The Mountain will be Reached

Wed, Feb 11th 2026 at 12:40 pm - 2:00 pm

David Clark told us how to reach for the Mountain

‹ › ×

The Guest Speaker was David Clark from St Monans, who gave an inspiring talk about striving to reach our goals, ‘The Mountain will be reached’. David described how he learned to love the Scottish mountains and scenery while living as a child in Glasgow just one hour from Ben Lomond. In 1976 he went on an outdoor training course at Glenmore Lodge and was inspired to ‘do the Munros’. Over his life in walking throughout Scotland -the Cuillins in Skye, Knoydart, the Cairngorms, the Western Highlands- David has been inspired to think about the Scottish scenery, not just its intense beauty and isolation but its social history and how scenery changed during the abuses of the Clearances, the scars of which remain to this day. He showed some beautiful photographs including ‘In Pin’ ( the impenetrable pinnacle" in Skye, and Inversnaid in the Arrocher hills. David, like thousands of others, has climbed all the 282 Munros and spoke of his struggle to ‘bag’ the last one on his list, Beinn Fionnlaidh in Glen Affric, which took him 7 attempts due to snow, heat, and exhaustion. As a Minister David loves the Psalms and understands the importance of them to the Scottish people, bringing landscape, scenery and injustice into the homes of the crofting community. In his book ‘The Last Mountain Reached’ David reinterprets the Psalms in terms of Scotland’s landscape. He said ‘the beauty of Scotland has held my heart’. Why does he climb? the challenges, finding the strategic solutions, the companionship. Hamish Tait gave the vote of thanks.