Climbing on the Himalaya and Other Mountain Ranges

by Norman Collie

It is the atmosphere that adds both dignity and charm to these Scotch hills, making them appear far bigger than they would in the clearer air of the larger mountain ranges, and giving them all the softened colour and perspective so necessary to emphasise the real beauty of true mountains. Their form also helps them in no small degree. The long-flowing lines of the lower slopes gradually rising from the moorland below, and the beautifully carved corries that nestle into their sides, all tend to strengthen and serve as a fit substructure for their more wild and broken summits.

At their feet lie no valleys with dirty-white glacier streams tearing down between mud banks, and never a proper pool in them; their sides are not disfigured with monotonous pine forests of a uniform light green colour, but the heather and the grey rocks, lichen-covered, mingle together on their slopes, lighting up with every flash of sunshine, or deepening into every shade of brown and purple gloom, as the storm clouds sweep over their summits; whilst, below, brown trout streams wander between wild birches and Scotch firs, staying here in some dark pool hidden away under the rocks covered with ferns and heather, flashing out again there into the sunshine over the pebbles, and across the low-lying moor.

Those who have seen the Coolin from the moors above Talisker in the twilight, or who have watched them on a summer's evening from Kyle Akin, apparently clothed in deep purple velvet broidered with gold, and rising out of the 'wandering fields of barren foam,' whilst

'The charmed sunset linger'd low adown In the red west';

or lazily spent a whole day on the sand beaches of Arisaig point, gazing, towards Rum and Skye lying light blue on the horizon, and across a sea brilliant in colour as the Mediterranean amongst the Ionian islands; or lingered at the head of Loch Coruisk till the last pale light has faded out of the heavens behind Sgurr Alasdair, and only the murmur of the streams breaks the stillness of the night air—those who have thus seen the Coolin will know that they are beautiful. But the fascination that these mountains exercise over those that know them well is manifold; there are more pleasures that the Coolin can offer than those of being merely very beautiful. For the mountaineer who wanders in the heart of this marvellous mountain land there are rock climbs without end. He can spend hour after hour exploring the corries, or threading the intricacies of the narrow rock edges that form so large a part of the sky-line. From the summits he can watch the mists sweeping up from below, and hurrying over the bealachs in tumbled masses of vapour, or he can dreamily follow the white sails of the boats, far out to sea, as they slowly make for the outer islands; then clambering down the precipitous faces he can repose in some sheltered nook and listen to the sound of a burn, perhaps a thousand feet below, echoed across from the sheer walls of rock on the other side of the corrie; there is always something new to interest him—it may be a gully that requires the utmost of his skill as a mountaineer, or it may be a view of hill, moor, and loch backed by the Atlantic and the far-off isles of the western sea. Nowhere in the British Islands are there any rock climbs to be compared with those in Skye, measure them by what standard you will—length, variety, or difficulty. Should any one doubt this, let him some fine morning walk up from the head of Coruisk to the rocky slabs at the foot of Sgurr a'Ghreadaidh. There he will see the bare grey rocks rising out from the heather not 500 feet above the level of the loch, and there walls, ridges, and towers of weather-worn gabbro stretch with hardly a break to the summit of the mountain, 2800 feet above him. Measured on the map, it is but half a mile, but that half mile will tax his muscles; he must climb up gullies that the mountain torrents have worn out of the precipices, and over slabs of rock sloping down into space at an angle that makes handhold necessary as well as foothold; he must creep out round edges on to the faces of perpendicular cliffs, only to find that after all the perpendicular cliff itself must be scaled before he can win back again to the ridge that is to lead him to the topmost peak. There are many such climbs in the Coolin. The pinnacles of Sgurr nan Gillean, the four tops of Sgurr a'Mhadaidh, and the ridge from Sgurr Dearg to Sgurr Dubh, are well known, but the face climbs have been neglected. The face of Sgurr a'Mhadaidh from Tairneilear, the face of Sgurr Alasdair from Coire Labain, are both excellent examples of what these mountains can offer to any one who wants a first-rate scramble on perfect rock. Sgurr a'Coir' an Lochain on the northern face gives a climb as good as one could anywhere wish to get, yet it is only a preliminary one to those on the giants Sgurr Alasdair and Sgurr Dearg that lie behind.

But splendid though the climbing on the Coolin may be, it is only one of the attractions, possibly a minor attraction, to these hills, and there are many other mountain ranges where rock-climbing can be found. It is the individuality of the Coolin that makes the lover of the hills come back again and again to Skye, and this is true also of other mountain districts on the mainland of Scotland. To those who can appreciate the beauty of true hill form, the ever-changing colour and wonderful power and character of the sea-girt islands of the west, the lonely grandeur of Rannoch moor, the spacious wooded valley of the Spey at Aviemore, backed by the Cairngorm mountains, wild Glen Affric prodigal of gnarled pines abounding in strange curves of strength, or the savage gloom of Glencoe—all these scenes tell the same tale, and proclaim in no doubtful manner, that the Scotch mountain land in its own way is able to offer some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in the world.

The Highlands of Scotland contain mountain form of the very finest and most subtle kind—form not so much architectural, of which Ruskin writes, 'These great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements of clouds, choirs of streams and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars,' but form where the savage grandeur, the strength, and the vastness of the mountains is subordinate to simpler, yet in a way more complicated, structures. Scotch mountains have something finer to give than architectural form. In their modelling may be seen the same beauties that in perfection exist in Greek statuary. The curving lines of the human figure are more subtle than those of any cathedral ever built. The Aiguilles round Mont Blanc are architectural in the highest degree, but the mighty summit rising up far above them into the blue sky, draped in wonderful and sweeping lines of snow and ice, marvellously strong, yet full of moderation, is far more mysterious, far more beautiful, than all the serrated ridges and peaks that cluster round its base.

It is in the gentleness of ascent in many of the Highland hills, in the restraint and repose of the slopes 'full of slumber,' that we can trace all the finer and more delicate human lines; and it is due to the strength of these lines that the bigger mountains seem to rise without an effort from the moors and smaller hills that surround them. To many people the Cairngorm range is composed of shapeless, flat-topped mountains devoid almost of any character. They do not rise like the Matterhorn in savage grandeur, yet the sculptured sides of Braeriach, seen from Sgoran Dubh Mhor, are in reality far more full of rich and intricate mountain sculpture, than the whole face of the Matterhorn as seen from the Riffel Alp.

The individuality of the Coolin is not seen in their summits, which are often almost ugly, but in the colour of the rocks, the atmospheric effects, the relative largeness and harmony of the details compared with the actual size of the mountains, and most of all in the mountain mystery that wraps them round: not the mystery of clearness such as is seen in the Alps and Himalaya, where range after range recedes into the infinite distance, till the white snow peaks cannot be distinguished from the clouds, but in the secret beauty born of the mists, the rain, and the sunshine, in a quiet and untroubled land, no longer vexed by the more rude and violent manifestations of the active powers of Nature. Once there was a time when these peaks were the centre of a great cataclysm; they are the shattered remains of a vast volcano that ages since poured its lavas in mighty flood far and wide over the land; since then the glaciers in prehistoric times have polished and worn down the corries and the valley floors, leaving scars and wounds everywhere as a testimony of this power; but the fire age and the ice age are past; now the still, clear waters of Coruisk ripple in the breeze, by the lochside lie the fallen masses of the hills, and the shattered debris left by the glaciers of bygone days; these harbour the dwarf hazel, the purple heather, and the wildflowers, whilst corrie, glen, and mountain-side bask in the summer sunlight.

But when the wild Atlantic storms sweep across the mountains; when the streams gather in volume, and the bare rock faces are streaked with the foam of a thousand waterfalls; when the wind shrieks amongst the rock pinnacles, and sky, loch, and hillside all are one dull grey, the Coolin can be savage and dreary indeed. Perhaps, though, the clouds towards evening may break; then the torn masses of vapour tearing in mad hunt along the ridges will be lit up by the rays of the sun slowly descending into the western sea, 'robing the gloom with a vesture of divers colours, of which the threads are purple and scarlet, and the embroideries flame'; and as the light flashes from the black rocks, and the shadows deepen in the corries, the superb beauty, the melancholy, the mystery of these mountains of the Isle of Mist will be revealed. But the golden glory of the sunset will melt from off the mountains, the light that silvered the great slabs will slowly fail; from out the corries darkness heralding the black night will creep with stealthy tread, hiding all in gloom; then, last of all, beyond the darkly luminous, jagged, and fantastic outline of the Coolin the glittering stars will flash from the clear sky, no wind will stir the great quiet, and only the far-off sound, born of the rhythmic murmur of the sea-waves beating on the rock-bound shore of lonely Scavaig, remains as a memory of the storm.