FEATURES
Great Stones of Scotland
By John Watson
The second in this series was going to cover some remote far west venues, but with the winter season upon us, easily accessible central belt venues will probably be more popular, and drier, so this edition I will concentrate on some of the best on offer from Edinburgh to Glasgow, old haunts and relatively new ones.
PART 2: VOLCANIC DIVERSIONS
Scotland once sat sweating on the equator, its lush tropical vegetation laying down carboniferous coals and limestones. This was when the earth was violent with earthquakes and exploding volcanoes and leaking faults. Magma was everywhere and through the geological eras from the Permian to the Tertiary, lavas bled out as we drifted north and the Atlantic began to flood into the valleys of the Clyde and Forth. It must have been like a scene out of Mordor, with black spumes and fire and lightening in the clouds.
This was the childhood of our 'central belt', our bouldering grounds for the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. It is almost a nod to this vibrant geology that our heavy industries fired metal and quarried rock and built great ships in these cities - it is a burly land of steel and strength, of industrial focus, dense and hard as its fired stone and everywhere cradled by this basic philosophy of stone. Dolerites, basalts: once a viscous orange porridge, these have been shaped and shattered into rocks and crags before the glaciers came and plucked a few off to put on show. The whole Forth and Clyde valleys are bedded and stripped with this rock, which shears and breaks into facets confounding to first-time climbers. Undoubtedly, the 'blocs' at Dumbarton Rock dominate the tick-lists of young (and aging) boulderers, but there are plenty of other stones and crags in this area to provide an evening's entertainment after work, without having to pay the ferryman at the climbing walls!
Dumbarton Rock
(NS 399 744)
Dumbarton has long had a litter of volcanic boulders suckling on the great mother-rock, well before humans stuck a castle and a wee blue and white flag on top of it. It was the core of a volcano on the Clyde Plateau lavas that formed 340 million years ago. Vikings besieged it and left. William Wallace fumed in prison here. A young Mary Queen of Scots looked out fearfully from the ramparts. During World War Two, it was even bombed by the Germans, who believed it to harbour stupendous guns. The boulders remain, quietly unmoved, scrambled on by kids so they can throw bottles from the mini-summits and paint graffiti as high as they dare. 'Dumby', as it is affectionately known, is a tawdry place, the boulders stained by impromptu driftwood fires and splashed with paint and angry young names and slogans. Broken glass crunches underfoot and in winter the boulders turn green and drip under the great open bible of the main face. But to climbers it is the gypsy queen of Scottish bouldering. The weird Picasso cubism of the fractured rock gives it a complexity and class of movement totally unique to itself, revealed only through repeated and often perplexing physical scrutiny. After a few visits in springtime, the graffiti dissolves before your eyes; the broken glass a glinting path leading to your favourite problems. The sounds you hear are the boulderer's constant friction between success and failure: squeaking chalky cracks, roars, great slaps, howls of exasperation, barks of encouragement…
This is where Scottish bouldering was conceived, as early climbers 'practised' on the boulders with one eye on the main face lines, getting used to the slope and treachery of high holds, learning what could be stood on and what couldn't, training the head to stay composed and focused at chaos-inducing heights. All the oft-quoted names of Scottish climbing have cut their teeth, amongst other things, on these boulders: Bryan Shields, 'Cubby' Cuthbertson, Andy Gallagher, Malcolm Smith, Dave MacLeod... behind these names are legions of talented climbers and visitors who have climbed at this 'Black Fontainebleau', who have either run away in disgust and fearful confusion, or come back for the blood count of bagging the big or the hard. Problems like 'Gorilla', 'Toto', 'Mugsy' and 'Pongo' do not relent easily, and the modern test-pieces like 'The Shield', 'Pongo Direct', 'Sabotage', 'Firestarter' and 'Shadow' require the dedication of the hardened alpinist and the bloody-minded fitness regime of a marathon runner. Like a Black Hole, Dumby will suck in the light from all other bouldering in Scotland; it is the indisputable heart of its philosophy.
'DUMBY' CLASSIC PROBLEMS:
EAGLE BOULDER
The first boulder you arrive at under Dumbarton castle, this boulder invites you into a ritual of physical heroism - a huge rock with a symbolic Lion Rampant on its seaward slab challenges you to take its leaning and impending lines. Eagle Boulder, more than any other stone, might leave you feeling like you've just walked unscathed from a car-crash…Gorilla is the most obvious challenge, a flying prow of rock pointing towards Ben Lomond. From two permanently chalked crimps on the roof, a haul or jump gains the subtly notched layaway: both techniques require precision, so there is no shortcut. The ape-like swing to the nose can be cunningly controlled before the final rock-over onto the slab, which will leave you clear-eyed and ripped with a feeling of sudden initiation. The sit-start travelling left at the crimps through crux slopers to climb the prow direct, is King Kong. Supinator is the seaward highball crack problem which demands a careful rockover finish; as the name suggests, carelessness can leave you on your back in the brambles. 2HB lies behind the sycamore tree - this delightful mental and physical entanglement initiates the first-timer into the precision required to enjoy Dumbarton bouldering. Climb up right and aim for a two-finger undercut, then boost for ledges – they are good. Oceans takes the scooped orange wall just right of the tree. From an undercut and a right hand press crux, smear desperately left and gain edges to a scary finish up and left. Blue Meanie is just up the path - this shattered roof forces you to lean leftwards over a jagged plinth, but there are good holds to top out on. Start at good holds and aim for a layaway, then reach hopefully left for the jugs. Centre Direct climbs the centre of the slab direct – it blanks out a bit at the top. Zig-Zag is the roof on the right of the slab - having been teased through the roof on big holds, the sudden conundrum of stepping left at overlaps might gain easier ground. Tam's Route - just round the corner is the black and brooding overhang facing the entrance path. The left-hand groove can be climbed on flat holds, leading to a thin and often green top-out. Shadow lies just to the right and is an impressively scary overhanging black groove, which sees few ascents, requiring mainly a rush of blood to the head. A steep start on poor holds leads to a direct finish up the groove. High Flyer takes off from a flat hold on the right of the roof and gains the hanging ramp to finish - an awkward start from the plinth that needs a good spotter. Firestarter is the right-hand roof challenge. A crimping nightmare from hell - from the lip jug, heel-hook and cross through on painful crimps to aim up right to 'holds' in the faint groove just left of the big prow of Gorilla.
HOME RULE BOULDER
This boulder has until recently held the lion's share of test-pieces at Dumby. Physical Graffiti is the obvious challenge of the face facing over the Clyde estuary, climbing straight above the graffiti and on up into the un-painted, emotional blank canvas of loneliness. Climbers spotting another soul on the scary top-out look more like they are praying to the heavens. Home Rule is a less scary but classic sequence, pinching and rocking up to the handrail, with the best finish traversing left to finish up the thin moves on the classic arête of Mestizo. The secret to the wall above the cave was discovered by Scottish all-rounder Dave 'Cubby' Cuthbertson: Mugsy is 'simply' a matter of combining strength and technique with a dynamic approach: from the flat lip holds, heel-hook, crimp and slap up on slopers to a good jug in the middle of the wall, finishing carefully left or right. The lower Clyde-side prow, with its hanging grooves over slopping grass, has one of the best highball problems at Dumby: The Whip is the groove right of the starting arête beside Sucker's Boulder. It stops you in a high position with a simple but terrifying commitment to more delicate climbing up the rib. Many boulderers arrive at Dumby to find a newcomer stuck high on this problem, quivering and licking their dry lips.
SUCKER'S BOULDER
Squeezed out by its bigger brothers flanked by two caves, this boulder still manages to give us some classic problems: from the polished slab lines to the steeper classics of the scooped orange face, where you are likely to find a conspiracy of grounded boulderers contemplating the 'disappearing' crack of Toto, which would be a classic even amongst the renowned boulders of the Fontainebleau forest. First unravelled by the Scottish pioneer Gary Latter, 'Toto' is a deceptive pull and step into a crack and scoop that leads, eventually and hopefully, to more obvious territory. When done well by a familiar, it looks like a path. However, on first acquaintance, it is a desperate exercise in all things the boulderer holds dear: technicality, commitment, subtlety and strength. No one element will get you up this problem – it requires a combination of them all in equal and balanced measure. A good Toto V7 sit-start, travelling along the fingery handrail to lurch for the bottom of the original, was worked out by Andy Gallagher in 1996. The Shield is the obvious eponymous challenge to the right, requiring massive pressing strength and sharp reactions to hold the slopers at the top. Use any holds you like and slap with either or both hands, it's still hard! Endless howling failures on these latter two classics have pounded the broken glass deep into the gravel, which is where we all end up at Dumby, no matter how awesome we become.
B.N.I. BOULDER
Despite developing equipment and fitness levels in bouldering over the years, there is always the Bloody Nigh Impossible! This boulder pays respect to that enduring humility - it is a historic Scottish boulder that has seen epochal ascents. It seems to prop up 'Sucker's' boulder and the long but low 'E' boulder, like an elder with its prodigies, and it has stories to tell. In the late 50's and early 60's, Neil MacNiven and Brian Shields crawled up the 'descent' hole and walked up the exposed arête of Imposter, then got the idea of stepping right onto the orange slab, tip-toeing gently further right to the arête of the earlier Pendulum, which swings in from the big block on the right, and their classic commitment today gives the boulder its epithet of B.N.I. In the '70's, Willie Todd cranked out the old peg crack of Good Nicks which then aims high and left for a stretchy finish round the right arête of BNI. In the '90's, Mal Smith powered straight through the roof onto the slab with BNI Direct, and more recently, in 2003; the awesome dedication of 'Dumby' Dave MacLeod paid off to give Sabotage - one of Scotland's most physically demanding problems, which takes the challenge of the roof and apparently hold-less nose of the boulder. All these boulderers have performed with the same drive and enthusiasm for this obscure art, set amongst the unsung and fractured basalt of Dumbarton. It is a place where 'blood runs cold', as has been said, but for the boulderer prepared to return and pursue the passion, nothing could be further from the truth.
E BOULDER
This - possibly the most worked-on of all the boulders at Dumby - aptly has our most common letter 'E' to name it. It seems unassuming enough until you try the harder problems or the traverses, then it unleashes its brutality and usually leads you scuttling away, badly beaten, to an easier problem. The obvious roof-crack of Pongo is a case in point – a dynamic leap from a poor hand-rail leads to powerful locking manoeuvres and teeth-clenching finger-locks. The 'sit-down' version of Pongo Direct requires the utmost of butch approaches and shoulders like tightened Meccano. Originally climbed by Mal Smith, it was a watershed in what was possible in Scotland and is probably the most lusted-after modern problem at Dumby. People still stand underneath it with their tongues hanging out, thirsty dogs! Andy Gallagher had given us an idea of how hard things could get with the now classic Slap Happy, to the left of Pongo, which cranks through finger edges on the leaning wall, requiring a kind of surprise attack on gravity. Traversing came of age on this boulder when the awkward seaward nose of Nemesis suggested you could drop down on slopers to continue up and right on the lowest of holds, chalk-bag trailing the ground, to turn the corner and finish by the cave at whatever finish you had the strength left to try. Andy Gallagher started all this off with Consolidated in 1994 and now the lowest, thinnest finish goes at about V11. The flying slabby right arête of Hard Cheddar is the usual cop-out finish from the crux corner of the Consolidated traverse!
SEA BOULDER
Where we begin and end; sunrise and sunset; the warm-up and the warm-down; the cyclical nature of it all; the serenity; the delicacy after strenuousness... the Sea Boulder is a fond friend to aficionados of Dumbarton; even the locals like to polish the descent with the backside of their jeans. It provides good arête problems once the tide slips out and exciting girdles when the tide is in. The sea-smoothed footholds ensure technicality and precision - the watchwords of Dumbarton - are adhered to. The best problems are the two seaward arêtes: Steptoe, which takes interestingly short-sighted climbing on the north arête, ignoring the curious lump of lead at half-height; and Erewhon, which takes the sea-polished south arête. White Wall is the good thin eliminate wall on the north side.
Craigmore - 'Stone Heads'
(NS 528 797)
Just north of Glasgow's claustrophobic industry, and set in a mossy old forest littered with quiet boulders, lies an escape for the day. A place of abandoned care, forgotten duty and total absorption: Craigmore. Pinnacles and boulders sit propped up against the crag like fallen idols or unfinished heads from a Glaswegian version of Easter Island. The rock is quartzy, compact basalt with a tendency to toothbrush up to dimpled slopers and fierce crimps. On a cool sunny evening in spring or autumn, powering through the problems, the trees whispering in a light breeze, it leaves the city boulderer transported. The classic problems here all require balance in the body and steel in the fingers, as well as wisdom in choosing the right time to go: a cool breezy morning in summer or spring after a dry spell is magical, but especially during a dry autumn spell. On a badly chosen day, a hot still evening in summer for example, fingers pop off, feet skitter and the midges can follow you high enough to where they know you can't let go.
Salisbury Craigs – Edinburgh
(NT 275 730)
Though there are no isolated boulders here, this is just one great volcanic plug, a massive jammed chockstone in the earth's throat. There are bouldering venues on the steeper stone palisades that skirt Arthur's Seat by the Salisbury Craigs. Though roped climbing is forbidden, bouldering seems to be accepted quite happily, especially in the south quarry area, where the best problems can be found. The classic of the area is the Black Wall Traverse, a technical and fingery Brit 6c, though most of the bouldering is slabby and eliminate, with one of the finest raised outlooks in Scotland, where it is natural to muse on the brief architectures of human activity and the dark black endurance of this volcanic geology. This area is also historical, where Harold Raeburn 'practised' climbing (ie. he bouldered!) over a century ago and since then every Edinburgh-based climber has probably spent a sunny evening here on the crags.
The Clochodrick Stone
(NS 373 612)
Amongst the fertile rolling hills of the Renfrewshire on the south side of the Clyde, a volcanic beast rests alone on the Telly-Tubby grass next to St Bride's burn at Clochodrick, near Howwood. Great stones attract theories and names as though they had fallen from the sky, indeed it is important to imagine, without the benefit of a geological timescale, that this stone could only have been placed by magic, or by great heroes, or by powerful kings. Without a glacier to help your understanding, how else could this volcanic marble have been exiled to this isolated field? A small plaque on the wall states its singular desire for meaning having lost its locus in the past. It was left here after the ice age, plucked from its mother-lode to the north by the southern-creeping glaciers. Once freed of ice, it was claimed as a Druid stone of ceremony. Druid priests are imagined to have dispensed justice by standing the defendant on top of the stone. It was later claimed as the birthplace of Roderick Hael, King of Strathclyde, who 'crushed' the pagans and brought a Christian, though still symbolically Gaelic, meaning to the stone ('Clach-Rodrick', the 'Stone of Roderick'). Since then, it has probably witnessed all sorts of personal ceremonies, including the occasional visits of boulderers. This stone was used as training by Paul Laughlan in the eighties as he toured the country repeating Scotland's hardest routes and he has worked out all the best eliminates. It has five faces with different characters. For the modern boulderer the north, south and east faces are steeper and a full low traverse of the boulder provides a testpiece worthy of a Fontainebleau black dab of paint. The arêtes all provide good sit-start power problems, and the north face has a Cressbrooke-style juggy overhang with fierce finger-edges on the higher parts of the walls. Though not a high stone, it has about a dozen worthy straight-ups and endless eliminates can keep you entertained in your solitude on a summer evening. It is a singular spot and a singular stone, and gives you clear focus on the basic philosophy of bouldering.
The Campsie Boulders
(NS 628 792)
'Awa the Crow Road' is an old Scots expression for leaving this mortal world. The eponymous road which winds heavenward out of Lennoxtown onto the Campsie moors and summits, passes under the 'Black Craig' and its scree slopes. If you are in no hurry to leave this world, fun diversions can be had on the hidden boulders in these volcanic screes. There are two sets of boulders, one on the west, above a layby after the switchbacks, and another lower down, directly above the communications mast by the golf-course. Though nowhere too big, there are plenty of telescoped problems such as the 'Stink Bug' roof-lip traverse in the east boulder field and the excellent roof of 'Crow Road' on the first main boulder of the west boulder field. A good circuit can be achieved with a little imagination and the outlook over Glasgow reminds you how easy it is to escape the city and its restless diversions.
Excerpts of the text and most of the problems in this article appear in the book 'Stone Country' by John Watson. It's available in most good book stores, outdoor shops or direct from Cordee at www.cordee.co.uk, Price £19.95 and contains topos of many of the best bouldering venues in Scotland. Also see John's website for updates at www.stonecountry.co.uk.
NEXT ISSUE will feature Dumfries and Galloway