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Showing posts from 2007

Bouldering in Scotland 2007

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With the new edition of Stone Country almost ready to go to press, it's been a year where it's fair to say I have maybe not been reflective about the bigger picture, having been swamped in detail and numerous new venues, repeats and quality new lines. It's the time of year to sit back, pour a glass of port and mutter on about all the good things we did... That said, what strikes me as possibly a watershed in scottish climbing activity is the army of young boulderers coming out of the walls and finding their own way, that is, exploring their own abilities in a wild landscape. Trad may not exactly be dead, but everyone wants to do something new, and if you're young and keen (or just old and know no better), bouldering is a Yukon of gold rock and new possibilities. The amount of new venues that get mentioned to me (usually casual hints as I'm about to print a book!) is encouraging and it's good that Scotland is providing new impetus in mountaineering circles to co

Fontainebleau Redux

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November may be autumn in the forest but it's a time of revival. Waking in the tent at 4am, I wriggle about in my cocoon a bit, wrapped in a chrysalis of decaying dreams. A rain of leaves whispers on the skin of the tent... the morning chill snapping them off the birches. I am beginning to go numb, so I crawl out, open the car and wipe my breath off the dashboard thermometer: -10 degrees. Minus ten in the forest, a star-studded sky that's already going from black to purple with the promise of perfect egg blue at noon... everything is frozen: the olive oil a thick lime-green cake in a bottle, the water taps spilling out their clear mutant forms. I feel invigorated with hidden movement... the bouldering will be perfect. The stove roars up a protest against the silence and the coffee acts like oil for the diesel engine, we begin to throw our arms in circles to loosen shoulder tendons, crack fingers outwards, begin a slow rhythm of waking to the forest, an old friend... a place of

Stone Country Reviews

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We are gearing up a little for Christmas and providing a few offers if anyone is looking for gifts for that keen boulderer! All items can be bought securely through the STONE COUNTRY SHOP : Stone Play - The Art of Bouldering £19.95 'The prints excellently portray the many aspects of bouldering, from aggression, technicality and confusion, to calm, subtlety and mastery. The essays complement the prints, taking the reader into the minds of some of bouldering's main protagonists – old and new. Overall this is a thought-provoking book for any climber, prompting personal reflection on one's own style, attitude and habits.' Dave Redpath Free additional T-Shirt with each T-Shirt order (£9.99) ie. two for a tenner!! Stone Country Edition 1 - NOW ONLY £9.99 !! Free draw - win the new Bouldering Guide!! The new full colour edition of Stone Country will be available by February 2008, and I'll be entering everyone who gets in touch in a draw to win a free copy, deadline is D

Stone Country News November

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Image from 'Stone Play' - can you guess where it is? It's been a hectic period putting books together, but finally Stone Play has been released and is receiving some good reviews. Two years in production, it maybe took a while, but hopefully folk will enjoy a bouldering circuit of historical photos and literary musings! Now I'm full time, I'm seeking publication ideas and commissions, so if you've something you want to publish, drop me an email at stonecountrypress@btinternet.com Stone Play is available in shops now, or order online for Christmas from Cordee On the Scottish bouldering front, I heard that Dave MacLeod, newly resident at Fortwilliam, is cleaning up the bouldering mythologies of Glen Nevis. He climbed the first confirmed ascent of the problem formerly known as The Morrighan which is the awesomely steep crimpy line under Pinnacle Ridge crag - we await a reappraisal. A few other projects fell in the glen and will be reported soon, John Watson havi

New Bouldering Book – ‘Stone Play’

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The bouldering season is here and Stone Play has just been published! The book is 160 pages, only19.95 and available in all decent bookshops, or online through Cordee distributors: http://www.cordee.co.uk/CTC173.php This is the first collection of bouldering writing and photography ever to have been published. It’s a global tour through the history of bouldering, including writing from as early as Oscar Eckenstein and Harold Raeburn, through to the modern era, including Klem Loskot, Jacky Godoffe, Bernd Zangerl and Dave MacLeod. We have Niall Grimes, John Palmer and Nick Dixon on the Peak; we have Geoff Dyer on Hampi; Tim Carruthers on Patagonia ; Jacky Godoffe on Fontainebleau …. from the ‘golden age’ of American bouldering we have Pat Ament and John Gill… the list goes on.

Stone Country 2 New Venues

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I'm currently finishing off the new edition of the Stone Country companion, a full-colour guidebook to Scottish bouldering. I've got about 80 venues, many of them recent and new (including a gritstone venue, ha ha ha Sheffield), so this is a call to any boulderers who would like their new or classic venues listed and mapped out... just let me know what I should include. Some highlights include Craigmaddie, Glen Nevis updates, the Arran Mushroom, Dumby updates, Clashfarquhar, Muchalls Shore, Clova, Shelterstone, Aviemore venues, loads of far northwest stones, Carn Liath, Applecross, Scatwell, Glen Coe, Tom Riach, Brin Rock of course...the list is extensive, but it's all about what information I can dig up.

Fewer Chicken Heads but Deeper Dishes

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Staggered The weather basked on the fringes of a high pressure and rain was attending one side of the country like a distracted bully, so we headed east and to the delights of the County. Bowden was visited after an aborted look at Raven's, proving too rough on the skin for a weekend of mostly skin management. We headed up to Bowden, gleaming in the sun like a petrified golden wave. Pairs of worshippers touched rock all along the length of the crag. Busy. Choose a spot...you can see the white dot-to-dot rubrics of the classics from half a mile away. We chose the winter-snowflake storm that is the Roof. Soon it was crawling. Still climbing gingerly, I snuck off to the west end to do some classics and noticed the crag was suffering just as much bouldering injury as me. Poverty Anyway, the weather was perfect and some classics were done, Colin cranking hard through the Bowden right roof, getting close on Poverty (the foothold is now so worn, it really is harder, nothing sticks now!),

Scotland's Top 100 Problems over Font 7a

Here's a list of what I thought might represent the best of the hardest problems in Scotland... please have a look through and get back to me on any opinions/inaccuracies or additions... it's just a matter of opinion, but I'd like to get some feedback for inclusion in the new edition of Stone Country. Scotland Top 100 Boulder Problems Font 7a and above… Font 8b V13 Sanction Dumbarton Rock Dave Macleod 2007 Plain hard. Pressure Dumbarton Rock Dave MacLeod 2005 Aggression needed. Super Size Me Dumbarton Rock Malcolm Smith 2005 Very long. Perfect Crime Dumbarton Rock Dave MacLeod 2005 Contorted. Zillion Dollar Sadist Clifton Paul Savage 2002 Blank and slopey lip. Font 8a+ V12 Sosho

New Brin V9 Susurrus

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Ben Litster on an early attempt at Sussurrus Michael Lee, haunted by a whispering need to get on the big roof at Brin, took advantage of Ben Litster's absence (unlucky Ben, don't be too hard on him!) to campus out the last crucial moves of Susurrus V9. The line is obvious when you walk into the woodland wonderland of Brin bouldering... a cavernous roof with a footless hanging prow, like a Scottish version of Eclipse . Mike thought the problem to be about Font 7c with a new cunning sequence at the start. Great to have two higher-end problems at Brin (the other is Ben's Put My New Shoes On ), prompting questions.... is there an 8th grade somewhere in the forest? Mike's Blog

New Arrochar Classic from Niall McNair

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Niall McNair has climbed a classic and stunning arete in Arrochar: Ajare E6/7 6b . The crag can be spied by lustful trad climbers from Arrochar, but until now no-one had breached the impregnable lines on this crag. The route was climbed in a flash ascent with a cursory abseil to check quality of rock on the dangerous crux, which is a technical 6b sequence over poor RP's leading to thank-god gear in a high niche. Niall repeated the climb smoothly for the cameras and thought it bold E6 climbing on second ascent, but this might still mean a possible ground-up E7 serious onsight, let the repeaters decide... It is good to see routes of this quality still appearing in Arrochar... this is almost as stunning a line as Dalriada in my opinion. More lines will be forthcoming and the crag will soon be revealed in all its hardcore glory...

Ardnamurchan 'Ring Cycle'

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A flying visit to the Ardnamurchan ring crags and another batch of problems to add to the great 'Ring Cycle'. Walking the volcano is long enough, but add on a few highball problems and easy solos makes for a very interesting and exhausting day's climbing. Start at the central camp-site by the wee river (before Achnaha), go up the back of Creag an Airgid and circumnavigate the boulders and crags anti-clockwise to finish over the craggy back of Sanna and the long ridge home to the campsite. Climb anything that looks good... the slabby crags are highball VS at most and steep short roofs add a little bouldery intrigue. The best bouldering is around the crags and boulders between Creag an Fhir Eoin and Achnaha Buttress, but doing the whole thing will provide up to 1000m of actual climbing on rock, depends how much you want to do!

Summer Bouldering Updates

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The weekend was a washout, especially for the Great Climb on the BBC, shame they had no flexibility built in as High Pressure is just round the corner... as a climber in Scotland you always need a wet weather alternative... so on a wet afternoon in Inverurie, I raced up to the Cullen Caves and bouldered away merrily on the dry steep quartzite caves, doing a few lines on St Duane's Den, with a particularly good traverse and a desperate straight-up ( Duane's World , Font 7a+). Topos will appear in the forthcoming Stone Country new edition, but suffice to say some hard projects remain... the caves stay dry in torrential rain, but take plenty of chalk as the quartzite can be damp. Guy Robertson completed his 8a+ (French grade) traverse at Boltsheugh. This is a low-level traverse of the right-hand sports crag and is a real pumper, though you'll need a local to point out the rules...some holds are plain no-no. Good effort, this is no mean feat to link... a bit like Consolidated..

Northwest Blues

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The far northwest... land of blue skies and hope... it's a committing trip in an insecure summer like this, but we piled the car up with boulder mats and headed through horizontal rain for 6 hours, ending up in Kinlochbervie sheltering in the bar playing pool until chased out into the rain and the tents. The morning broke clear and as promised: wall to wall sunshine. The Gneiss up here dries quicker than B&Q emulsion and we drove on to Oldshoremore to check out a few venues and find some new bouldering rock. The beach bouldering showed some promise between the two bays of Oldshoremore and Oldshore Beg, the rock a delightful pink and tan gneiss sea-washed so clean you could eat off it. The warm dry rock and biting crystals felt good biting through the miasma of a few beers from the night before. We moved on to the Akita boulder which Dave MacLeod had reported a while back. Despite being a superb piece of rock, the landings are poor and need more mats than we had... a committing

Loch Arklet Boulders

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The Flood - Font 6a+ If anyone is in the area, the Loch Arklet boulders, normally submerged, are completely free of the loch and there's a fine collection of problems between Font 3 and Font 6c... some good wave-washed schist. They can only be seen from the Stronachlachlar to Inversnaid road, but park in a gated layby 200 m before the T-junction to Stronachlachlar and head down the track to the obvious stand of trees by the inlet station and you will come across them... where did all that water go, I wonder? A thirsty Glasgow, or did it all evaporate and rain on Gloucester? It's a good spot for a picnic or some lazing by the shore.

Scatwell Bouldering

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Richie Betts on 'Road to Domestos' Legoman Mike Lee on his new Font 7b... A new Inverness venue thanks to the efforts of Richie Betts and Mike Lee has resulted in some rare summer bouldering news! Richie had scrubbed up a fine boulder in the woods round Scatwell (Strathconon area) and passed on a line or two to young Mike, who despite the Lego-man hairstyle (Mike, see a hairdresser, son) has cranked out a hard-sounding Font 7b called 'The Catch', which seems to be the testpiece of the area... can't wait to get on it, sounds like a roof-monstrosity. Richie himself wins the prize for the best named problem of the year ... 'The Road to Domestos' (roll your eyeballs) which looks like a great font 7a... he says it's a super funky slappy affair... anything funky is bouldering-speak for damned fine...let alone super-funky .

Tibet in the Lakes...

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Lakes boulderer and translator Tim Carruthers has announced the release of his translation of the full autobiography of Heinrich Harrer: Beyond Seven Years in Tibet . Here are the details: This is the first publication in the English language of the full autobiography of one of the world’s best known adventurers: Heinrich Harrer, who died early in 2006. Best known in book circles for his bestsellers Seven Years in Tibet (1953) and The White Spider (1958), this book brings to life those and his many other adventures. Heinrich Harrer, traveller, explorer and mountaineer led one of the most extraordinary lives of the twentieth century. He famously spent seven years in Tibet (made into the film in 1997 starring Brad Pitt as Harrer himself) and was tutor, mentor and a lifelong friend of the Dalai Lama. He made the first ascent of the notorious North Face of the Eiger in 1938 (told in his book The White Spider). The Eigerwand had been a scene of carnage in the years preceding Harrer’s

Consolidating

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In between days of drizzly rain or tropical downpours, it's hard to commit to Scottish climbing: the mountains are wet, the bracken is too high and tick-ridden to walk anywhere off-piste and the weather is too muggy for bouldering or sport. So oddly Dumbarton Rock has been an interim saviour until things dry out properly. The hefty breezes and morning showers cool the basalt enough to make it fairly gritty and the slopers don't feel too bad. I started work again on the harder 7c extension to Consolidated, the one which drops down to the triangular block and fights it sway to the cave, which I'd never really 'consolidated' enough to complete. Three sessions have re-wired old engrams in my brain, one session with Mark Garthwaite proving I should stick to the short-man's complex sequence of endless 'adjustment' moves (Garth stretches and spans through ridiculous long crucifixes, making it shorter but maybe more sapping in the end...), so I found myself twi

Chasing the Birdman of Easter Island

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The logo for Stone Country finds its source on a remote volcanic island...here's the story: Easter Island Chasing the Birdman of Easter Island I was chasing the Birdman of Easter Island at 30,000 feet... nothing but endless cumulus shrinking in perspective, the comforting thrum of the Airbus maintaining its faith in degrees of magnetism and riding out the turbulence with ease. Then it comes into view through the porthole windows, easily encompassed by this small frame, as absurd and tiny as a beer bottle top afloat a reservoir. Five hours in a jet-plane from anywhere... this is true isolation. Easter Island is the story of what happened after Hotu Matu'a first arrived in his astonished canoe on the sands of Anakena beach sometime in the first millennium CE. The story of its people - the Rapanui - is a tale of paradise, loss, rebirth, tragedy and persistence. From the basalt 'Moai' heads that populate the island with noble countenance to the sports-autocracy of the Birdm