UKC

Climbers' Club, old and stuffy? Think again.

They may have lost the battle with Ground Up over the Gogarth guidebook but their new president Smiler Cuthbertson has plenty of ideas.

Can he deliver? We shall see.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Pity about the dumping and reprinting of the Lower Wye Valley guide, though at least it shows a willingness to try and get it right.

Chris

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Smiler becoming president is wonderful news.

When I was just starting out in instructing I was lucky enough to work for an outfit in Llanberis which employed the likes of Smiler, John Yates and Willie Todd amongst others.

Smiler was always really enthusiastic and happy to take us newbies out for an evenings cragging in the Pass after work and he had an unerring ability to point you at a route that would push you just that bit harder, but end up having a great success on - some of my happiest climbing days.

If he brings that openess and enthusiasm and love for our sport to the CC, then maybe good things will happen

David

In reply to Chris Craggs:

what happened?

In reply to SI A:

The first batch of guides came back from printing in Poland with faded photos - as if most of them had been taken on a misty day. It still looked like a great guide though - looking forward to seeing the reprinted version.

In reply to SI A:


http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=261265


Near the bottom.


Chris

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:


Ahhh...the climbers club revolution.....can I be Trotsky ?

In reply to Jonno:

I wouldn't, you'll get an Icepick. It'll make your ears burn.

I'd take the backroom role of Stalin. Gradually build up all the power and then kill those most loyal to you just to be sure.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Interesting. Good luck to them.

Gogarth, well, they had their chance really. Maybe it makes sense for them to sacrifice the "low lying accessible" bits of Wales i.e. Gogarth, Slate, Ormes, and retain a good focus on the mountain areas??

New designs, great, I don't mind the current ones but recent experiences of traditional guidebook teams updating their designs has varied from good (FRCC) to great (BMC).

One thing: Please stop pissing around missing out star ratings (Tremadog, Cheddar), it's not big and it's not clever and it's not getting any sales from me at least. Guidebooks exist to provide information including a summary of consensus quality i.e. stars. Other than that, do continue.

In reply to Fiend:

Stars are present and correct in the sampler for the Lower Wye guide. Hopefully the point has been well and truly made.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

F*ck me, sommat like this is a long time coming. Good to see.

In reply to Fiend:


This was always a stop gap measure. I suggested (on here anyway) at the time they should release the cheddar guide later, once all the new access stuff was established. Otherwise, to do so, back then, it seemed a bit farcical (to deliberately release a guide that the authors knew would promptly become out of date, as I then saw it). I was then Wreally surprised to see Mourning Glory was demoted from the starred longest route up cheddar gorge to something insignificant cursed with the vegetation symbol. It's not going to get any better now nooone wants to do it with that symbol is it?

So really while they could have got in touch with someone like me (or even a relative expert like Mike Kann who in the same period since did the route way more times (twice at least anyway) than my one ascent on a bad day). Given (as I think) that the authors got soft because they (and noone else, weren't doing these VSs anymore, as latterly, post 30kN bolts I myself wasn't) what the f*ck did we expect them to do, preserve the existing star ratings as honest?

I'm glad to observe that some people still regard it as the obvious challenge to climb from the bottom to top of cheddar (sans spit bien sur) and will do so anyhow, but what the ufkc are these people complaining about lack of starred VSs complaining about. The current descrpitions are excellent, and IMHO occasionally piss funny.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Good luck to the Climbers Club and good luck to Smiler.