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Bouldering in Scotland 2010 - High End stuff
9 November 2010, 7:37 am

There has been lots of new activity as usual this year in Aberdeen, the NW and Dumbarton Rock in particular. Some venues continue to expand their repertoire such as Glen Nevis, Glen Lednock and Torridon and Applecross, with Coire nan Arr the best of the bunch in terms of rock quality and stunning new lines.

Cubby, Dave MacLeod and Donald King found some good accessible conglomerate bouldering south of Golspie at The Mound, Loch Fleet (NH 766 978).

Macleod's Arisaig cave was a hardcore find and Dave found some high-end training traverses on immaculate quartzite. His two main problems there were At Eternity's Gate 8b, Triangulation 8a and All the Small Things Font 8a.

The sea-cliffs at Aberdeen continue to provide meaty testpieces and good traverse training. Tim Rankin did a new problem on the roof just right of the Big Grey boulder called Delirium at 8a+, very slopey and condition dependent through the lip.

Delirium 8a+ Clashfarquhar - pic Tim Rankin

At Coire nan Arr, Richie Betts discovered the Universal, a 7b of immaculate red Torridonian sandstone, as well as a handful of good circuit problems and mid-range grade classics. Hopefully we'll have the guide out in 2010 for this incredible area!

The Universal, Coire nan Arr - pic Richie Betts

At the end of the autumn season, Richie succeeded on his project high on the slopes of Glen Torridon to bag the almighty prow of The Essence 7b+, which was shortly repeated (after 3 dedicated Scotrail weekend journeys from Glasgow!) by Murdo Jamieson.

The Essence - Torridon? - pic Richie Betts

At Dumby, Will Atkinson and friends set about the Mugsy roof to create a whole new breed of problems linking up traditional classic lines. Perhaps the best is Nice &Sleazy 7c, linking up Mestizo Sit, Mugsy traverse and Malky...not a bad line at all! Malcolm Smith also crushed out the obvious link of Pressure into Firestarter to give Firefight Font 8b.

from Will Atkinson on Vimeo.

Harris saw some particularly avid attention this year, Dave MacLeod climbing Proclamtion 7c+ at the Clisham boulders, plus a few new problems at Sron Ulladale in between trad epics.

Proclamation, Clisham - pic by Dave MacLeod?

Mike Lee did his usual touring of remoe spots and quietly climbed some hard classic lines... at Glen Lednock he did a lovely 7a called Afraid of the Wave, a kind of direct of the Wave problem. He also did numerous eliminates at Dumbarton, including the excellent 7b+ Le Tour de Technique.

Afraid of the Wave 7a - Glen Lednock - Mike Lee

I'll add more if I hear of anything but next up is a feature on the new circuit problems - you know, the ones most of us can do!

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Source: Stone Country Bloc

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The Pinnacle - Review
11 November 2010, 12:08 pm



The latest film from Hotaches, The Pinnacle is a welcome historical tribute set amidst our normal dietary blizzard of modern Youtube ascents and techno-sodden bouldering movies.  Tracing one epic week on Ben Nevis in 1960, and the two climbers who took to the wintry corries of Ben Nevis (Jimmy Marshall and Robin Smith), it brings into focus a clear Scottish ethic that climbing is about the landscape, the adventure, the friendships and the moment...something which Jimmy Marshall insists is the core lesson of a lifetime in the mountains - that climbing is not about the noise afterwards but rather those brief moments of unseen joy in the mountains.

This filmic tribute is in essence a remembrance of Robin Smith, a luminary climber of the 1950s and early 60s who sadly lost his life in the Pamirs in 1962. In one of the many poignant interviews in the film, an older but still rugged-looking Marshall describes Smith's climbing prowess with an undiminished clarity of remembrance, describing him as possessing 'startling brilliance' on the rock and ice. Had he not been outlived by Jimmy, Robin would have gone on to climb just as many legendary ascents in Scottish climbing, and in this particular case Smith's early demise does not romantically exaggerate his boldness, talent and  vision.

The legacy of routes he did leave behind reads like a climbing version of the illuminated Book of Kells: Shibboleth, Smith's Route, Yo-Yo, Orion Direct, The Bat, The Big Top, Pigott's Route, The Needle... and so on. These routes, in most folks' guidebooks, lie underlined and starred but mostly unticked! Three of these are hard winter classics on Ben Nevis, climbed in that one special week in February 1960 when the two had the mountain largely to themselves - Marshall describes The Ben in winter as a 'wedding cake' and this is an apt metaphor for two climbers who combined a very special mountaineering marriage of skills. That week they entered a time of legend through the simple dedication of men with axes and gloves and nothing more than a length of old rope between them.

The film takes great pains to highlight this week as a watershed as much as a pinnacle of winter climbing achievement in Scotland. The routes that Smith and Marshall climbed were the last (and hardest) done in the old style of step-cutting without front-point crampons. This laborious style of climbing is the only moment in the movie where the two modern tribute climbers - Dave MacLeod and Andy Turner - look decidedly common and discommoded. They quickly return to their modern front-point crampons, curved drop-head axes and ice-screws for protection, all of which is roundly booed by entertaining old-schooler Robin Campbell of the SMC.

As the two modern lads smoothly tick off the daily diet of historical climbs, in lean but benevolent conditions on the Ben (something the producer Paul Diffley must have been thankful for!), the void between the new and old eras yawns open and it becomes apparent how our expectations, staminas and prorities can change so much in 50 years. Marshall talks of the difficulties they faced as irreversible in many instances and Ken Crocket provides some honest testament to how even three days on the Ben can wear you down dealing with fear and death at every climbing moment. The depth of fitness and inner resolve to climb for seven days on such an alpine set of cliffs (and pack in a day's Munro-bagging and an arrest for stealing dominoes in a Fortwilliam pub) is simply staggering to our modern sensibilities. The walk they did on their 'day off' leaves Macloed and Turner lost in the dark scrabbling for map and compass, exhausted, dehydrated and, in Dave's words, with their 'legs singing'.

The film is a rare jewel of climbing history and and a visual treat for the guilty armchair mountaineer! It ends on a grand panorama of Andy Turner topping out on the Ben Nevis plateau to a stunning Scottish winter horizon. It leaves me with a feeling of profound longing for those special mountaineering moments that become ever more rare and inaccessible.

Our greatest danger lies in growing reliant on exterior motive and engineered moments, rather than the indelible purity exhibited by elegant climbers such as Smith and Marshall. Thankfully, The Pinnacle never loses sight of this and both Dave MacLeod, Andy Turner and the production team should be proud of their tribute week on the Ben. The Pinnacle captures something very fleeting about the games climbers play and the joys they discover.

Source: Stone Country

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The Friday Review - WHO OWNS SCOTLAND
19 November 2010, 4:03 pm



You would be mistaken for thinking that Scotland was the land of enlightened land access and ownership for all, given the high profile success of community-spirited buyouts such as Eigg, Gigha and the recent campaign against Donald Trump's Despicable-Me impersonation (if only it were impersonation).

But things are not as they seem and a new book which has opened my eyes to the deep land injustices of Scotland (not just the Clearances) is Andy Wightman's 'The Poor Had No Lawyers - Who Owns Scotland And How They Got It', published by Birlinn.

Andy is a longstanding campaigner and investigative journalist who runs the excellent website Who Owns Scotland, dedicated to a transparent listing of all the landowners in Scotland and how they got the land. The book to accompany this campaign is a follow up to his 1996 book Who Owns Scotland and goes a lot deeper than many landowners would feel comfortable with. It  is refreshingly polemic for such a detailed analysis of 'feus', 'non domino titles', 'superiorities', 'entails' and all other manner of highly dubious legal tricks implying righteous ownership of our lands and commonties.

In a deeply researched account of the history of landgrabbing in Scotland, Robert the Bruce does not quite appear the hero some would make of him. Bruce was a murdering warlord who parcelled up Scotland for his own gain and influence, selling off land under feudal tenure to foreign lords and royalty, disenfranchising the people from a barely bawling Scottish state. The centuries fell one after the other as the rich and influential sold off a Scotland they simply did not own. Nobles colluded with the church and the Reformation helped 'legalise' their ownership by highly dubious acts such as the Acts of Registration and Prescription of 1617, 'sealing' land ownership in the hands of the rich who could afford Edinburgh lawyers and felt that a brief tenure of land (20 years!) was enough to claim the deeds to it. And so it went on through the tragedy of the Clearances until, all too belatedly, we had the Abolition of Feudal Tenure Act in 2000.

In that longue durée of 8 centuries, Scotland's land, totalling 19.5 million acres, lost over 10 million acres to 1550 private landowners in estates of over 1000 acres! And it has not slowed down -  modern land grabs by the rich have attempted to seal off land for private use, tax benefit and corporate expansion. Andy Wightman feels the law must go a lot further to protect our common land from total disappearance: land laws must be repealed, Crown rights should be abolished, Land Funds and Land Policies should be enshrined in statutes for the benefit of communities and our new devolved government should set our Law Commissioners the task of reform on the scale Lloyd Goerge once attempted.

We may have National Parks, the Right to Roam and the new Community Buyout rights, but the bald facts are that Scotland is still at the mercy of overpaid law firms, absentee landlords, the self-absorbed rich and far too few enlightened enough to hand back something to the people.

The book is an essential read for all of us who want to live in the Scotland we imagine... it can be bought from Andy's own site here >>>

Source: Stone Country

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Snow Fever
5 December 2010, 7:25 pm



It's happening again. No-one expected last year to so gratuitously confound our winter expectations of this globally warmed era of hair-dryer westerlies and 'freezing level above the summits' forecasts, as though our precious 3000ft arbitration had forever sunk below the flirtation of ice ever again, but it's been panoramically sub-zero for nearly a week! Ad my God, the fickle Eas Anie has been climbed as close to November as I can recall.

Like thousands of others, I grew all goose-bumped as the deeper blue animations sank down from Scandinavia and a stubborn Arctic flow bullied in to the Atlantic seaboard and fought a frontal war with big ciruclar guns called 'high pressure', ranked in battalions like Zulu, but in isobars. I traipsed giddily along the Fhidhleir ridge last Saturday before the snows came in and watched with delight all week as the snows filled the air with prawn crackers (borrowed metaphor, thanks Lee!) and it seems our gullies have their 'classic season' stockings already filled.

A breathless and pecking snow-plod up the Inglis Clark ridge on the Brack  this Sunday saw some testing leg fitness and usual over-optimism - we found the turf insulated, the gear buried and the snow trap-dooring all over the place, but hell, it's early season fever and it looks like a good one. Bring it on!



Source: Stone Country

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Southern Highlands Freeze
9 December 2010, 12:39 pm



It's been a good week for the Southern Highlands winter scene with ascents of early season classics such as Inglis Clark Arete, Monolith Grooves, Menage a Trois and Salamander Gully, with many ice routes coming into nick such as Taxus, Quartzvein Scoop, Eagle Falls (above) and Eas Anie.

Highlights of the cold spell were as ascent of Messiah on Creag an Socach by DJ Brigham and Thom Simmons on Sunday 5th and an exciting new winter ascent of the Brack's summer E3 Mammoth by Guy Robertson and partner on Tuesday 7th December, more to follow...



'Mammoth' FWA

Source: Stone Country

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Ullapool Sandstone
4 January 2011, 12:46 pm



Torridonian pebble

The icy Christmas lasted well into the New Year and some fine blue days could be had in between the grey ones. Bouldering at Reiff in the Woods, Tighnamara and Ardmair was perfect on those days with no wind, but what with temperatures so minimal, the slightest wind made for perishing days on the rock.



Tighnamara Traverse

Reiff in the Woods has seen some new attention with Nigel Holmes cleaning and finding a classic wall on the Cubes area to give 'The Flood', a tough vertical grit-classic wall around the 6b mark which should become very popular.

Ann Falconer on Reiff In the Woods West Wall

Tighnamara is a fine training venue which tends to be overlooked above Ardmair beach, but provides a quality training traverse and some sit starts when the burn is dry. Cnoc na Breac has a super pink leaning wall and a good summer circuit of walls and roofs around the crags. These areas and more are available in Ian Taylor's 'Ullapool Bouldering' guide which we should have in stock soon.

Source: Stone Country

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New Bouldering in Scotland site
14 January 2011, 3:03 pm



Just to let everyone know that I've created a new site for depositing all the Bouldering in Scotland topos I've collected over the years.. it's a sub-domain of Stone Country but designed to hold updated batches of PDF guides and topos for the whole of Scotland. I've added some long lost topos such as Fontforth, as well as Buchan Ness, Clach Damh, Ben Ledi etc. The site will gradually grow in size as we add more guides and books, so please do email me with any of your own feature topos and I'll add them as a PDF. As more venues are found, we'll be publishing local area guides with a long term view to a the fattest bouldering guidebook anywhere -  'The Stone Country Atlas'.

PLEASE NOTE the 'DUMBARTON ROCK' guidebook is currently out of stock at Stone Country...we'll have stock back soon, but if you need a copy urgently, try Cotswolds in Partick, or Tiso branches.

Source: Stone Country

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'Heavy on fact, light on fairies' - The Stones of Strathearn
28 January 2011, 8:15 am



Andrew Finlayson, the producer behind One Tree Island Publishing, has brought out a lavish new guide to the standing stones of Strathearn. This fertile and secluded land, situated in the Earn valley between Perth all the way up its headwaters of Lochearn at St. Fillans, is home to some of Scotland's earliest monoliths, cup-marked rocks and stone circles. These distant echoes of a neolithic society still have a resonance to them, a tangible sense of place, and Andrew has produced this superbly illustrated gazetteer to  the history and provenance of these stones.

This convenient ring-bound book acts as both a guide to each site and a detailed history to its neolithic society, engineering, farming, astronomy and symbology. He details each stone meticulously and with  fine technical drawings and colour photography, including more famous monoliths such as the Sma Glen's Ossian's Stone, as well as 'quieter' but astronomically important stones such as Tullybannocher. The beautiful artwork re-creates the cup and ring marked artwork and makes us ponder the complex spirit of the neolithic mind.

This is a tremendously detailed re-imagination of a Scottish neolithic valley, leading us between its silent monoliths and capturing the rhythms and deep connections of a long-vanished culture, one obviously sophisticated enough to understand its small place in the universe. Unlike some fatally mystical books on the subject, it is refreshingly practical and lets the stones do the speaking: as Andrew says - it is 'heavy on fact, light on fairies'.

The ring-bound book also a fantastic walking guide to the stones and is available with a free 2011 calendar through the One Tree Island site or here at Amazon.

Source: Stone Country

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Ullapool Bouldering Guide
28 January 2011, 4:49 pm





Ian Taylor's complete Ullapool bouldering guide is now available here and on the new Stone Country Bouldering site. This gives the most complete low-down to date on the bouldering round the capital of the North West: Rhue Blocks, Cnoc Breac, Tighnamara, Ardmair Beach, Ardmair Crag, Reiff in the Woods, Reiff and other areas.

Ullapool BoulderingAuthor: Ian TaylorPublisher: Ian Taylor44 pp Full ColourPrice: £4.99



Source: Stone Country

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February News
9 February 2011, 1:07 pm

We have more stock of the Dumbarton Guide available (on the climbing books page), though well done to Will Atkinson for putting it out of date with the send of the 'project' he calls Ladderman... one for the tall folk I think!

We have a very promising crag/boulder wall in the Northwest from Ian Taylor, but I guess development and location will be revealed this year... this does look attractive mind you!



Mike Lee visited the Katrine Bloc:, the baddest, meanest, weakling-crusher rock in Scotland, here's Mike under the unclimbed front face. It takes over two hours to get to, best bivvi for a weekend and bring some fillet steaks...that face is 8a to 9a only. I retreated wishing I was younger, fitter, stronger... it's located under the Meall na Boinede crags overlooking the north end of Loch Katrine. The best way to get there is to hitch a lift with the postie bus from Strronachlachlar, or cycle/walk round the north end of the loch from here. Get off at Portnellan Burial Ground and the Black Island, then walk uphill on the left bank of the burn. You really can't miss it... good landings, the rock is a delightful scalloped and compact schist. GR NN410124



Looks like Tim Rankin has butched out another 8a at Cammachmore -Devistator - on the Optimus Prime boulder, hopefully more details soon but terrific to see the NE benchmarking again (or should that be bench-pressing?)





Source: Stone Country

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'Bouldering in Ireland' published!
18 February 2011, 6:16 pm



I received a copy of Dave Flanagan's long-anticipated guide to Bouldering in Ireland and it is obvious from the first flick-through that this is one of the most stunningly produced bouldering guides out there! It is simply slabber-inducing and the sense of adventure jumps off each page. Some of the rock, such as the Fermanagh Brimstones and Loch Dan granite, looks superb and the growing plethora of coastal and mountain venues means a round-trip  would fill a very long summer...

The guide is designed on the popular landscape format which allows the clear mapping room to breathe, as well as framing 2-page photo-location spreads to clarify the 'glen clusters' typical of Celtic landscape bouldering. The classic areas such as Glendalough and Carrickfinn are well documented and it was good to see the Fair Head chaos well mapped and represented for the north of Ireland.

It is packed with bright photos and the route descriptions are deliberately spare and modelled on the 7+8 Font guide, but accompanied by clear photo topos, which means you work out the problem for yourself once you're guided to it, which is how it should be - a guidebook should both be inspiring and useful in getting you to where the photo was taken - this guide seems to be just the ticket.

Dave has been very generous in keeping the price of this down at 18 Euro which is a miracle of publishing, I guess sponsorship and his own generous funding made this possible, so we should be thankful that this guide is tremendous value for a full colour production at 255 pages. I can only commend Dave on a fantastic creation and a book to treasure!

You can buy it on TheShortSpan...

Source: Stone Country

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Where have all the trees gone?
4 March 2011, 2:23 pm



Hard times we bring upon ourselves. Slowly, wilfully, over the centuries, things disappear, ownership takes all. Take the mythical Caledonian Forest. A canopy of blacky greens, flashed with broad red limbs, standing shoulder to shoulder through the glens, over the bealachs, climbing the mountain sides.

I was at the head of Glen Nevis, at the gorge car-park, having driven through a remnant of this forest, like a battlefield after the war, a few stragglers - twisted, wounded soldiers of gruesome witness and blooded limb. I was keen to go a step further into a 'lost corrie' cupped between the Ben Nevis and the arcing ridge of Aonach Beag (paradoxically higher than Aonach Mor by 13m).

Rarely visited and tucked away from the North Face crowds on The Ben and the skiers on the far side of Aonach Mor, this corrie translated as 'Corrie of the Pine Woods'. I climbed steeply up through the gap of the Bealach nan Cumhann (Pass of Lamenting!) and was stunned by the austere 'majesty' of the empty corrie, flanked by the pale schist crags of Aonach Beag and the watershed ridge on my left above Sloc nan Uan (the hollow of the lamb). A lone stag coloured suddenly as he ran into low sunlight across the valley floor and fled my fearsome stink into the shadows of the An Teanga boulders and crags on the tumbling lip of the corrie bowl.



The corrie is a high hidden U-shaped valley, a textbook diagram from a geography schoolbook. Hidden behind the glaciated craggy lip of An Teanga (the tongues), I expected a few old Scots Pines, but not a tree was to be seen. The river meandered in languid pools between gravel beaches and reedy lawns, withering uphill into the Coire na h'Ursainn (the backing corrie), where an oddly named source stream was marked on the map as 'the river of the fringe'. The fringe of the forest, I took it; the mythical forest wherein deer might once have lazily grazed without the long human shadows from bealachs to scare them across vulnerable space.

But where had they gone? The Steall ruins at the bottom of the Allt na Coire Giubhsachan tell a tale of abandonment, of lost resource and wooded landscapes harvested of all hope. The high corrie bowls such as the Hollow of the Lamb and the Hollow of the Calfs face each other across a barren bog in a stripped world. It may suit modern tastes for 'barren wilderness', but it is overseen more aptly by the craggy hump of Meall Cumhann - the Hill of Lamenting.

Weather did change in the past, the peat bogs grew during the iron age, but in two millenia, this wooded corrie has seen the trees, those august red limbs, retreat downhill and vanish from sight altogether. Once gone, the sparse odds of a sapling surviving ruminating hordes or the sudden bleak exposure, highlights the ringing tragedy of Gaelic nomenclature. The words are indeed shadows, echoes, of  lands of living, work and meaning.  Each word is a lament, for the lowing high pastures, for the whispering canopy, for its own vocabulary of place.

Like the tide of itself, the woods and people have receded, as integrally as they did on Easter Island, the sheep arrived and further clearance continued. Humans just did for this land, out of synch with the longer rhythms, falling foul of their own self-hatreds, leaving nothing behind but the words behind the pointed finger...

Source: Stone Country

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If it's not Broch, Don't Fix It
19 March 2011, 3:18 pm



Anyone who has taken the sea road of the Eilean Siar (Western Isles), or skirted the high edges of Caithness and Sutherland, or meandered the archipelagos of Shetland and Orkney, will have noted a peculiar structure, often wore down to its foundational stump like an old tooth - the 'broch'. These blind eyeless towers once stood proud of the landscape on our northern Celtic coastlines (the tallest remaining is the Mousa Broch of Shetland), from around 300 BC through the Iron Age until they were either 'inherited' by invading Vikings and occupied until around AD 1300, or 'unquarried' for walls and other structures. It was the vikings who have given us their modern name from 'Borg' meaning 'fortification', though what they were called by their original architects swims in the deep Celtic well of lost tongues.

It is unlikely, however, they were originally built in response to insecurity. Their frequency, such as in the northern peninsulas of Skye, suggests an element of status and defence against the elements rather than a 'last stand fort' which could have easily been burnt out, starved out or scaled with knife blades. They are famously double-walled, housing a spiral staircase within to access higher galleries and levels. Their 15m or so diameter and up to 10m tall height meant it would have felt a little like living inside a modern day cooling tower, but maybe that was cosy enough in the long winters, with the animals brought in below, the family sleeping above, a fire dwindling in the central hearth and the heat and smoke rising out of the open eye of the thatched-roof oculus.

The signature work of the broch architect

So what brought about their rise and decline? No doubt the same as the pattern of the culture of the Rapa Nui  people on Easter Island - the end of resource...

The first opportunity is easy in a land of stone such as northern Scotland. A lithic landscape gave a generous harvest of ready rocks and flagstones for building, a conspicuous flattened knoll (common volcanic features such as the large scale versions of MacLeod's tables in Skye) gave an elevated outlook and standing. A bright spark of an Iron Age architect would have made a lucrative living touring the wealthier families, dispensing 'the knowledge' to a tight degree of accuracy, doubling the wall, inserting the flagstones at regular intervals. At about 6ft height wooden beams could be inserted and a rough inner scaffolding constructed, though effectively the stone scaffolding of the inner wall with its 'steps' would allow a spiral progress to whatever height one desired.

A thatched wooden roof in a weather-resistant 'teepee' style could readily be wedged in at the top. Generations of families would have kept up with the Joneses, in the same manner as the Moai heads of Easter Island grew in stature over 1000 years, until the giants such as Mid Howe, Mousa, Dun Beag, Glenelg and Dun Carloway shouted their presence in a localised landscape of power and influence. Maybe the secrets of their concentric architecture vanished, or maybe the fashion simply changed, but maintaining the floors and beams and roofs would have put a stress on the tiny woods of the islands and barren coasts. Tall trunks and driftwood beams would have become high currency, firewood too would stretch the resource too far.

When the sparse woods of the seaboard diminished, when peat grew faster than wood, when the Vikings jumped onshore, life vanished to humbler areas of less exposed and less luxurious grandiloquence. Downsizing was inevitable...

Mid Howe Broch, Rousay

Dun Beag Broch, Skye

Glenelg Broch at Dun Telve

Mousa Broch, Shetland



Dun Carloway Broch, Lewis

Books about Brochs:Towers of the North - Ian Armit

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Towers-North-Scotland-Revealing-History/dp/0752419323

Source: Stone Country

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Full Circle on the Munros
13 April 2011, 3:47 pm



I still haven't bagged them all and I guess I don't feel that urge or itch - just being on the flanks of hills, in the bowels of corries, in deep lush gorges with no escape, in echoey stone shoots, or buffeted on the steep faces of rock, it doesn't matter to me where I am on the hill, I'm just happy to be out, like the stag who knows there are parts of the mountain for every season. The summit is for a peculiar kind of  beast and the odd and very British fad for Munro bagging is now a kind of institutionalised fever that is as popular as ever.

So what does a climber do when it rains, or tweaks a tendon, or is just sore and old...? Go for a walk...

I would recommend getting a good Munro guide and stomping around a few, you'll enjoy it and I guarantee you'll find some new rock. I was on Aonach Beag recently and was delighted to discover a tremendous face of rock high on the hill with only a handful of routes on it and in the corrie a host of largely untouched boulders (which I pawed as a zealot would a gold idol).

So what's the best guide to fit in a glove box or pack for that lost day? I was kindly sent a new edition of the excellent and essential rucsac guide: 'The Munro Almanac', largely rewritten by Neil Wilson who publishes under the InPinn imprint though the guide still sports a foreword by Cameron McNeish (and a dayglo'd younger self on the cover). This is still an excellent pocket summary and perfect for the likes of me who prefer to bag a Munro more accidentally than on purpose. Quite amusingly, after over a 100 years and the continual minutiae of promotion and demotion, the list has come full circle to Munro's original total of 283 peaks...

A copy can be picked up for 7.99 here...support your Glasgow independent publishers!

Source: Stone Country

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Some spring boulders
26 April 2011, 7:27 pm

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!



Source: Stone Country

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Arran Bouldering
3 May 2011, 4:22 pm

Granite is not the best rock to climb on in blazing heat, but at least they're not encircled in flames like Torridon at present. Checking the boulders on Arran for the new edition of Bouldering in Scotland, I'd appreciate any descriptions of problems done on the Corrie boulders or comments on problems and grades on these or the higher boulders on the island such as The Mushroom.

Corrie Boulders problems

Druim Wall on Clach Mhor Druim a Charn

The Fairy Dell tidal boulder



Source: Stone Country

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Corncrake in a bird bath, I know, I know, it's serious
22 May 2011, 9:54 am



Stone Country Press' photostream on Flickr.Apologies to The Smiths fans but I was surprised as anyone... I was wandering through an Iona patio garden to discover the rather intimate mating display of two adult corncrakes. The female was busy bathing in a BandQ water feature, happily ignoring me and the male corncrake below who was busy doing his 'copperwing shuffle'. His efforts became more and more insistent as he strutted manfully around his arena of white pebbles while she watched disdainfully. Finally, after a few rinses, she deigned to come down to watch him close up as he showed off his rather fetching ochre tuxedo.

I was invisible in the shadows, or just deemed unimportant, and I watched for five minutes before they retired to the privacy of the long grass of a nearby field. The corncrake may be one of the rarest and most secretive birds in the UK, and I had an internal whispered monologue going round in my head from David Attenborough about how lucky we were to see this, but it felt like I really should have bought a ticket...

Source: Stone Country

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Erraid
22 May 2011, 12:00 pm



Erraid, a set on Flickr.Some fine bouldering on the island of Erraid. Idyllic pink perfection: seawashed granite, scooped walls, overhangs, roofs, cracks, slabs...you name it, Erraid is possibly the finest bouldering/cragging island in Scotland...it certainly looks the best!

Source: Stone Country

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New book on Rathlin Island by Stone Country
26 May 2011, 3:55 pm

‘Rathlin: Nature and Folklore’ is on sale now for £9.99 at bookshops, on Amazon or direct from the publisher at www.stonecountry.co.uk

Open publication - Free publishing - More history

IRISH AUTHOR CHARTS 50 YEAR LOVE AFFAIR WITH ISLAND

A FIFTY year love affair may feature in many tales, but a well known Northern Irish ecologist and writer is putting the island of Rathlin at the heart of his affections in a newly published book charting five decades of visits to its shores.

Philip Watson is a naturalist who has worked on several continents, but it is the lure of life on Rathlin island, just off the north Antrim shoreline, that has called him to explore the island’s mythical history, sealife, birds and wondrous natural terrain in ‘Rathlin: Nature and Folklore’.

Since his first glimpse in 1960 of her white chalk cliffs and dark basalts glinting in the sun, the 16 year old birdwatcher studying golden eagles on the mainland, has since spent many visits to the island for work and for pleasure, charting its changes - and sometimes beautiful lack of changes - in this new book, published by Stone Country Press Scotland.

Rathlin is Northern Ireland’s only permanently inhabited offshore island, sitting like a stepping stone in the narrow and turbulent Sea of Moyle between Ireland and Scotland, straddling cultures, habitats and peoples.

It is a busy, vibrant and beautiful place with a resident population of around 100 islanders who look to the future with confidence but can also hark back to a past of massacres, famine and emigration.

The tale, which can be as useful an island guide as a prosaic read, starts with Philip’s first work stint as he joins a small group of enthusiasts to set up a Bird Observatory to study migration, followed by other bird surveys on the island throughout the 1960s.

In the period 1970-75, his job as a fisheries biologist took him back to the island regularly for extended periods studying lobsters and crabs with the island fishermen, which accounts for several chapters in the book on Rathlin’s bountiful sea life.

In 1975 while working for the RSPB, Philip returned to Rathlin to negotiate purchase of large stretches of the northern and western cliffs for the RSPB, to become bird reserve areas.

It is over these two decades he built up friendships with fishermen and islanders that have lasted the course, and many have helped him piece together the island’s mythical and natural history in several chapters of the book.

In the 1980s Philip recounts how he became involved for a couple of years with Richard Branson’s UK 2000 environmental project; helping set up NI 2000, which took him again to Rathlin for community projects such as the restoration of the 18C Manor House.

Branson made a rare celebrity appearance on the island, when in 1988 he presented the islanders with a new fast lifeboat, in thanks for help when he crashed his trans-Atlantic record-breaking balloon just off its shores on 3 July 1987.

Working as North Coast warden and then countryside manager with the National Trust between 1984-88 and 1990-1999 took Philip much more frequently to Rathlin, as the Trust purchased some buildings and land for  conservation and became involved with island life.

In the course of all these years on and around Rathlin, Philip gradually became aware of much more than its land, sea and birdlife - the island’s rich heritage of folklore. Tales were told to him of seals and mermaids that took human form, of the old woman who changed into a hare and back again, of legendary magical horses, ghosts and hairy fairies, of a whiskey-laden shipwreck and much more.

The footloose ecologist has returned frequently to the island in the 2000s doing seabird surveys – bouncing about in small island boats and scrambling about the cliffs and in the latter half of the decade he decided to make the golden anniversary of his first trip the subject of a book.

“I never need an excuse to go to Rathlin, it calls me. Now I visit regularly for the sheer pleasure of being on this magical island, to see old friends, to renew acquaintances with tens of thousands of seabirds, a hundred or so seals, the island’s rare golden hares (only 2 known there) and to revel in that unique feeling of being on an island – one that retains its integrity and beauty while coping with a fast changing world,” said the author.

Source: Stone Country

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Rathlin book launch
9 June 2011, 2:52 pm



Philip Watson, North Coast naturalist and social historian, will be signing and talking about his new book ‘Rathlin: Nature and Folkore’ which has just been published by Stone Country Press in PB at £9.99. Two events will be held:

Manor House, Church Bay, Rathlin - 3pm on Friday June 10th - free food and wine (1pm ferry from Ballycastle)...hopefully the weather will be good enough for an evening walk of the island...

Waterstones, Coleraine, 3pm on Sat 11th June 3pm - book signing





Source: Stone Country

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Garheugh Port
16 June 2011, 8:11 am



Garheugh Port, a set on Flickr.It's been a long time since Garheugh Port first attracted the boulderer, around the millennium in fact, when Dave Redpath, nursing a pulley injury, went exploring on the Galloway coast for some diversion...

'It was by chance that I pulled out an old guidebook, flicking through I happened to come across a place described as having a steep undercut slab and a few boulders. . .'

Sounded promising... Dave disappeared every weekend until a batch of superb problems on the greywacke rock of Garheugh was completed. It became a popular summer venue for bouldering the highball slabs in the sun and sea breeze, a good winter venue for catching low winter sun and holding the roof slopers. It saw a host of visits by excited central belters until it seemed to fade back to nature, as many Scottish venues tend to do when they have their moment and are left to slumber.  I returned on the hottest day of the year on the 3rd of June - a real continental scorcher, southern air masses having drifted too far north. I was expecting to see ivy and lichen covering the slabs, but thankfully most of the classic problems were clean and there was even a little chalk here and there. Someone had built a rather fetching rock cairn from the flat echoey stones that litter the storm beach. Perfect day for getting the top off and sweating it out in the baking heat as seals slopped about in the weedy slackness of low tide...

It's located on the western foreshore of the Machars peninsula between Port William and Glenluce.

Source: Stone Country

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Stone Country Mountains of Scotland - Beinn a Chreachain
17 June 2011, 12:29 pm





The biggest peaks in each Scottish Mountain range - how many are there? Not as many as Munro's table of clustered bumps (pity the poor Skye bagger on the ridge!). The qualification is simple: the biggest peak in each distinct mountain range, though distinction is sometimes difficult. While this might seem lazy or just as arbitrary as Munro's fascination (a case in point is the Cobbler, much more dramatic than Ben Ime), it is at least not quite as obsessive, as each range gives a geological colour of its own and climbing the highest peak (usually) provides a good enough walking challenge, as well as offering a more realistic tour of Scotland's landscape, with landscape in mind rather than a tick-box. A good example of this is the northern Breadalbane range of hills sandwiching Glen Lyon. Beinn Dorain dominates only because it's by the road and it naturally captures the attention, but Beinn a' Chreachain provides a more remote experience entirely and arguably a richer experience of the landscape.

The most northerly sentinel of the Breadalbane range of hills (and the highest in the group), Beinn a' Chreachain ('the treeless hill' or 'the hill of the clam'?) rises to a blind bare summit cairn of  1081m. This fantastic hill is propped on top of the Coire an Lochain cliffs surrounding the dramatic clear pool of Lochan a' Chreachain. The walk to reach the start of this treeless hill paradoxically passes through a remnant of the Caledonian Forest - in Gaelic on the OS maps it  is called 'Crannach': 'abounding in trees'.



The walk starts at Achallader farm, home once to the duplicitous and treacherous land thief 'Black Duncan' (a graveyard of the original owners  - the Fletchers - is supposedly nearby the ruined castle). The path follows the Water of Tulla along fine shingle banks where waders nest in the pebbles. The river is full of small, leopard-spotted trout.



Soon you are diverted uphill into the wonderful old forest of Scots Pine, birch, alder and mountain ash and fine bog flora such as giant clumps of butterwort.The old trees I noticed had lost a few limbs in the recent storm of 23rd May, revealing fleshy white scars - thankfully the dry spell of April saw no fires (it's been a tough year for trees in Scotland!). It still retains that romantic magic of the 'Lost Forest', the Rannoch bog having failed to spill over and climb the northerly flank of the Breadalbane hills to which they cling. The railway barrels through the forest but is well hidden and I only heard two trains all day. The path loses itself at the end in a fenced off area where the density of saplings increases and the bogs deepen, one can almost imagine the primal Scottish habitat of boar, auroch, lynx, bears and wolves...



Suddenly you are spat out onto a fine grassy sward by the steep Allt Coire an Lochain - look out at the burn for a very old twin tree of alder and mountain ash, intertwined by centuries of growth. The path continues up the burn to the last bastion of a Scots pine at the 550m contour (your halfway height). From here you can take the easy left flank of the hill, but I prefer the steep climb into the dramatic corrie by the Lochan. I had my fishing rod, but over a brew of tea it became apparent there wasn't a single fish here. I wonder if they had been frozen out of existence by our last two arctic winters or if they were hiding in the depths, but not a single rise kissed a circle on the surface.



I heard the ventriloquist fluting of ring ouzels somewhere in the scree, but could I spot them hell. I gave up fishing and bridwatching and bashed up the punishing gully on the east side of the cliffs to a bealach and a fine view into Glen Lyon. A short gasper to the summit quartz gained the highest peak in this massif, with grand views north over Rannoch to the Coe and Nevis ranges. Most folk return along the plateau via Beinn Achaladair to bag the peak, but not being a bagger I meandered down the ridge and back into the depths of the forest, rewarded by a late evening sun-glow on the red limbs of the old pines.



Source: Stone Country

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Circuit bouldering Scottish style
5 July 2011, 4:01 pm



Arran Bouldering, a set on Flickr.The biggest, meanest, longest bouldering circuit?

I'd say Arran has a good chance of winning this one. Hop the 7am ferry, get  a bus to North Glen Sannox and walk up into Coire nan Ceum, do about 20 of the best problems there (mostly slabs but a few choice roofs up to 6b), then nip up the Witch's Step to the Caisteal Abhail ridge. This has some fine bouldering all the way to the summit on some isolated blocs and on small tors beyond.

Drop down along the big arced ridge to the Cir Mhor summit and some architecturally challenging domino blocs with body-munching properties (and the Rosetta Stone, if you can find it). The silvery slabs on the south west flank of this hill have some compact rock and balancy problems.

At this point you might want to stop for some lunch, you'll be about 40 to 50 problems in. Got enough water? I couldn't find those springs marked on the 1:25,000 map, though I was convinced I could hear bubbling water under the stones.

Now drop down to Fionn Coire under the Rosa Pinnacle. Lots of fine easy bouldering on the howff boulders under the crag, then nip across the stream to the A Chir boulders, a fine compact collection of technical problems (and some big projects). About 30 or so problems up to 5c/6a.

By now, your feet should be raw meat, if it's a hot July day, and you'll be drinking water from the streams at every opportunity. Cramp-thighed, stomp down Glen Rosa to the Daingean boulders by the bivi stone at the path (Cuckoo pockets etc). About 10 problems here up to 7a, but you'll have no skin for that level.

A final haul down to the lower Rosa boulders (about 15 reasonable problems) and a well-deserved dip in the plunge pools of the Rosa burn, then see if you can make the 4.40 ferry.

To extend it properly into a form of alpine torture, walk over Goatfell's south ridge to drop down to Corrie and finish on this classic circuit and catch the later ferry (over 200 problems in total, about 15 miles walking). I made it to plunge pool in Glen Rosa and was done in . . . a blistering circuit, indeed.

Source: Stone Country

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A little light comedy . . .
6 July 2011, 4:16 pm



Source: Stone Country

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Hutton's Arran
12 July 2011, 10:31 am



In my palm, I roll around three small stones taken from the waters. One is a blue schist pebble, slightly chipped, another a perfect egg of sandstone conglomerate and the last a pink and white granite sphere. When I force my brain onto the rack of geological time, exploding it out into a thousand ‘civilizations’ or so (my attempt at imagining a million years), then multiply this by, say, 50, I just about get an idea of each stone’s provenance. I feel I am rolling around three small planets in untouchable orbits; three lost worlds of breathtaking beauty, shape and form; elegant worlds which have been crushed, eroded, rolled into one another and, briefly, given this current page of a pop-up book: there you go, this is your planet for now; turn the page another million years and another world pops up. Stones are border guards of the unknown and secretive territories; bureaucratic knots in our states of understanding deep time . . .

...for the full article, visit the E-books page

Source: Stone Country