UKC

I've been thinking recently, guide book descriptions can be pretty vague and it's so easy to get on the wrong route. 

Why not mark the routes? I've seen it in Europe where they paint marks on the start of the route so why not here? 

Do you go out for an adventure or just to follow step by step directions to the top?

guidebook descriptions have never been better with detailed photographic topos now the norm.

0/10
 

Maybe try looking at the pictures?

Chris

Not all guide books have photos of every crag. Some crags start behind trees. 

Hand and foothold are not always obvious, could you extend the system and paint the holds?

To be fair to SC, we went to Wyndcliff today. Guide book description was awful, i mean really abysmal and we ended up on the route one to the right of the one we were meant to be on. It said something like "Climb the right hand crack to a tree, then climb a leftward leaning ramp to a junction with Papillion, then step left blah blah", the picture showed a line across some trees at the fringe of the photo and actually gave no extra information other than that it was near some trees, which mean't that we got to the bottom of a wall with 5 parallel cracks and four trees, all at a ledge next to a leftward leaning ramp. So I took the right most crack which turned out to be total dross. As it was severe I had worn trainers and taken my pack so we didn't have to come back for it, and ended up crimping a tree root thinking that maybe I should have taken things a bit more seriously. I then restudied the guide once I reached the ledge and concluded that I was instead on the "tough for the grade HS". SC then came up and felt this was not the route for the day and we retreated tail between legs. It was quite the most abysmal route description I've come across in years...

That's not really a reason to start painting names of routes at the bottom of crags though, I'm sure you'd agree.

Who said paint route names? Wouldn't a small, subtle number do the job? 

My route finding is pretty poor.  Couldn't you make it a dotted line all the way up?

Learning to follow guide books more carefully and learning to read the rock yourself would, in the long run, do the job better.

If you can't identify the bottom of the route how are you going to find the rest of it without small subtle numbners painted at regular intervals?

If some Europeans have so much rock they don't mind trashing some of it for short term gain that's up to them but rock is precious in this country, we need to look after it for all outdoor users and future generations of climbers. Sport climbing aside (where you can follow the bolts anyway), climbing is an adventure sport. Learn to read the rock, its part of the adventure.

There's no real reason we don't do this for sport routes, whereas it's common in Europe.

However, it is totally inappropriate for trad, which - clue's in the name - has traditions: namely the tradition of getting up the route as it is, without numptification of the crag.

Should we keep all tradition without ever changing? Fox hunting is traditional but we tried to stop that, now it's just a few inbred toffs doing it insisting it's tradition. 

Corresponding with which guidebook ? Rockfax ? CC ?

Not if it's a crap tradition. But the consensus about trad climbing is that it's good.

Love the term 'numptification'. Just right.

I would say it's  good reason to write better route descriptions mainly. I mean I'm used to 400m routes being described in a paragraph, this was just plain useless. They might as well have just written "turn up at the crag and climb a route". It would have been as much help. I ain't going along with route names painted on for the good reason that you lot seem somewhat triggered today and it will end up being a 150 post long thread which ends up on the topic of Hitler and/or Brexit.

There's a lot of crap route descriptions in guide books. Reminds me of my old mountain biking mate who, when in a forest would tell us to turn left at the tree and then go past the bush and turn right. 

Yes, I've found the guide pretty dire for that part of Wyndcliff and spent plenty of time deliberating with friends where the route starts, progresses, and finishes. It doesn't help that many of the trees  that the guide uses to locate lots of the routes at Wyndcliff no longer exist...

But as you say, it's better route descriptions that are needed.

I bought a photo guide for exactly this reason.

Imagine my anger when the dotted line is not actually on the rock, but only on the photo!

I'm demanding my money back.

Angry of Bucks.

TBF pix are not always much help. Leaving aside the photo-topos of seacliffs taken from a boat 100yds offshore - ie a view the climber never gets - the time  of day, angle of the sun  and shadows cast can  transform the look of a crag even on a well-taken picture. Trees can obscure starts or else disappear post-publication when some zealot with a chainsaw decides to open up the view

Personally I'd not have a problem with sports routes having the names painted  on discreetly. Sports routes often don't follow a natural line or feature. Frequently they are just a line of bolts on an otherwise blank wall,  often quite close to identical lines of bolts either side and I'm sure all sports climbers have had the 'pleasure' of visiting crags where the number of lines exceeds the number of routes in the guide so you can't even count lines from some recogniseable feature.

Names don't offend me on the Continent and they would not offend me here. I do, however, accept the idea of names painted on the rock along the bottom of Stanage or the Cromlech might not be too well received by the traderati - among whom I still occasionally number myself.  Sport climbing is essentially a pared down physical skill. Trad is a much broader activity where climbing ability must be  married to other hard-won skills such as gear placement, judgement and route finding.

'Traderati' - like it!

I theng you

2/10 for troll. Fail on the return to thread.

You’re supposed to leave it after you state the initial bullshit.

You are right, that place is difficult for finding the starts of routes and I've considered writing the names of routes on a pebble and placing it at the bottom. 

As for the criticism that you should be out "looking for adventure" that's nonsense. I'm out to go climbing and the adventure begins when I'm doing this. Wandering around for hours in the woods at the bottom of a crag looking for the obvious hidden magical tree which may not be there any more anyway is quite frankly not an adventure, it's a chore.

It would help if there was even a description of where routes were rather than having a shitty little map marking routes according to trees and rocks. In a forest. At the bottom of a cliff. You’re going to tell people where a route is by trees and rock. FFS.

Has been done of course. Some of the popular climbs starting from Heather Terrace on Tryfan have had route initials scratched at base since at least late 60s , I think they're still there ....I remember finding them useful when I started climbing as E Face Tryfan is  quite broken. However I'm personally against it as its the thin end of the wedge, descriptions, topos etc are generally far better, many people like the 'leave minimum trace ethic' (forgetting lines of chalk and stuck nuts!), learning to identify features is always useful. 

IMHO its good that topics like this are raised from time to time as it reinforces the many apparently illogical values that keep UK climbing interesting, on what are often fairly insignificant crags compared to other countries.

There's an ice route somewhere that disappeared because of fallen trees. Another one couldn't be found from the roadside lay-by.  Must mention it sometime to someone ... 🤗

But back to the point.  The first guidebook I bought, to Skye, had the immortal description "follow the same general line for the next 900 feet...".  I've always wanted to find that economy and simplicity elsewhere

I remember an early visit to the Cairngorms where the description for a route (I think on Stag Rocks) was something like " climb the buttress to a belay (300 ft)" which for a couple of climbers used to detailed descriptions from the Peak or North Wales seemed a little bit lacking in detail. And confused as we only had a 150 ft rope...

True for the East face but not helped by being wrong in one case. There are a few crags that have old numbers (esp Yorkshire) but then the numbers changed. I agree that Trad climbing should be as close to the leaving no trace principle as possible and these threads help explain why.

There is no excuse for the sloppy guidebook information described but these days UKC logbooks give an opportunity to have independant correct information. I got into guidebook work because some of the guidebook producers in the 80s didn't seem to give a shit about ordinary sub-extreme climbers in terms of grades or finding the routes.

As for Doug's and pay attention's reminders: some routes suit that sort of treatment providing the climbers have good route finding skills (or plenty in hand). Limestone crag routes normally don't fit that model (albeit here I do worry that a man with beardy mike's experience thought trainers could ever be a good idea for more obscure limestone) . 

The following used to be a 'climb the long ridge' style description...

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105791012/sunspot-ridge

... read the comments

That's a good example of economic wording. When I first encountered topos (on long alpine routes) I found them too focused on specific pitch features which were totally useless when I'd wandered off route.  Colour coded photodiagrams of single pitch climbs was an unbelievable luxury.  Kids of today, eh?.....

Don’t fear, once I have time and a drone, the photos and descriptions for that area are going to get better...

When is a troll not a troll?

Does troll require mens rea, i.e. an active intent on the part of the poster to troll, or is trolling governed by the law of torts? 

Just two of the profound questions raised by the post. 

In any case, i’ll delay my “Are helmets against ethics?” topic until the next time I get really bored, because I’m sure more fun is to be had here. 

FWIW I thought the CC descriptions of Wyndcliff were perfectly adequate, but then I once got lost on a sport climb and had to abseil off a bail maillon so don’t listen to anything I say. 

If you were sport climbing at wyndcliff, you just demonstrated my point, as you went to entirely the wrong crag and ended up at Wyndcliff Quarry.

Never understood this idea that trolls can't return to threads. They can and often do.

I go out to go climbing. Not to piss about in the woods for an hour trying to find what I want to climb. Neither of which count as an "adventure".

I would take this a step further. We should be marking each hold on a route - it is really dangerous when people go off route. A system of arrows showing the direction to go and circles around each hold (and maybe a note of which hand or foot) would make the climbing clearer and result in less mountain rescue call-outs. Flying Buttress Direct is a good example - there have been a lot of accidents where inexperienced climbers just haven't been able to figure out which holds to use. It would solve a lot of problems if they were labelled properly.

youtube.com/watch?v=Ch9iWuINylg&

Of course, guidebooks are a luxury. You could approach the climb as the FA does; no knowledge, just a look at the rock and get on with it, and figure the route out yourself.

That's 'proper climbing'.

All this following other people's routes is artificial nonsense...

Too right! It's always amused me that we:

Place bolts, belays, threads, fixed quickdraws...

Lever off flakes to expose big white scars...

Cut down trees and uproot bushes...

Strip grass...

Scrub off lichen and moss...

Erode the base of the crags and build platforms...

Plaster the holds with chalk...

Climb/hang/frig, throw tantrums, scream obscenities...

But f*ck me, when it comes to a discreet little route name at the foot of the route, that you'd only see if finding the route was your aim, then it's the end of the world as we know it.

I can't say I've had any problem finding the bottom of routes at Tremadog, Anglezarke, Wildcat and so on.. you must be climbing in some Amazonian scale forests to be getting oh so very lost.

I'm not, but I do like to go to new crags and its a bit of a PITA finding your way round for the first time. I'm also not advocating for painting names on trad routes (I actually have no strong feelings either way), just disagreeing with your sentiment that people go climbing for "adventure" and trying to find the start of a route is inherently "adventurous". I go climbing because I want to climb up rocks, I get lost in the woods because it can be tricky when following poor, generic descriptions and using rubbish maps to find the rocks I want to climb. It's annoying, but part of the game, and is certainly not an adventure.

I genuinely can't think of that many UK crags that have their base shrouded in deep woodland, so much so that it merits the naming or number of routes on the rock. Even if discreet names or numbers were added in such cases, you're still going to spending additional amount of time finding the right route as you're going to be going to and fro the rock every few metres to check what that little spot of paint says rather than just looking up at the features above the tree line. 

Do enlighten us to some examples of where you've lost out on significant climbing time due to wandering the timber towers. 

I'm lucky because I started climbing in the Wye Valley over 40 years ago, but both Wintours Leap and Wyndcliffe (main crag) can be a bit of a bugger in the summertime when the undergrowth is at its most luxuriant.

I kind of wondered about (in dirty quarry areas) putting a nice plaque at the bottom of each route with the grade and route name on it - would be cool e.g:

"Still nice 'n' still sleazy

F6a+ - 30m - 14 bolts

Do not climb"

Speak for yourself. I do not throw tantrums.

Ok so two crags, for say half the year, are 'a bit of a bugger'.. hardly a strong argument for a change in ethical stance. I still fail to see how discreetly named routes are going to save that much time with all the to'ing and fro'ing through the dense undergrowth from the traverse along the crag base. Any more? 

Exactly - the south west does have some crags where there are basically triffids hanging off the side of the cliff. I mean getting to Pinnacle bay in cheddar once the nettles have taken hold is worthy of an expedition slide show at the RGS.

I thought some people were doing this with the amount of tick marks getting left on the rock?

Was that "the Crack?" The Crack (HS 4b)   I remember the description being really poor and, from logbook comments, looks like I was not the only one.

However I think the solution is better guide book rather than painting climb names on the rock

Is that the route description that was screwed up because a tree fell down?

I remember having a problem there because of it a couple of years back. Managed to work it out from the location of other routes and the description.

No this is over on the left hand crag. And yes it was the cracks, I ended up on Papillion - just a really bad description. As I say, even a clue as to where it starts would be helpful...

Yeah, but the markings are just not bright and visible enough. High vis paint could be employed so that they can be seen better from a distance. In this way it should be possible to scout out a whole multi-pitch trad route from the ground, without needing to open the guidebook.

Oh for goodness sake! An adventure? With a handful of exceptions we are repeating routes that are logged, graded, recorded, photographed and in most cases have already been repeated thousands of times. It is not exactly hunting the source of the Nile, is it?

Basically we are just kids who have not grown up and have swapped shinning up  trees and skinning our knees for scampering up rocks and skinning our hands. OK, it can be dangerous sometimes and occasionally someone gets hurt, just as they did when we were in short trousers building dens and rope swings back in the woods.

People like Mick Fowler go off an adventures but as for the rest of us?  The drive to the crag is probably the riskiest thing we do

I don't think a few names painted discreetly on sport routes is going to dilutes your 'adventure' too much

OK great, you go ahead vandalising other folks property then. May as well stick a little arrow half way up where it traverses right too, and instructions on how to use the lower off. 

Nobody has suggested either of those but so far as 'vandalising other people's property' goes I'd have thought a discreet painted name come well behind  drilling holes and placing bolts and chains?

I for one do not agree with putting route names at the bottom of crags - even Wintours or Wyndcliff.

Too many climbers manage to go off route even when they've started in the right place (having been directed to same), so it seems to me that more people need to actually ensure that the description does fit what's in front of them, rather than "making" it fit.

I've known some quite good climbers whose sense of direction, both on a crag and getting to it, to be quite appalling.

We shouldn't be lowering standards to the lowest level, we should be lifting up standards so that people actually do know here they are.

Another approach is to turn up at the crag with no guidebook and little info. Look at the lines and give them a go. When you return check what you have done in the guidebook. 

It makes you feel like you are doing a new route and you soon get an eye for a line. You can probably add a grade or two to it too! 

So  if someone turns up, guidebook in hand. looking puzzled and asks: " 'Scuse me, mate. What route are you on?" Do you refuse to tell them and send them away to to raise their navigational standards?   If not what's the difference between giving that info verbally and leaving it painted at the foot of the route?

In that we are completely agreed.

Well, quite

The spoken word leaves no trace - paint however …..

The problem I am having here is following your logic (and just to be absolutely clear, as I said higher up the thread,  I am only talking about sport routes, definitely not trad, so perhaps we may be slightly at cross purposes). That said.........

Firstly, f it is OK to inform someone of a route name verbally I can't see any 'ethical' difference between that and a discreet name at the foot of the route, just in case a local expert is not aroundvto consult.

Secondly, if the perceived problem is one of  'leaving a trace,' again I see a discreetly painted name at the foot of the climb as almost trivial and certainly much less intrusive than a line of a dozen shiny bolts  up its full length leading to a stonking great chain at the top

Troll. Must be. 

Like a lot of UKC posters I’ve climbed from Lands End to the far north of Scotland, mountain crags , outcrops and sea cliffs . Never had a problem finding a route ( except on abseil approaches to sea cliffs maybe) . 

Try working out all the routes to the left and right and cross referencing to your route ?! 

Surely a name painted on a cliff can't be that discreet or it defeats its purpose?

Once having located what you think might be the route, it provides confirmation. It doesn’t need to shout out to you ‘I’m over here, plonker...’ from 100m away!

Sounds like you're doing the wrong sort of climbing.

I agree with your logic about lines of bolts being at odds with the "leave no trace" ethic, though.

So you find your route, then need confirmation?

Incidentally I think upthread you do say that you're only talking about sports (I hadn't remembered that). However in some respects its even less necessary to have a name on a sports route since the consequences of getting on a harder route are often slight compared to trad due to good protection.

HILTER NAZI'S BREXIT

I'm a good map reader and have a decent brain for turning instructions into directions, but back in early 90s using my local library's copy of Littlejohn's SW Climbs book (so it might have been a few years old) and an AA road atlas, myself and a friend failed to even find Chudleigh Rocks. 

Using the second edition of the West Midlands guide, I still managed to completely miss Pontesford Rocks the first time I went. Much annoying wandering around was required.

Nowadays with QR codes on guidebooks and often OS maps available on your phone/gps its much harder to completely lose crags, but I'm sure it happens. We used the Ground Up selected guide to get to Wen Zawn on Sunday, and still did a fair bit of faffing, trying to find one of the most classic climbs in the country. It was only a pile of other peoples packs by a trail that gave us the main clue - the book's instructions were not full proof for first time visitors.