UKH

I was working in Lochgoilhead this week with a bunch of P7 kids. On the first day, when the rain stopped briefly, one of them pointed in amazement at the hills around us and said "Wow! It's like a video game". 🤦🤦🤦

 If someone said wow, it looks like something out of a movie I think most people would see that as an appropriate expression of awe. It’s the same thing, just expressing it through the art form that they have more affinity for. Lots of peoples first experience of the mountains comes from media/ art, whether that’s films or books or in this case video games. 

Maybe we can also take cheer from the fact that video games can now provide such wondrous and realistic environments - I can't imagine I'd be very impressed if my first outing to the hills revealed a country that looked like the background of Super Mario Kart

I like Lochgoilhead (despite the masses of holiday lodges!). I passed through on the Cowal Way a couple of years ago in April so it was quiet. The falls on the Donich Water are lovely although the forest paths look like they've had a lot of post-lockdown traffic since my first visit in 2010. There are some nice looking hills above. Managed to get up Beinn Bheula last year although from the Glenbranter side. Fantastic views over the loch towards the Arrochar hills. I'd like to go back and walk that serrated ridge line on the west of Lochgoilhead.

Yeah, exactly, I don’t see a problem in that.

There’s good climbing too…

https://youtu.be/Ae-78h82LIE?si=Ku2-Ozy3fJyS7Tyy
 

I'm always trying to find a nice Albert Bierstadt (hell, a John Martin would be even better) on my more adventurous strolls, making do mostly with your everyday Claudes.

I guess I'm just saddened that the world is viewed through the lens of a video game. At that age I would have had no art reference to draw on, and would have appreciated the beauty as it is. I remember the first time I went up Alva Glen, and the vividness of that sticks with me now (I couldn't have been older than P4, so 8 or 9.). 

I was obviously very glad that they were looking around and appreciating, it just felt sad that video games are so integral to them.

Yes, it's a lovely wee area. Ben Bheula is lovely, and we take the kids up to Donich falls quite often. Also up the Steeple too. It's a great place to allow kids to explore.

I have spent most of a lifetime in the hills one way or another and I still feel a tingle when somewhere looks a bit like Skyrim or Far Cry 3/4.

I seem to have landed my spaceship somewhere in Assynt in winter.

I mean I remember saying that with friends when we were intoxicated on a boat (I wasn’t driving it)  somewhere on Loch Lomond in, I think, 2005? 
 

so it’s been a depressing reflection on the yoof for at least 2 decades! 
 

I think maybe it reflects that they’ve seen something that is unusual and ‘awesome’ in the traditional sense, so I think good job supporting them with these experiences as they realise the world around them can be as extraordinary as ingames/films.

Don’t be sad, video games are a wonderful art form that provide happiness and wonder to people in a different way to being in the mountains. Art is how we, as humans, relate to and interpret our world. That’s what this kid was doing. What if someone said that’s pretty as a picture? Would you feel sad that pictures had to come into it and they couldn’t appreciate the view for what it is?  I enjoy playing video games and being in the mountains. There is a lot of scope in life for both and we always draw on our experiences to create parallels. Next time they come across a mountain in a video game they might say wow, it’s like that time we were on the school trip and saw mountains.