It was a fantastic coincidence. I was due to go on a weekend climbing trip to North Wales and on the Monday before my trip the new North Wales Bouldering guidebook was published. I’d been waiting a long time for this book. Continue reading Trying out the new North Wales Bouldering guidebook
Well, the clue is in the name. You can’t really start out on this climb unaware that some bit of rock is going to wobble when you hold on to it. However, some of the wobbly rocks are more obvious than others and the guidebook doesn’t mention the most important of them. Continue reading What They Don’t Tell You In the Guidebook – Wobblestone Crack
Pinnacle Ridge is a two-pitch, Severe graded rock climb at Polldubh crags in Glen Nevis in the Scottish Highlands. It’s a lovely and interesting climb and it feels justified that the guidebook (Scottish Rock, Volume 1, South by Gary Latter) gives it two out of four stars. The route pretty much follows the crest of the buttress and so I thought route finding would be easy. However, I was trying to judge the exact positions of rock features by refer to trees. Continue reading What they don’t tell you in the guidebook – Pinnacle Ridge, Polldubh crags
Rock climbing guide books are an invaluable resource and are essential to ensure that you don’t end up climbing the wrong route or no route at all (both of which can be scary and/or dangerous). Unfortunately, the features of the routes that guide books describe do sometimes change. The route descriptions in the books also need to be quite brief and this lack of detail can sometimes lead to you being surprised by some aspect of a route. For these reasons, I am starting a regular series of posts on “what they don’t tell you in the guide book.” Continue reading What they don’t tell you in the guidebook – Craig yr Aderyn
the Severe climber 