Great Stones of Scotland
By John Watson
This is the first in a series of articles to present Scotland’s greatest climbing stones and their heritage. Bouldering has been here for thousands of years, despite the current renaissance, and the stones themselves have always held meaning, long before we climbed on them. I’ll start with an area that has seen stones which have not only witnessed great climbing feats, but also sermons, rites, myth, murders, fights and tragedy.
PART 1: The Trossachs
The first of Scotland’s mountain ranges to be ‘commoditised’ by the Victorian tourist trade, the Trossachs hills rise out of the fertile plains of the Forth valley as you approach from the south and rightly dominate the mind as the ‘gateway’ to the Highlands. Stretching from the conical flanks of Ben Lomond eastwards across the schist domes of Ben Venue and Ben Ledi to the twin peaks of Stuc a Chroin and Ben Vorlich, with the twin summits of Ben More and Stob Binnein marking the northerly borders, the glens in this hidden land cradle great stones that have seen the last of the most recent glaciers and witnessed the broad remit of all our human passions. They have attracted people as ancient as the Pictish druids as well as early Christian saints and they have seen the troubled and murderous times of political heavyweights such as Rob Roy MacGregor. In Victorian times, great human engineering brought water to Glasgow from Loch Katrine; steamboats plied the loch and money began to be made from ‘tourism’. This was a new concept to a land which had only ever been ‘lived on’ or parcelled into abstractions by human feudalism (the birth of the estate).
Now it is the turn of the landscape to witness the climber in this age of leisure and historical ‘exploration’, but we too are just a curious blip between great upheavals. Will global warming precipitate changes? Most certainly – large boulders had to be dynamited on the Glen Ogle road in the dramatic landslides and floods of January 2005, so it is worth remembering the landscape is never really at rest and we don’t hold the rights to our natural world. The stones are themselves but tourists on a bigger rock.
STRATHYRE
The glens around Strathyre and Balquhidder are deeply historical landscapes. Druids preached round the ‘Pudraic’ stone at Kirkton, St Angus built a stone preaching pulpit here in the 8th century and it appears many Rob Roy clones ran riot, giving name to caves and stones across the broad extent of this Gaelic ‘rough territory’. The mountains and elevated glens suggested a thin boundary between man and his Gods, with pagans lighting Beltane and Samhain fires on Tom an Aingeal (Knoll of Fires) and the many ‘bealachs’ between the hills inviting congregation amongst many clans and communal worship at St Bride’s Chapel or Kirkton churches. Christianity merged its symbols with the landscape and everything here has a name reflecting nature or the people who lived and died here. ‘Stag Hill’ (Ardnandave), ‘Eagle Rock’ (Creag na h-Iolaire), ‘An Sidhean’ (Fairy Knoll), ‘The Soldier’s Lookout’ (Meall nan Saighdear) and the anglicized Bailful (from the less colourful Gaelic ‘Boggy Place’) all reflect the last three thousand years of naming this landscape.
Rob Roy’s Putting Stane (GR NN 516 243)
There is indeed a thin boundary between climbers and their landscape. The Trossachs stones are all challenging in their size and we can imagine initiations into manhood and other rites and rituals performed by them or upon them. A good example is the huge boulder not surprisingly named Rob Roy’s Putting Stane. At the bealach of Kirkton Glen, under the beetling crags of Leum an Eireannaich, the obvious South Crack of this boulder was supposedly ‘first’ climbed by W. Inglis Clark in February (!) of 1899. Climbing it, one can easily imagine a shepherd boy with his arms raised in triumph on top of the stone, echoing the rutting stags of the remote glens. Or maybe even a clan-meeting to decide an issue of ‘ownership’ under the stone… it is certainly a landmark, especially before the conifer crops were planted, and just high enough to lure the human desire for challenge. Great stones are natural climbing challenges – they provide a kind of Bonzai spirituality; a recreational approach to mortality… upon the west ‘Bumper Crack’ of this stone for example, we are indeed aware of the thinning of our mortality, and the short span between laughter and oblivion. Climbing, and indeed highball bouldering, is all about this brief affair.
Clach Damh (GR NN 575 131)
Anglicized to ‘The Stag Stone’, this is possibly the biggest boulder in the Central Highlands. Recently revealed from its conifer grave, this stone has its own gravity and catches the eye if you’re driving south from Strathyre. Perched on the west flanks of the Ben Ledi massif, directly across the narrow waist of Loch Lubnaig, it can be gained by following forestry tracks north along the west bank of the Loch, past the Cabin community for two kilometres. Take a left at a junction and follow the forestry track south, then north along switchbacks to gain height from Loch Lubnaig. Below the pinnacled crags of Ardnandave, the boulder hides itself well – it can be found by taking a fire-break up through a gap in a deer fence for a few hundred yards.
Clach Damh is a huge, clean schist stone, developed by Kev Howett in 2003. The four facets of this boulder are mostly bold committing lines, so a boulder mat is pointless and a steady head is essential. The lines are dramatic and good, such as the flying west arête, ‘The Damh Side’ (V1), which has a technical commitment to a halfway ledge where doubts creep in, but the finish is easy and the descent down the ledged south arête a relief! The east face has an undercut wall along its length, with beefy starts leading to easier but highball climbing on the vertical headwall. The terrifying roofs of the north face thankfully have slabs on their left side, which provide two clean but technical highball grooves. Hard low traverses and ‘jump-off’ problems are also possible for those more comfortable with their mortality.
Ben Ledi Boulders (GR NN 566 105)
Ben Ledi is a ‘devil’s punchbowl’ hill just north of the Flanders Moss and Stirlingshire wheat fields, inhabited by pinnacles and boulders and some unfortunate history. In the 19th Century, a funeral party, crossing over the pass to St Bride’s Chapel in midwinter, broke through the treacherous ice of Lochan nan Corp (‘The Loch of Corpses’), and drowned most of the local clan. This knowledge, along with the tombstone-like boulders and gargoyle pinnacles on the north-eastern slopes of this hill, provides a gothic backdrop to bouldering despite such a brochure outlook to the east. On a late summer afternoon, with the heather bloody and vibrant, and the problems highball enough to feel your mortality quicken, the theme of darkness seems out of place for such an activity, but in essence climbing is always about death. The fear of falling, the sudden abilities found not to fall, are animal reactions to the genetic inheritance called vertigo. Clinging hard to mica-schist crimps, praying they won’t snap; reaching high like penitents for a thank-God hold to finish with, always fearful that there will be no good finishing hold at all, like there might be no afterlife. You feel all this in a kind of miniature panic until it focuses all you know about ascending and then it is over, this little death, at least until the next boulder.
From Stirling follow the A84 and signs for Callander. Continue through the town and up the winding road by the Falls of Leny. When this flattens out, take a sudden left-hand metal bridge to parking. A flat kilometre walk north leads to a steep way-marked path up through the forests into Stank Glen. Follow the corrie path to where the pinnacles come into view up on the left. From a white marker post and low boulder, follow a small burn up to a sudden plateau, where the huge boulders come into view. A good warm-up walk with a boulder mat!
These boulders were ‘first’ discovered by a climbing cobbler from Falkirk in 1949 and the local Ochil Mountaineering Club were quick to capitalise. The lowest climbable ‘Corpse’ boulder over on the right, facing up to the pinnacles, provides some good warm-up problems and the terrific north-west arête, ‘Bernie’s Climb’ (V1), climbed by Tam Low in the 1960’s, can be climbed on either side depending on nerve. Just up from this boulder is the prowed boulder of the ‘Sunstone’. The prow itself is ‘Eclipse’ (V4), a powerful problem climbing the curving prow on pockets to a hopeful lunge for jugs. The leaning wall facing north east has the best problem here: the left hand hanging corner and Africa-shaped flake is ‘Dawn Wall’ (V3), which presses into the square-cut wee corner, undercuts up and left to a spike, then works back right into the top of the corner to finish on pockets and better holds up and left - an excellent excursion requiring patience to find the right positions and holds. The big boulders just above the fence are disappointing, but there is one very obvious challenge – the ‘Tombstone Roof’ which climbs the leaning wall and escapes round the roof leftwards at pockets, as yet incomplete. The pale-skinned boulder of the ‘Moonstone’ sits in the middle of the main boulders and gives some good highball problems on its downhill face, particularly the highball ‘Crescent Moon’ (V3). The ‘Cortège Boulder’ has an uphill vertical west wall which is a delight. ‘Cortège Crack’ (V3) takes the left hand seam and is twisty and reachy, so don’t warm up on it. The middle of the wall is climbed to good central holds, then stretches up to the top to give ‘Pallbearer’ (V2). The right arête is the descent route, baptised by Tam Low as ‘Parachute’ as it was normal to jump back down the route. Round the corner, facing south, is a steep wall with a few tougher problems.
LOCH KATRINE BOULDERS (GR NN 485 069)
If mountaineers are hardened explorers, then I guess boulderers are fanatical tourists. You get this feeling at the Loch Katrine boulders. These fine stones have just failed to roll off the flanks of Ben Venue and into the south-east basin of Loch Katrine. Situated under the Bealach nam Bo (an old cattle-rustling pass), the outlook is serene and restful, the silence broken only by the tourist spiel on board the ‘Waverley’ as it steams past. The boulders are unusually compact for mica-schist, granitic in texture, providing moves reminiscent of gritstone. The main sentinel boulders here sit perched invitingly by the path on grassy turf. Approaching them is a delight – they grow in size and apprehend your eye – they have you unclipping the bouldering mat impatiently and you just can’t get your shoes on quick enough. The other boulders, scattered around in the trees and by the burns, provide explorative bouldering in sepia-tinted post-card surroundings; the romantic heart of Scottish tourism. Bouldering is just another form of tourism in the long run, but maybe it shares a more explosive approach to the landscape: in Victorian times this was the seat of the great project to douse the throats of Glasgow with fresh mountain water and the area was a hotbed of blasting and pipe-laying, as navvies fought as hard as they worked, giving their bothy-shanties names like Sebastopol, after the Crimean War, no doubt due to the rum-fuelled bust-ups amongst this very Gaelic ‘bristled ground’. And then they vanished from history, their job done, with a legacy of ingenuity and industrial creativity, as one day the boulderers will vanish, leaving their own small legacy of precision and foul-mouthed genius.
Over the Duke’s Pass from Aberfoyle the A821 drops down to Loch Achray under the dome of Ben A’an. A left turn at the head of the loch leads up to the Achray Hotel. From the back of this a forestry track follows the south bank of the Achray Water along to the dam at the bottom of Loch Katrine in about fifteen minutes. Continuing along the path for another five minutes or so, the first squat boulder appears by the burn’s alluvial fan.
The excellent ‘Fight Club’ (V4) climbs the sloping overhang rightwards from ledges. Crossing the burn and then another burn, the path arrives at the two sentinel boulders. The ‘Jawa Boulder’ is possibly the most distinctive boulder in the Trossachs; it sits on watch above Loch Katrine. It has a fine southern slabby face of compact schist, the centre of which provides the quality conundrum of ‘Jawa’ (V4). ‘Mind Trick’ (V1) is the crimpy wall to the left on this face. The super square-cut ‘Nose’ (V4) is a butch problem tackling the sharp snout from the hand ledge on the left. The heathered boulder under the Jawa boulder is ‘The Tourist’. Two overhanging arêtes provide the best interest here: HB (V3) is the loch-side arête and ‘Tourist Trap’ (V5) the uphill arête, both technical and puzzling. Other fine problems lie on hidden boulders, such as the ‘Art School Boulder’, up over the fence in the burn 50m before the sentinel boulders. The two best problems on this are ‘The Art School’ (V3) - the committing downstream arête on good rough rock – and the classic ‘Watercolour Challenge’ (V3): Bob Ewen’s delightful problem taking the pocketed wall looking up-stream.
Below the Sentinel boulders in a kind of well is ‘The Hydroponicum’. This boulder leans over a stream just before the sentinel boulders and below the path. It has a magnificently steep central problem at about V2- sitting in the fern-garden, pull up on good holds to finish directly up the groove and over onto the slab via a good hold. Past a boggy boulder with a heather bonnet, climb up to the obvious Bealach boulder field. There are many boulders here, but they suffer from cluster and many are dirty and have poor landings. The ‘Bealach Boulder’ is the obvious low boulder with cleaned holds, facing downhill. The rock is oddly water-worn in places. All problems are sit-start pulls to difficult mantels. In the wee glen below the bealach, follow the stream downhill. There is a large, beautifully textured boulder below the crags. This is the ‘Sebastopol Boulder’. It has a slabby left wall and a roofed right arête with grooves (V3). All problems are fun and the hardest is the sit-start to the caved arête – Lock Stock and Barrel - climbed on-sight by the powerful Dave MacLeod at V9. There are plenty of other boulders as you wander further from the path. That is what bouldering in Scotland is all about; finding such invigorating stones to release you back into the landscape.
NEXT ISSUE
Part 2 in December will feature some new areas on the West Coast.
© John Watson 2005. Excerpts of the text and most of the problems appear in the book ‘Stone Country’. This guide to Scottish bouldering is now published and available from outdoor bookshops, or directly from http://www.cordee.co.uk/ at £19.95.
For an excellent detailed map of the bouldering covered in this article, see the new Loch Lomond & The Trossachs Atlas from Harvey Maps. The detail is so good you can even find individual boulders marked and for those with an exploratory bent these maps are invaluable for searching out potential new venues. The map is £14.95 and available from the usual retailers or buy on the web at: http://www.harveymaps.co.uk/