THE POLLDUBH CRAGS

If that sounds a tad lyrical, I should add that these slaty quartz crags mostly have access little more than a stumble from the steering wheel and proffer a catalogue of routes fit to entice your aunty and John Dunne.

More recent developments just to the east, above Steall Gorge, are maybe a mildly strenuous jaunt but hardly require pack ponies to get you and the gear to the walls. Quiet isolation and the beauty of landscape that pervade this sanctuary and the higher tiers of lower Polldubh, only add to that sense of discovery enjoyed, I expect, by the youthful bloods who still pioneer here.

Set in the very heart of Lochaber only a mile or two from Fort William, this south-facing field of dreams radiates, I've heard it alleged, even when the sun don't shine. Yet with every Shangri-La, as they say, there is a certain reservation.

Braveheart and Rob Roy may both extol Glen Nevis to the world at large. But even if the tumbling green river, the autumn birch, oak and Scots pine, the occasional golden eagle and more frequent raven and red deer are all there to beguile, it should be noted that the lightest shower will hyper-grease these antique slabs.

And the calm air to follow will evoke among the trees an onslaught so ferocious it will have you pleading for what one demented first ascentionist justly called his new route - Midgiematosis! Climbing route names, in fact, can be an art form all their own and Polldubh excels in the genre. But we will come to that.

No doubt these outcrops attracted early adventurers and a climber or two would have investigated the extensive playground without necessarily recording their achievements. Brian Kellet, the English pacifist who chose to serve his war in the forests flanking Ben Nevis was known to spend the odd weekend or evening exploring alone in the glen.

But the first recorded routes were made by a tall, rangy local banker, Jimmy Ness, who later established a thriving tourist gift shop in town. And a protectionist attitude to the beauty of a fragile glen which had given so many years of activist pleasure.

''I first went up to Polldubh as a teenager in 1943,'' he recalls. ''It was a good practice ground to learn rock climbing and ideal when the weather was bad in the mountains.''

With Lochaber Mountaineering Club and later the JMCS, Jimmy frequented the crags and in 1947 put up the mild but seminal Pinnacle Ridge. Staircase and tip-toe followed, then the testpiece Severe Crack, MVS, which still takes top-roping suitors. And repels them like yo-yos. Me too, once!

Ness wrote a list of Polldubh's new routes for the 1951 SMC journal and the crags rose to higher, more intense endeavour. A galaxy of stars came, saw and made their imprint - Ian Clough, Bill Skidmore, Klaus Schwartz, John Cunningham, Allan Austin, Kenny Spence, Ed Grindley, Pete Whillance, Kevin Howett, Gary Latter, Ken Johnson and, of course, the relentless Dave Cuthbertson, et al.

Though he climbed five times a week in summer at Polldubh, Ness never guessed his humble practice walls would rise to national eminence nor encompass such sporting history and profusion of popular climbs. Minor masterpieces like Clough's Flying Dutchman, Severe, to Cubby's near-literal Exocet, E6.

Possibly only here in Lochaber does Scotland truly approach the kind of range and ready accessibility of short, varied and committing climbs that are virtually commonplace in England and Wales.

A ready humour and the ability to read between the lines give life to routes often named to evoke a memory or record a problem etc in their execution. An instructor at the later Outward Bound centre at Loch Eil, Klaus Schwartz maybe gave a lead with his Autobahnausfahrt, on High Crag, a provocative title for its era.

Though the early efforts on, say, Sheepfank, Hangover Buttress, Tricouni, Cavalry, Pandora and the like are fairly prosaic, Dying Crutchman above Flying Dutchman raises a smile. I like Bullet for the direct-line severe on Repton and the discretion of Mo's Got Her Knickers in a Twist on Road Buttress.

Make what you will of Apropakiss Now, SW2, Gawping Grockles, Crackattack, Edgehog, Bill's Got His Digger Going, Short Man's Walk-about, The Beer Hunter, Romancing the Stone, and Land Ahoy for a 90-foot unprotected-until-after-the-crux gripper.

The outcrops adjacent to the single track Glen Nevis road are popular training and instruction areas for schools, centres, the Army, mountain rescue and the like. But a wander up through the greenery (the Everglades it may seem after a dousing) can offer lessons for nearly anyone. Some remarkable technique and the insertion of enlightening protection might improve your own lack-lustre performance.

That apart, the best I learned at Polldubh was always to belay for an upward pull on the ropes even from a ground stance. I've seen that negligence at crags all over Britain. On Diagonal Crack at Scimitar Buttress, John pulled on a loose flake at 20 feet and a couple of metres above his runner.

He descended and I elevated. We passed in flight then swung across each other's bows, glancing heads.

Neither of us was best pleased but jointly grateful that I remembered not to drop the ropes in our high excitement.