Easily the most recognizable events of Scottish Highland games, tossing the caber is both spectacular and downright unbelievable. King of the heavy events at Scottish gatherings, this event looks for all the world like Paul Bunyan uprooting a telephone pole and tossing it.

Caber tossing goes way back, and actually origins are obscure, but a believable suggestion is that caber tossing developed among men who dealt with trees and had Timbers line around the camp and decided to have a competition to see who could throw a tree trunk the farthest. Since the Forrester's had to throw that tree trunks into the river in their line of work, a sporting competition growing out of this task is not too much of a stretch. It would be hard to invent sport more physically demanding, or to imagine a more difficult way to move a felled timber, so it makes sense that the Forrester's developed the sport as a pastime, rather than as a part of their work. It is now a firmly entrenched tradition in every Highland gathering event.

The Scottish Heavyweight Championship held every year in Crieff uses a caber which weighs in at over 150 pounds, and measures 17'4" in length. In contrast, the Braemar caber weighs a mere 132 towns, but its length exceeds the Crieff caber by two feet, measuring 19'9". The Guinness book of records records the largest caber at 280 pounds, and measuring 25 feet long. It is truly hard to imagine a human being who lifting such a monster, let alone tossing it.

The organizers of Highland games strive to keep the weight of their caber consistent, and they have to resort to soaking the caber in a nearby loch if it dries out and loses weight. Alternatively, they sometimes boreholes in the caber and feel these holes with molten lead.

Although many people believe that the caber is thrown for maximum distance, this is not the case. It is style that the athletes are striving to obtain. Resting the caber against his shoulder, and clasping it in his arms, the athlete performs the extremely difficult task of lifting the caber from the ground, and at the same time balancing it perfectly. Achieving that, he gives the caber a quick flick upward, moving his hands under the narrow end. At this point he is finally ready to throw it.

And how does one judge such a competition? An imaginary clock face on the ground before the thrower, the athlete facing 12 o'clock aids the judge. This imaginary clock face goes with the athlete as he runs with the caber. When he reaches his desired speed he stops abruptly and this becomes the six o'clock position on the imaginary clock. He heats the caber up landing the heavy end on the middle of the clock and the entire caber slips over with the narrow end ending up pointing precisely toward trouble clock.

A link to the difficulty of this feat, it frequently happens that none of the competitors can achieve this precise 12 o'clock position, so the prizes are given for the throw that most closely approximates this ideal. In some competitions no one is able to throw the caber, and the competitors would use an old time two-handed saw to cut 1 inch from the caber. They have these would then try again until one of them could throw it.