UKC

Anyone aware of anyone doing a South West Bouldering guide?
Would be nice to see a comprehensive guide (Like the VP Peaks Guide) fro the area.

In reply to Croakinglizard:


It would have to be a selective guide to the area now, either than or a series of comprehensive guides.
There's just too much bouldering now for a single comprehensive. All the north coast stuff from Pentire area around to the Exmoor coast, Datrmoor, Bovey Woods, Bodmin Moor, isolated crags (Helman, Carn Brea etc), Godrevy, Clodgy and a ton of stuff in Penwith.

A fair few of those places could run to comprehensive guides on their own. There's certainly been people mention doing one for Cornwall in the past and it can't have escaped the local activists that it would be useful to have a guide for the north coast and for Bovey Woods etc.

I'm interested to see how the CC are going to deal with the bouldering on Dartmoor. More than anywhere else I can think of, bouldering and routes on the moor are absolutely intrinsic to one-another, so it will have to be included properly. That's going to be one hell of a tome though with all the routes and problems since the last guide, particularly if Bovey Woods is included.

In reply to Southern Man:
It'll be a massive tome if they give good descriptions to actually find the places:

Turn off the path, scramble up the vertical foliage to reach a track that isn't there, climb a tree and jump across the lethal mud-slide waiting to happen to reach what you thought was the crag. This is not the crag you are looking for. Force your way through dense undergrowth and make a rising leftwards traverse towards something else that may be your crag but probably won't be....
...Some time later arrive at the crag utterly exhausted.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=17319

That was with a local guide

In reply to Southern Man:

Routes and problems are included together in the upcoming dartmoor guide text where they sit side by side obviously. I don't know if you count that as "proper" or not.

In reply to Reach>Talent:


Hehe. Admit it,you loved it! Not everywhere is as challenging navigationally as Luxulyan though Mike. Besides Mssrs Carver and Hawken has done a beautiful, comprehensive job of tidying up this area in the new guide.

The best approach I've come across down here involved swimming across a zawn with a bouldering mat!

In reply to Southern Man:
Sounds like a good giggle and possibly a wonderful idea for a new product:

A floating boulder mat for aquaphobic DWS climbers?

Need to arrange a bit of climbing at some point!

In reply to AJM:

Touch a nerve did I and why is it obvious?

It wasn't the case in the Nick White guide, so bouldering already has form for being somewhat overlooked doesn't it? The proof of the pudding is in the eating and I'm hardly likely to shower the guide with praise before it's published now am I?

Yes that does sound good though, proper job!

In reply to Southern Man:

I'm not entirely sure what you've read into my post to prompt the reply you've just given? I'm not sure I see why I need or deserve the rhetorical questions, or the comments about touching nerves - I'm relaying the very limited information I do have about the guide, and have no other involvement with it whatsoever. Any sarcasm or offence you've read into my post came from your reading rather than my drafting.

I have no idea what you would count as a proper boulder guide. It might involve lots of detailed topos, which I have no idea about having only seen a part of the text. It could involve bmc peak guide style boulder circuits. It could include whatever really.... Hence my comment related to only what I do know, which is that the problems are included alongside the routes in the text. and as I said, I didn't know whether the limited information I provided would be sufficient for you to class it as a proper guide.

In reply to Southern Man:

Oh, and in terms of obvious, it meant that they're included side by side where they are side by side. I don't recall whether the section I read contained any significant boulder-only venues, hence the clarification.

In reply to AJM:

D'oh, really sorry my mistake. Sent you an email.

In reply to Croakinglizard:

Much of the info is free and on Javu already. Dave Henderson has done a great job keeping this up as a resource for SW'ers.

A full set of open source downloadable pdfs by the area activists are surely what the future holds.

In reply to Paul Twomey:

Agreed, Dave's efforts are greatly appreciated. A proper guide is something I'd love to be involved in but time and a job in London get in the way unfortunately.

I do have an almost finished pdf for North Cornwall bouldering which I plan to complete soon and put online. This is similar to the Hartland one but covers a wider area - basically the southern half of the Culm coast.

Another good place for info is info.rockrun.com - Tom N has written some articles about bouldering in the SW that are well worth checking out.

In reply to Dave-Westlake: Dave, I've emailed you.