BEN Cruachan is a classic mountain massif. Seven peaks, all higher than 3000 feet, divided by deep corries and linked by complex terrain and rocky ridges. In summer it's a five to eight- hour hillwalk, depending on weather and navigation; in winter, a full day's mountaineering.

The only thing which might dampen your enjoyment of Ben Cruachan and its stunning coastal views across the Firth of Lorn to Mull, is the massive concrete dam and reservoir in Coire Cruachan, built in the mid-60s to power the hydro-electric scheme on Loch Awe.

In the 50s and 60s cheap power was the touchstone, not long-term effects on fauna, flora and landscape. Power is still high on the agenda, but those concerned with the continued degradation of rural Scotland are determined to be heard - hence the furore over the Ayrshire/Northern Ireland pylon link and the current public inquiry into the Sheildaig hydro scheme in Torridon.

But how should local people, mountaineers, artists and environmentalists react to recent proposals for Ben Cruachan by Paisley art student Sandy Stoddart? He wants to carve a 1000 foot portrait of Oscar, son of the legendary Ossian, into the mountainside. A Highland equivalent to Mount Rushmore in the USA with its portraits of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. Some commentators have suggested the project will cost well in excess of #10m and take 20 people 40 years.

Local councillor Campbell Cameron favours the project. Speaking recently on TV, Cameron stated: ''I think it's a tremendously imaginative project ... and that imagination has been caught by both the people and councillors in the area.'' He didn't say whether the local council would be prepared to pick up any of the bill.

Outdoor sculpture isn't new in Scotland. Glenkiln, near Dumfries, features a number of figurative sculptures by Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein, and Auguste Rodin, placed in open settings by local landowner the late Tony Keswick. Britain's greatest landscape sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy, lives in Dumfriesshire and creates a considerable amount of work around his home. And yet, the Glenkiln sculptures are just a small part of the landscape, harmonising with it rather than dominating it, while Goldsworthy's work is transient, designed to erode and weather back into the landscape from which it emerges.

The Ben Cruachan carving is designed for maximum impact - on a good day Mt Rushmore can be seen for 62 miles - making Oscar and the mountain inseparable. In the same interview, Mountaineering Council of Scotland access and conservation officer Mike Dales called the project ''a challenge to wild land'', and ''another example of many trying to control nature'', before dismissing it as ''a monument to the artist's ego''.

Stoddart was having none of it, claiming that there was ''a tendency in great monuments that they obliterate finally the name of their maker for ever.'' Furthermore, he argued, the monuments and carvings of the ancient world were ample proof that they were ''natural for mankind to do'', while conveniently forgetting that the majority were built by slaves for megalomaniacs.

What Stoddart failed to point out is the irony and disgust felt by the Sioux Indians, evicted from their sacred Black Hills during the gold rush fever of the mid-1870s. For them, four representatives of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant America represent little in the way of ''high taste and sensibility'', but are a constant reminder of their subjugation. In an attempt to redress the balance the portrait of one of their most famous warriors, Crazy Horse, is presently being carved in a similar manner. The residents of nearby Rapid City care little, so long as the tourists come.

The Mount Rushmore project took Borglum and his men 14 years in total, six and a half years of chipping and blasting with pneumatic drills and dynamite, the rest waiting for the appropriate weather and cash. Even then, the USA Federal Government appears to have funded most of the project. Borglum died before completion in 1941.

At present there are no indications that Oscar of Ben Cruachan is little more than a twinkle in the artist's eye and most mountain lovers hope it will remain that way. Perhaps the last word should go to World Wildlife Fund Scotland director Simon Pepper who commented: ''Scotland has got a number of white elephants lying around, some of which had artistic intentions some time ago, and others [which] had more kind of economic development intentions, and all of them are rather embarrassing white elephants littering the landscape, disastrous failures.''