Classic Scottish Problems No.3

Pump Up The Jam V5 6c - Sguman boulders, Glen Brittle, Skye

Described by first ascensionist James Sutton as a 'deluxe 10 m jamming crack' (since when is jamming deluxe!!), this line is probably the most 'climb-me' problem on the Isle of Skye. It is indeed a long jamming crack just above the ground, overhanging severely and requiring grit, single-mindedness and lots of tape.

It is also remote and is the finest example of what can be found if you take the Scottish bouldering approach: mat, boots, stove, go walking... it is located in the An Sguman east cluster (GR 443 184) just past the Coire a Ghrunnda burn, about 40 minutes from Glen Brittle campsite. It lies in a cave cluster, which is quite obvious from far away, small holly trees grow roundabout. It is an absolute must of a problem, as it is so unique - a kind of Separate Reality for Scotland (even in the Peak you'd be hard-pushed to find such a perfect 'bouldering' jam-crack a few feet off the ground). Every wish-list should have a jamming problem, it is a lost art and no climber is complete without attempting to master it, whether you love or loathe the technique, rock sometimes has no other hold other than putting your thumb in your palm and camming it all in...

The problem itself is a delight, starting on good jams, but soon becoming demanding and technical in how you sequence your jams and how best to hook your toes... with persistence it all comes together and you might find yourself at the final brutal pull through the nose - if you are canny enough and determined enough!

Remember, pain is just weakness leaving the body!

Vertical Landscapes: Exploring Glasgow's Hidden Bouldering

With the new guide to Glasgow Bouldering forthcoming, and with the last two years spent scouring our local landscapes for vertical diversion, many of us discovered a closer, more nuanced appreciation of climbing and how it helps maintain mental wellbeing as much as physical. The big mountains and wilderness landscapes were for the first time excluded from access and our pandemic taught us all to appreciate the landscapes on our doorstep. Even the urban world has its own small wildernesses and landscapes to immerse ourselves in for a while. For me, the daily walk in lockdown occasionally became a hunt for an esoteric piece of rock spied on the OS map or Google Earth. Rumours of boulders and mythologies of obscure rock were hunted down to help feed a hunger for the vertical. Even Dumbarton Rock was out of range, lying outside of the Glasgow City boundary. It's a venue which famously makes the blood run cold, with fiercely exposed overhanging routes, highball boulder problems and cl

The Lost Township of Grulin on Eigg

‘The Stony Place’ as it translates, the archaeological notes on the RCAHMS database for Eigg, state baldly the lost humanity of Grulin as early as an 1880 OS survey map: ‘…eighteen unroofed buildings, six enclosures and a field-system’. Now a scheduled monument and memorialised as a ‘depopulated settlement’, though it is not obvious if the verb is passive or aggressive, Grulin Uachdrach (Grulin Upper) is, like Hallaig on Raasay, a place of violent silence and resonance. Who lived here and why was the site abandoned? If it were not in Scotland, suspicions might fall to the climate, remoteness and apparent unsustainability of the stony place, a rabble of large rocks under the steep slopes of An Sgurr, but the carefully constructed walls tell us it was once a thriving township – the kilns, folds and blackhouse walls integrated with the giant boulders such as Clach Hosdail. In 1853 the whole of the village of Grulin, both upper and lower, housed fourteen families who were forced to l

Timeline Walks of Scotland #Hallaig to Screapadal on Raasay

'Tha tìm, am fiadh, an coille Hallaig ...' Hallaig - the lost village of Raasay - is a powerful place. Arguably, it has become a shibboleth for the soul of Gaelic culture. To visit it, to just be there momentarily and feel the resonance of the place, is to know the fragility of place and home, of how kinship can be shattered and how loss can invade a land. Aptly, Hallaig is now a site of pilgrimage for those who value the universal lessons of history. There are t errible reasons for the loss of Hallaig. Its silent mouths of abandoned shielings, the dumb sheep meandering amongst the ruins, whisper with Sorley MacLean's poetry. The place misses the sounds of day-to-day community, and all around the woods and burns and slopes this tough but rich landscape once made this a hardy paradise under the eastern cliffs of Raasay. Facing east to the dawn and overlooking the peninsula of Applecross and the berry-dark depths of the Inner Sound, the walk to Hallaig leads quietly

Stone Country

Search This Blog