About UKClimbing.com

We want this site to be "The best place to climb on the web". So we are working constantly to bring you both the best of climbing and the best experience that Web technology can provide. We promise that:

We won't dilute our content with a shallow mish-mash about mountain biking, skiing or rambling.
We won't waste your time with flashy technology that takes ages to download and then crashes your computer.
We will give you the most up-to-date and most comprehensive information that we can, about everything to do with climbing in the UK, and beyond.
We will use Web technology to present information in the most useful way.

We'd like to ask one thing from you in return:

Your participation. Give us your opinions, take part in the discussions, because the more you take part, the more valuable this site will be to you and to everyone else.

If you want to participate right now, then Contact Us, or go start looking around.

The UKC Team

UKC was created in 1995 and existed as a sub domain of various other sites but became a fully fledged limited company under the UKClimbing.com domain in 2001. The current site is maintained by a number of people.

Andy Hyslop - Co-Owner
Probably best known for his high-speed traverses of the Skye Ridge - he got the record down to 3 hours 31 min 50s in 1994. However, his experience ranges far and wide, including "lots" of new routing in the Lakes, tons of Alpine experience (including the Walker Spur, Freney, West face Direct Dru, Bonatti pillar, Bonatit/Gobi and many others), a new route on Mt Kenya, the Jorasses, the first solo of the Japanese route on Eckphiler, the third free winter ascent of the Nose Direct on Sgur na Fhidller, new routes in Sella, and doing the 'Nose in a Day'. "I have been through the mill somewhat", he says. His passion for Orienteering has been rekindled over the last couple of years and he won a Bronze Medal in the 2007 British Champs. He splits his time between UKC and the Rock + Run web site, and lives in the Lakes.
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Alan James - Co-Owner
Alan climbed his first route in June 1971 when just 7 years old. Subsequent trips in the Peak and North Wales with his father through the 1970s planted the seed but it was only in the early 1980s that this grew into a full obsession. Since then he has climbed all over Europe and the UK and even toyed with Alpine climbing in the late 80s. An impressive debut solo of the Frendo Spur proved to be a false dawn and in 1989 he hung up his crampons after a perilous ascent of the NNE Spur of the Cortes. He then concentrated on high standard trad and sport climbing. A handful of un-noteworthy new routes on Peak Limestone followed before he turned his hand to producing cartoons for OTE. This led him to a meeting with Mick Ryan and his first venture into guidebook work by authoring the Peak Limestone Rockfax of 1992. After Mick Ryan's departure to the States in 1994 Alan took over the fledgling Rockfax company and turned it into the most innovative guidebook company in the UK. The Rockfax web site was set up in 1998 which included a small discussion forum called Rocktalk. Combining this forum with Andy's Hyslop's UKClimbing site led to the UKClimbing.com as it is today.
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Mick Ryan - Chief Editor
Mick started climbing in 1978 when in sixth form at St. Mary's College Blackburn (Lancashire, England). He enjoys all types of climbing and climbers and has climbed all over the UK, Europe and the USA. Highlights include doing the Old Man of Hoy and Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Mick was a co-founder of Rockfax guidebooks in the early 1990s before moving to Bishop, California enjoying the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and the boulders in the Owens Valley. After 12 years in the States he moved back to the UK in 2006 to become the full-time editor at UKClimbing.com.
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Nick Smith - Chief Scientist
Originally from Cambridge, Nick moved up to Sheffield in 1999 to pursue his climbing ambitions. When not running the web-design company, Climbers.net, he can be found training at the local Sheffield walls or out on the grit (if the weather is nice!). Nick looks after the technical side of the site, writing the PHP scripts that interface to our MySQL database engine.
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Charles Arthur - Database editor
When he is not writing articles for the Guardian Technology supplement, Charles looks after the UKClimbing database entries. He has been with UKClimbing since the early days
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Tom Briggs and Jonathan Lagoe both help with the forum moderation. In addition there are others who moderate the photos database and who write articles. We are always keen for new input so please Contact Us if you wish to get involved.