Stone Country

Claire Youdale bouldering Arran It's been a vigorous period of good conditions and boulderers around Scotland have profited from the dry spell now rapidly coming to a soggy close! On Arran, Claire Youdale finished off the headwall of The Mushroom to give ' Invasive Species ', a true and proper Font 6b+ finish to the Rock Lobster problem which jumped off at the jugs. Now only the big pocket project remains!! In the northwest, Ian Taylor repeated ' The Mission ' and has been beavering at the problems on Ardmair Crag, completing the imaginative ' Ian's Problem ' Font 6c, see the pic. The steeper walls here stay dry in light rain and have some good traverses and natural straight-ups. A topo will follow soon. Ian's Problem, Ardmair In Glen Nevis, Dave MacLeod has continued to develop the Pine Alps boulders, completing the true Bear Trap Prow at Font 8a+, hardest in the glen, Dave? He also did the attractive crack-line to the right of Waterfall arete, a...

Apremont Everyone knows the gravity is heavier in the forest.... I took a research trip to Fontainebleau to 'climb lighter' and collect my thoughts for the next bouldering book, before we launch into a few Scottish trad books from Stone Country Press. The finest quality to bouldering in my opinion is its flexibility and this is well worth exploiting in an area as diverse and huge as Fontainebleau, you can search for varying styles of climbing, even changing them on the same boulder within seconds - should you find your crimping strength is weak but your core tension is good, drop the sharp marble-edged walls and climb into the depths of a slopey roof! Or vice versa... Font is a place of pure experimentation and allows you the luxury of trying your new formulae with no more than the fear that you're popping placebos, it's all in the mind anyway... just move on if nothing happens, that's the philosophy of the forest! Thousands and thousands of these little experiments...

We have a few copies of 'Elements' left and are selling these with the new Bouldering in Scotland Guide for £30, so if anyone wants to take advantage, please look at the Films page on the main site , otherwise the offer drops end of April. When you publish a guide, there is usually a rash of sudden activity and development, which is great and the point of getting excited about bouldering in the first place. Magnus Johnson has found some new bouldering near Kinlochleven, mentioning 'one roof which is simply huge! Think the inside of the Shelterstone but with no surrounding blocks...' which all sounds interesting! Hopefully we'll see some problems there soon. For the adventurous, it's at NN149609, most of the boulders are mossy, but there may be some potential. I had a skirt of the North East for the guide but found little of interest, but we obviously missed the bouldering at Forss, near Thurso, courtesy of Raymond Wallace... I'm only sorry I couldn't h...