UKC

Hi all.

I've written a free guidebook covering the esoteric bouldering and new routes (climbed since 2012) in Luxulyan Valley Woods, close to St Austell in mid-Cornwall.

The guide can be used in conjunction with the Cheesewring guide as I've not included routes climbed prior to that guide's publication. It can also be used independently, as there plenty to go at and all approaches/descriptions are described in full.

The climbing is similar in nature to that found in Bovey Woods and Lustleigh Cleave over the Tamar in Devon, although if anything the granite is courser! Whilst those venues are slap bang in the middle of a ton of other decent bouldering areas, there is a bit of a dearth of climbing in this part of Cornwall, so whilst none of the venues in Luxulyan can be said to be major venues in their own right, collectively they form a pretty decent proportion of the climbing in the local area; comparable and probably exceeding in quantity and arguable quality the likes of Helman Tor and Carn Brea.

The woods are a great place this time of year, when the leaves are off the trees and it's worth a visit even just for a wander. There's over 120 new boulder problems and about 16 new routes. From V0-V5 and vdiff to E5. As you'd expect, there's all sorts of climbing in Luxulyan Valley, from cracks (particularly offwidths) to walls, burly stuff, even an A4 aid route! What it excels at though are highball slabs. So if crystal pulling is your thing, then you know where to go.

The guide is a pretty large file size as at nearly 60 colour pages it comes in at about 13mb, but it had to be presented this way if I was to overcome the major difficulty in climbing there; namely finding the climbs. You might wonder why such a relatively small number of problems/routes should constitute a guidebook in itself? Well the reason being that (although the place has surprised me before) most of the larger crags/boulders within the woods are now found and many of the strongest lines climbed. This only really accounts for problems up to about V5 though; there is plenty of harder stuff on very strong, independent lines left to do.

So if you're local, or if you're travelling through on your way down West and are thinking of stopping at Roche again for the umpteenth time, then go and take a look!

Loads of people have climbed a ton of new stuff and helped out with the guide over the last couple of years, so thanks to them all, you know who you are. I'm sure they'll mostly testify that it's not too bad a place to climb I hope.

I've very grateful to Tom Bunn at Rustypeg.co.uk and Barney Carver at Cheesewring Climbing News for offering to host the guide on their excellent websites.

The guide can be downloaded and viewed live.

Here at Rustypeg: http://www.rustypeg.co.uk/major-new-bouldering-guide-for-cornwall/

And here at Cheesewring Climbing News: http://cheesewringclimbingnews.blogspot.co.uk/

All venues are found on the UKC logbooks here: http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/map/large.html?id=9782

Cheers all.

Tom

In reply to Tom Last:
Bump for evening types

Can be viewed without download here: http://www.stivesnews.co.uk/CheesewringClimbing/pdfs/LuxulyanBoulderingandN...

In reply to Tom Last:

It's a beautiful thing. Nice one Tom.

In reply to Tom Last:
Yeah nice one, looks ace.

I am still bemused as to why its the norm that routes get FA details but boulder problems don't especially significantly high or hard or strong lines.

Like for instance the V4 'Who knows Where The Time Goes.'

In reply to Tom Last:

Excellent work, Tom (and, having completed a similar labour of love many moons ago, I understand your combined pride and trepidation). We'll doubtless mount a fat dads' expedition to grumble about undergrading on the V2s.

Martin

In reply to maisie:

Thanks gents.

Pylon King. I think in this instance it was just a matter of space. I had to keep the font size large enough to be be able to read on a phone and I'm not good enough at typesetting to juggling it around in such a way as I could fit it all in and it still look acceptable. I reckoned on it being important to include the names for the routes, and whilst I agree that highballs and quality boulder problems are of greater significance than substandard routes, quality is obviously subjective so I thought it made sense to draw the line at routes/problems instead. I did FA of WKWtTGs, it's ace

Martin. You're right, I was reticent. You don't want these things to look like vanity projects, it's not as if they're all my FAs. On the other hand there's no point in doing it in the first place if you're not then willing to put it out there. I think it's a worthwhile place that deserves traffic. Labour of love yes, but fully prepared for it to sink back into obscurity

In reply to Tom Last:

Hi Tom,

I can't comment on the climbing, though your guide sorely tempts me to give it a go, but I do think it is very well written and presented. It looks terrific.

If you would like to stop me getting as lost as I normally do when running on the moor, or elsewhere, then why not?

Mike

In reply to mbh:

Thanks for the kind words mbh

In reply to Tom Last:
Good effort Tom. I remember ploughing through the Luxulyan rain forests in the 80s when working on the ND/C Guide. At one stage I thought I might never get out or be captured and eaten by some hitherto unknown indigenous tribe!

In reply to Iain Peters:

Thanks Iain. It's Cornwall's very own heart of darkness. The horror, the horror!

In reply to Tom Last:

I downloaded it the day Tom (Rusty Peg) got it up, now just to get a dry day off work! It's quite an impressive guide, I think I've seen worse that I've paid money for!

In reply to fire_munki:

Nice one fire_munki. Give most venues a couple of days after recent rain I think

In reply to Tom Last:

Miles away from me, but just wanted to say that it's excellently put together.

In reply to JamieSparkes:

Thanks Jamie - very kind.