Stone Country

Those of you locals maybe a little disappointed at the problem-count of your favourite venues in 'Bouldering in Scotland', do not fear! I have added some additional page downloads to the main site on the Scottish page. Venues include: Craigmaddie full topo, Shelterstone circuit, Scatwell, Ben A'an and The Whangie. Development continues apace, indeed, Tom Kirkpatrick has just updated the Cammachmore topo on Scottish Climbs , and Dave MacLeod has added a new V10 to the Pine boulders in Glen Nevis (The Bear Trap Prow , pics on his blog ) - he also did a very kind and exhaustive review for the new guide, thanks Dave! One of my problems as an independent publisher has been sourcing good photos for books and this is difficult on a limited budget as, quite fairly, photographers need paid just like the rest of us. This becomes a problem when you are doing a large edited collection and paying twenty photographers would quickly make a book too expensive, so we tend to rely on favou

Just to remind all that the 'Bouldering in Scotland' and 'Elements' bouldering movie will be launched this Thursday evening at Cotswolds Outdoors, Crow Road, Glasgow, at 7pm. There will be a short talk and slideshow of new bouldering areas, as well as a twenty minute preview of the movie. Free wine and discounted stock at Cotswolds (book and DVD will be heavily discounted). Easy access and parking at Cotswolds, just besides Sainsbury's in Partick (Crow Road), or catch a tube to Partick and it's a two minute walk round the corner. There will be free wine and no doubt lots of banter about all the new bouldering areas... all questions will be answered. New venues include: Lost Valley, Craigmaddie, Coilessan, Ardnamurchan, Ardgour, Brin Rock etc. Everyone welcome!

Tenerife? Jeezo , you might say. Think of a volcanic carbuncle with a union-jack cocktail umbrella sticking out of it and you're pretty close. Two gin and tonics I needed just to be persuaded onto the plane. I stuck flight-mode on the phone and jacked in to something chilled while the plane got Britishly lathered. Tenerife does not promise much unless you're an over-hormoned 17 year old from Essex, then I guess it looks like a soda-pop dream sequence from Grease - all cheeky eager lads, fast cars, sunglasses, drinking games and all-night partying. Whatever floats your boat. We got our bags and were first in the hire car queue. Tenerife is a volcanic island off the coast of Africa, in the Canaries. That's from the brochures... think hot, black sand, sulphur etc. The island above the lucky-bag bracelet that is the the tourist strip is first of all banana plantations, then dry pine forest, then all spewed lava and crumbly ashy soil. Even the rocky coast is frazzled like bu

They're nearly here! Both the new Bouldering in Scotland guide and the bouldering film 'Elements' will be available a little later in March. As a special prepub offer, the book and DVD are available for £30 plus p&p... that's a good offer folks, so if you want to buy both, you can do so securely through the Paypal buttons on the blog or on the film page on www.stonecountry.co.uk where you can also view a trailer of the movie. Pete Murray spent six months putting this film together, enduring some very elemental days with the camera, oblivious to crashing waves, snow, brass-monkey frosts, melting microphones, howling gales and endlessly failing boulderers (well, some of us!). What's the film about? Pete says: “elements” is a rock climbing film like no other, the four chapters – Water, Earth, Air and Fire – are linked with a narrative from the ecologist and land rights activist, Alistair McIntosh, whose thoughts on faerie magic and the human spirit fix a connec

Luke Fairweather has climbed a new variation to Tim Rankin's Kayla, working a different finish to give a new 8a called Twlight Princess . The problem links the two hardest problems in the Pit Boulder, Kayla (Font 7c+/8a) and the Pit left hand (Font 7b+). Its starts as for Kayla but after reaching the strenuous underclings it break lefts traversing into the pit left making the last desperate move to the lip (british 7a move). The problem is 'dam awesome' and has taken 6 visits and may be 8a+, the hardest in the North East so far? He also repeated Tim Rankin's 'Shameless' which he confirmed at a heady Font 7c+. Pic below.