In reply to Heike:
> The guide you made was really inspiring and well designed and clearly took loads of effort so nothing to be sorry about.
> Having said that, we had a 3 week trip around the obscure cliffs of the North Coast, Harris and Orkney, and Dearness was far and away the poorest rock we encountered. The main issue was that gear was mainly between flakes that looked like they could snap off at any time (and a few did).
Ah, right, good to know. I guess I mainly used the thicker layers and there is also an aspect of how many grades you have in hand - I can ignore a suspect hold on a VS/HVS but I'm definitely going to have to commit to it on an E3/E4 so that might make me more likely to feel rock quality is poor on harder routes.
> By the way, if you were ever considering re-doing the guide the ordering of the maps on page 22 is a bit illogical.
Yes. At least editing a little, not a full re-do.
A Dragon Amongst the Thistles is actually part of an existing Dave Mac route so I need to correct that. I also want to put in Rosmund's Birthday as it is within the photo, at the time I just couldn't work out exactly what crack it went up (I blame the terrible guidebook description for that one!). And now I have a drone I want to get a photo of exposure wall that isn't absolute gash.
Sounds like I should change the description of the rock quality for Deerness at least too (and by extension, most likely for several other areas on Mainland too.
> so used your guide for an alternative - and ended up sun burnt!
That part at least is definitely your own fault :P