UKC

Anyone know which guidebook/guidebooks are best for Cir Mhor on Arran? No guidebook is listed on the crag page Cir Mhor

You need Inner Hebrides guidebook by The Scottish Mountaineering Press

https://www.smc.org.uk/publications/climbing/inner-hebrides-arran

The SMC Scottish Rock Climbs "general guide" has all the major lines covered.

Scottish Rock South (Gary Latter) also covers it and has really good photo topos.

The older SMC guide for Arran, Arrochar, and Southern Highlands has more obscure lines but being an older guide only has vague sketch topos.

​​Not looked at the newer SMC Inner Hebrides guide but I expect it should have photo topos and more detail than the general guidebook. However, if you don't want to spend £25 for just that part of Scotland (an amazing part though it is), the general guide does cover all the classics.

If you are willing to wait a while I understand that the new SMC/Wired selective guide to Scotland is due out this year. From what I’ve heard it sounds like it will be an outstanding celebration of all the best climbing across all the climbing areas and islands.  

I used to have the old Bill Wallace burgandy guide as a lad. It had very few routes and anything above Severe was VS. It gave me a fear of VS because England had a proper grading system but to do a Scottish VS could be anything. As it turns out most the Severes on Arran are now VS and the very severes are anything but! South ridge direct is still VS  but the severe pitch is now 4c and the VS pitch 5a. God knows where all this is going.

The crux pitches on the two crux pitches South Ridge Direct seemed correctly graded at 4c an 5A ... nearly 40 years ago, so I'm not quite sure what you mean.

If you're only interested in South Ridge Direct (VS 5a), there is a very detailed text description in Scotland's Mountain Ridges (Dan Bailey)

Hopefully it's going to a place where guidebooks give you reasonable guidance about the routes, let you make informed choices based on your ability, and no longer leave you in fear of the "Scottish VS".

The VS 5a grade, while a little unusual, makes total sense for South Ridge Direct. The one 5a move is distinctly hard but also well protected (as are the other difficulties, especially with cams).

I thought he was being self-deprecating, i.e. meaning God knows where his paragraph was going

VS 5a isn't unusual at all, it's dead common for a well protected move or 2 of 5a. What I don't understand about SRD is the notion that it's close to 5b. I think this comment even made it into the guide and there are a few people repeating it in their logs and a few votes for it too.

Your completely wrong or you believe that was the grade when you climbed it and were correct in thinking. The grading is more recent and if Alastair Walker reads this he can confirm (Previous guide book writer) I have the 80s guide book with Bill Skidmores supplement which introduces the HVS grade for the extreme routes nothing for SRD than VS. What did Hard Rock state for the gradings?

Its only 5b for those that get their foot stuck.

I'd say that would make it HVS rather than 5b!

Grade debates aside, this thread has filled me with a strong desire to go do SRD again. Come October it will 29 years since I did it and it still sticks in my mind as one of the finest days I've had.

I think it is solid 5b! I only think it is undergraded at 5a because it is so well protected, very short-lived and the last move of the pitch.

Well it is the best HVS 5b in Britain.

4c in the original hard rock , 5a in the new edition.

38 years since I first climbed and 39 since I failed.

I nearly threw up from the effort of climbing that pitch. But that doesn't mean it's 5b, it just means I'm a bad climber.