Rock Pinnacles, The Whangie

The Whangie is a huge slab of rock that has become detached from the rest of Auchineden Hill, in the Kilpatrick Hills north of Glasgow, leaving a passage around 100 metres long and 1 metre wide through the mountain.

Local folklore says that The Whangie is the work of the Devil. After hosting a gathering of witches and warlocks in the Kilpatrick Hills, Satan was flying to another such meeting at Strathblane, and flicked his tail, renching apart the hillside below him.

In truth, the Whangie was caused by a geological phenomenon called glacial plucking. During the last ice age, Scotland was covered in huge glaciers that carved out the lochs and the highlands. The extreme cold froze the glacier to the side of the hill. As the glacier began to move, it plucked the hillside, causing the long fracture to appear. These pinnacles were rendered from the rock by the movement of the glacier, and sit on the opposite side of the slab of rock from the hill itself.

Whangie is Scots for a slice, eg "a whang o'cheese".

This picture was taken on 9 September 2017.