Guest Article
STRANGE PLACES, THE MOUNTAINS
By David Jarman
We go over the hills, we love them in all their tempers, we think after a few years we know them, but still we don’t see them. I know I didn’t, until some chance connections got me looking at the mountains with a more questioning eye. Why are they the shapes they are, sometimes dull, often extraordinary? What gives them the recognisable features and quirks that enliven our ridge scrambling – the bad steps, the narrow crests, those strange and disorientating places where a parallel ridge looms out of the mist? Think of the mountains around Cluanie, of Gulvain, of Ben Challum, of the Mamores.
One answer is hardly known, even to the geo-experts, and it certainly isn’t in our school textbooks: Scotland’s mountains have been shaped to a remarkable extent by giant landslips, rockslides, and slope ruptures. Forget the fresh rock falls or mudflows we see dotted about, they are tiny. I am talking about events which can extend well over a kilometre, penetrate a hundred metres into the mountainside, and involve millions of cubic metres of solid rock. And they nearly all happened soon after the last ice age, 10-15000 years ago. There are no big ones in recorded history, no disasters wiping out Highland communities (as they do in Norway and the Alps) but impressive when you stumble on them.
Stumble is not the operative word, we hope – many of the 600-plus sites all over Scotland are riddled with deep fissures. These are obvious enough in the great collapsed block piles such as on Ben Donich, but they are pretty terrifying in apparently innocuous open ground, especially when covered in snow or thick heather (we had some bad moments on Ben Klibreck). There are leg-breakers, mantraps, and places you could lose a busload of people. I have looked into slots you would never get out of, and seen the skeletons, but so far only of sheep and deer. The Mountain Rescue guys don’t know of any fatalities so caused, but I have read SMC accounts of missing persons in such terrain. Sgurr na Ciste Duibhe in Kintail is the peak of the black chest – which lurks right beside the trig point.
Confession time – I am now collecting these ‘rock slope failures’ (let’s make it sound scientific) instead of Munros. Well, there are more of them, they get you off the red lines in the guidebooks and round the back corries, and they take you to some splendidly neglected tracts of country such as the Monadhliath and the Reay Forest. And they often seem to have a Corbett or two close by.
Collecting them means visiting each one at least twice – to explore their idiosyncrasies, and to photograph them from the hill opposite (another Corbett in the way!). The telltale features – odd scars, furrows, debris lobes, and those curious trenches searing hillsides like Beinn Fhada, often only stand out in thin snow, or low-angle light – a good excuse for a bivi on top of the Luss Hills, or in the back of Barrisdale, to catch that fleeting moment of sun across the slopes. The only downside is that the miles of contouring round steep hillsides aren’t good for the knees.
So here’s the crux. Getting good images of all these sites is a bit beyond one humble mortal without a helicopter (and yes, you can see these things on some of the glamour photos in the mountain shops, but we don’t really look at these pictures, do we? So I am hoping to set up a web-database for large rock slips and slides, listing the ones we know, and inviting people to input good images, and even to add new discoveries – I have found several crackers, in quite unlikely spots like Glen Ample.
How do you know what to look for? This is very difficult to explain, but easy to show and I am happy to get round clubs and groups with some slides, so don’t hesitate to contact me. Those who have seen them have often said their eyes have been opened. Indeed, there is a medically recognised syndrome now, where people start spotting them everywhere, even on the Pentlands!
Strange how what started as a navigational puzzle – how can you get bamboozled following the crest of Sgurr Choinnich Mor in the Grey Corries – can lead onto the shapes of strange mountains such as The Cobbler, and give insights into the life of the hills. Bluebell groves in Knoydart, stalkers paths, eagles, fawns and leverets, shielings, illicit stills – all taking advantage of our slipped and fractured mountainsides; the cracks and wrinkles giving them their not-so-ancient beauty.
David Jarman would be glad to hear from hillgoers who have observed ‘rock slope failures’ or would like to know more, especially if they have sketching or photographic talents! His slide shows on “When Scotland’s mountains fell apart” and “Bad steps, narrow places, and vanishing Munros” come recommended, if only as a change from the usual epics. Contact him at Mountain Landform Research, 16 Albert Place, Stirling or david.jarman914@virgin.net.