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Showing posts from September, 2007

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