Lewisian bedrock mocking the zealotry of monkish learning such as bouldering.  

The granite sequence here provides endless cragging and bouldering, too much frankly to document and it creates havoc with plans, topos and access descriptions ... you're scattered everywhere with the wind and it matters not where you wander, there's always something to climb.  

   The Scoop, Kintra South  

The rock varies from a crumbly, scrittly granite as poor as Weetabix to an incorruptible red/pink Quarriers' quality the like of which graces the Jamaica Bridge in Glasgow, or the Holborn Viaduct in London. All forms, fine-cut or coarse-cut, are shredders of hands and shoe-rubber. Slab technique is critical, as is a thick padding to the skin. The technical nature of the blank and slabby problems is complemented by the butch and generous nature of the steeper cracklines on roofs and overhangs.  

   Colomba Crack *****  

The Ross, the granite section at least, stretching from Bunessan to Fionnphort, north and south of the A849, is approximately 72 square kilometres of heather scrub, bogs and granite tors, of half-remembered topos, pub-phone updates, locals' narratives. I asked a local fisherman about the split rock so obvious on the beach at Fionnphort, which is known to tourists as 'Fingal's Rock'. The locals call it rather more curiously 'The Swordstone', and it does appear cleaved clean in two by a sword - the story goes that around 1870, the quarry had a lifesaving contract cancelled on a dubious quality control claim. This led to protests, the novel result of which was packing a crack in the rock with gunpowder and splitting the block in two, a symbol of the historical division between local loyalties and higher, vested powers in Scotland. A glacier may also have been involved in a much earlier event.  

   

Nothing feels specific, and the vast landscape tells you why. Indented with glittering sandy bays and peppermint seas, such as Erraid’s idyllic Balfour Bay, the place is a perfect summer/winter playground for all ages of boulderer, and a vast hunting ground for the hardcore superstar. But you will lose a lot of skin discovering the good amongst the bad, unless you've as generous a guide as local climbing pioneer Colin Moody, who showed me around the classic areas and saved a lot of legwork based on rumour and dead reckoning.  

If climbing tiny nubbins on endless slabs is not your bag, you'll want to head to the steeper roofs and cracklines . . .  tape up, and smile!  

   



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Craigmore
24 February 2013, 5:48 pm

Craigmore, a photo by Stone Country Press on Flickr.

Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Craigmore Rubik's Cubes
3 March 2013, 5:50 pm

 

Mark Dobson on Jamie's Overhang Left 6b -  a forgotten belter

 The boulders at Craigmore are tiny, the crag routes only a few metres. It is a place for locals only, for top-roping, not meant to be seen as anything other than diversionary. Travelling rock-rats shrug and do a couple of the over-starred routes on top-route, maybe pull a few of the more obvious problems and leave, thinking it a heap of dank green esoterica best left to, yes, you guessed it - the locals.  

That's all fine with me and I'm not going to praise it to the skies and rate it as Scotland's last hidden secret - it's not. It's a north-facing crag. That usually keeps the crowds away. Everything bad about it is obvious on arrival, mostly: it's boggy, muddy, vegetated, slimy, midgy, repetitive, confusing, dark, chilly, always condition-dependent. Most happily affirm it is deservedly forgotten and overshadowed by its big neighbour at Dumbarton. But I love forgotten places and I go there to get away from it all, or climb with a few friends who have put the same time in here.  

Colin Lambton on The Art of War direct 6c

It's not always the big, shiny things that are valuable. I've sat under the last pine tree at Jamie's Overhang for hundreds of hours over the years: waiting for the rock to dry; or just catching the last rays as the sun dips west in the afternoon; or blankly staring at the wind in the leaves; or looking at the pinkness of my tips, peeling off little chalky flaps of skin. I know the dimpled nature of every hand-hold, the failure-pressures of tiny foot slopers, the windows of core-tension and when they're needed; the secret tricks of linking no more than four metres of rock. It's as intricate as a Rubik-cube and I twist it round and round, mixing up its endless sequence of colours. Clouds scud past in stop-motion. I'm not in the slightest hurry to solve it, nor  am I aware of any solution other than just doing this. What would you be trying to solve?  

I've done every conceivable eliminate on this little leaning bloc, on its 12 holds, mixing and matching to my own satisfaction and moving in circles, always absorbed, never fretting about concretions such as 'lines' or 'summits', the 'sends' are irrelevant as I've repeated them so many times. It is a repetition of simple knowing.  

Craigmore in a dry, crisp spell, under the pines, is as meaningful to me as the alpinist's glimpse of an iced-up north face, or the trad-junkie's gaze on a 100m rock wall. This just happens to be a pine-needle-covered lump of leaning basalt a few miles north of where I live, in a quiet corner of a crag under a pine tree. It has a wide but modest vista of the Southern Highlands. I couldn't give a fig if people thought it an insignificant piece of mossy rock. In fact, I'd much rather they thought that.  

[tr][td][/td][/tr] [tr][td]Jamie's Overhang, the rockover move...[/td][/tr]

[/table]  



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Dumbarton Rock Closed for Cleaning 11-15th March
8 March 2013, 7:02 pm

 Just to let everyone know that Historic Scotland, who own the boulders and crag at Dumbarton Rock, have agreed to clean the boulders of graffiti, overseen by climbers so no holds are damaged. After excellent concern for our sporting heritage and good consultancy (thanks to Ian Lambie of Historic Scotland and Andrea Partridge at the MCOS!), I'll be attending the first day of cleaning on Monday 11th March.

I would like to ask climbers and boulderers to avoid climbing here in this period while the cleaning goes on, as for safety reasons parts of the crag and boulders will have to be cordoned off. I would ask all to respect the arrangements we've made on behalf of climbers, as much good work has gone on in the background to arrange the best form of cleaning and restoration. Unfortunately much of the 'historic' graffiti has vanished behind modern graffiti, so it's impossible to restore the lower 'layers' - it will all just have to come off.

If there are other local climbers who could attend during next week to oversee the cleaning, could you give John Watson (me) a ring on 07546 037 588.

This is a good opportunity (along with continuing local council development), to maintain good relations with Historic Scotland and improve Dumbarton as a visiting venue (or 'climbing park'). It is worth looking after our prime climbing heritage site in the Central Belt...





Source: Stone Country Blog & News

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Dumby cleaning first look
11 March 2013, 2:24 pm

Well it all looks spanking new and freshly minted rock as it first was... and the lads are doing a good job to be careful with holds and 'historical' graffiti after advice from climbers. As for the climbing I think there may be a short window while it feels grittier, but no doubt shoe resin and chalk and weather, and  budding Banksies will see it back to good ol Dumby glass.

Remember no climbing this week until after 5pm to let the guys finish their work.



Source: Stone Country Blog & News

[Greg C]

Nice one - great to see.

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Fontainebleau High Pressure
22 March 2013, 1:56 pm

   

Ever since we did the Essential Fontainebleau guide, I have been overcome with a sense of dread that doing guides for this forest is putting far too much pressure on it, a bit like the woodcutters of the 19th century which paradoxically opened the unusually featured rocks to the the light and the painters of the Barbizon school. I'm not the only one doing guides, or chopping down the mystery of the forest, there seem to be dozens now - for cycling, walking and bouldering. A point-in-case is the new Fun Bloc by Jingo Wobbly, the methodology being to squeeze as much out of the forest as possible in 320 pages and coming close to being the definitive 'tick-it-all' guide (but missing the point of the whole affair?).

Then there is the cool, remote, and minimalist approach (my favourite) of Bart van Raaj's 7+8 and 5+6 guides, beautifully crafted works which allow you to discover the forest more intuitively and leave you to do what bouldering is all about - working it out for yourself (though the maps do a super job of getting you in position in the first place). The classic Montchausse guide is now in a clean new edition, and the Off-Piste guide is still useful, though the recent development of new sectors makes it a little out of date. The Versante Sud guides are a mess and less said the better, and I haven't seen the big German guide yet, does it come with a free VW camper?

Anyway, it's unlikely I'll be rushing to do a new edition of EF (Essential Fontainebleau) as there's enough out there and I think the forest could do with a break from foreigners 'milking it', as is the perception of many locals. Though EF was designed to be a short 'ethical' guide to appreciating the forest for Brits  - and how to enjoy it responsibly, like a wee dram, rather than binging stupidly on the blocs as though it's a supermarket-sweep of grades and benchmarks to be navigated like Ikea - it still pointed a fat go-to finger at a delicate area. If any guide needs produced, it's one with a stronger sense of the history and quietude of the forest. Chuntering hordes of gym-monkey youths on uni-club trips are an unfortunate side-effect of our bouldering culture, its commodification swamping the forest in a noise of social-media twittering and Hulk howls.  

Well, rant over, as it's not that bad and it's a big forest. It's still easy to find solitude and get away from it all. The English/US mentality of 'developing' a problem or sector might be the wrongly-chosen word for what the French call 'opening' a problem or area. I prefer 'opening' ('ouvrir'), as it also suggests we move on and the forest closes around again, which is the natural way of it all I hope.  



Source: Stone Country Blog & News