Glen Lednock

The upper part of the glen is dominated by Lednock reservoir. The public road up the glen beyond Invergeldie farm (the usual parking spot for those contemplating a walk up Ben Chonzie) passes the waterfall of 'Sput Rolla' to below the dam and ample parking. It then continues up right past a hairpin and finishes at a small parking area right beside the east side of the dam. Either side of the dam are two rocky hills (Creag Iochdair & Creag nan Eun), both of which give bouldering area.

Kev Howett, family and friends visited the area in 2003 and climbed most of the obvious lines on the extremely rough schist blocs, which have a consistency like gabbro. Being exposed, they are coated in a thick grey lichen which at times needs a good wire brush to remove, but most of the classic problems are clean and on good rock. The highlight is the Reiver's Bloc - a facted boulder with a slab, wall and overhang complementing itself with a varitey of angled problems up to 7a. The testpieces to date are around 7b, with both Tim Palmer's Manic Stupor on the Dam overhang and Tim Carruthers' innocuous-looking Tsunami being real belters of hard problems.

The boulders feature in the Bouldering in Scotland guidebook, but the area is really quite an extensive venue and there is lots more to clean up and plenty of hard projects elsewhere in the glen. Kev Howett has produced a mini-guide to the area which is available as a printable booklet download at the Boulderscotland website.

Price: £3.50 Download

© Stone Country Press Ltd. 2010

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