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Showing posts from March, 2014

Windyhill on a sunny day

Glasgow's quarried hinterlands, such as the braes above Paisley, Johnstone and Elderslie, well what can we say of them, what is there for the climber: dank landfill quarries, briars flagged with poly bags, Tennents cans and Cider bottles, dog-shite, plastic detritus, road-dumps, graffiti splatters, neds, broken bikes and unmbrellas, abandoned tyres, fire-pits ... or, if you're in a brighter mood: sunbitten orange basalt, birds singing, blue skies and daffodils, technical moves & rough textures, silver birch, silence, a warmed back as you climb... Windyhill is an odd little bouldering backwater, but a little attention, litter-picking, briar-bashing, in short a simple bit of bouldery love, and the place is fine for an evening's sunny bouldering in the lower grades. There's even a car-park 10 yards across the road now. No excuses then, but bring your secateurs, those briars are vicious!

Cairngorms & Strathnairn

Before the milder weather arrived, we ran the Friday night bothy run from Glasgow to Newtonmore, then up early amongst the pines of the Sugarbowl into the Chalamain Gap and the Lairig Ghru. Lurcher's Crag provided an icy gully, sunny belays and views across to Braeriach's plateau S-carved with skiers. We meandered down snow-wisped slopes of Creag an Leth-choin, back to Aviemore for the night. Strathnairn was next day's choice for some sunny bouldering, of course the Ruthven Boulder was the target after a visit to see the Farr boulder. A walker on his way up Stac Gorm called the uniquely rough gneiss 'Strathnairn granite' and noted to us that it necessitated wearing gloves if you were building a wall, as it tore the skin from your tips. We noted that too after an hour or so, as well as a general wilting of power on the butch bouldering on this world-class stone. Here's a short guide to the stone: The Ruthven Boulder Ambience: steroid bloc