UKC

Hello,
the Guernsey Mountaineering Club are organising their Annual Climbing Festival on the August bank holiday weekend this year - Friday 22nd - Monday 25th. It'll be fairly low key as usual - we use a farmer's field about 10 minutes walk from the main crags in the southwest corner of the island and provide a campfire, & mess tent or two to shelter in if the weather's naff, portaloo and maybe a shower. There's a small hotel down the road which does good value bar meals, restaurant food, B&B and has two bars. We can offer you free camping (and tentage), climbing partners/guides, boulder mats, ropes, rack usage, transport to and from the crag (and harbour/airport) and other helpful stuff I can't think of right now. Basically, we want people to come over and enjoy a day's climbing on good rock & have a swim in the sea before sharing experiences and stories round the fire or in the pub afterwards. Repeat. Go home sunburnt and happy .
Climbing-wise, everything is sea cliff trad on gneiss & granite. Mostly single pitch 40 to 90feet, but there are longer pitches and some multi-pitches too. Plenty of bouldering & some DWS. Friction is usually excellent/aggressive, polish is non-existent, nothing's chalked unless the club's been there in the past fortnight. Rock quality varies as you'd expect on seacliffs. Grades go up to E7 & V9 with a couple of harder projects and the odd easier in-filler in less-frequented areas. There's about 1400 or so routes to go at, everything is listed here in the logbooks section. Walk-ins are normally in the region of 10 minutes max from the nearest carpark. Martin Crocker liked it so much he kept coming back for holidays and put up a hundred routes. Visiting climbers say the grades are neither hard nor soft, and stars do denote genuine quality - a 3 star route would have queues on it if it were in a popular mainland area.  All you need to do is tell us the grades you're operating at and we'll put you on some good climbs.
Anybody interested? It's also the Vale Earth Fair music festival that weekend (amongst other events) - this is one of the top 'boutique' music festivals in the UK. It takes ~20/30 minutes to get from one end of the island to the other.
Getting to the island - fly from Gatwick/Stansted/London City/Southampton/Bristol/Manchester/East Midlands/Birmingham, ferry from Poole, Portsmouth or St.Malo in France. Once on island, hire cars are available if you really want one, but there will be no problem with local climbers running you to and from the crag and the bus service is cheap and good.
General tourist info
http://www.visitguernsey.com/
Our club site
http://www.gmc.org.gg/
The hotel down the road
http://www.imperial.gg/
UKC stuff
http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/map/?q=GUERNSEY&x=-2.579&y=49.461...
The ferry company
http://www.condorferries.co.uk/
The airlines which fly here
http://www.aurigny.com/
http://www.blueislands.com/
Vale Earth Fair
http://www.valeearthfair.org/
Other Island events that weekend
https://www.visitguernsey.com/experiences/events/

There is a good crag index with some topos on the club website www.gmc.org.gg and plenty of climbing at pretty much all grades.  Some of the access is challenging at some crags (overgrown), but nothing that will be a problem as you'll have locals to 'guide' you.
Questions? Fire away, we can advise you on all aspects of coming to the island and climbing here - want to bring non-climbing family? - we can tell them what to go and see.

Hi, do you have much information on bouldering in Guernsey? My partner is from there, and I've been coming out and doing little bits and pieces over the past year, but really struggled to find many topos.

Unfortunately I am there the week prior to the festival or I'd be very keen to sample some of the trad and DWS

There's a bouldering guide in production, UKC user Bargate_Champ is the author, drop him an email. You might find some topos on the GMC site in addition to whats on here too.  In terms of your visit, we can take you out climbing on club nights (Tues / Thurs), and maybe other times, drop me an email . I can also show you some bouldering spots and lend you a mat . Your days of being bored whilst your other half does family stuff are over!

Some quick discussions have been had and I’ll hopefully be able to come sample some of the trad on Friday. Seems too good an opportunity to miss having some locals show us around.

What’s the best way to coordinate? Just message you on here, or is there an email?

I bought the Guernsey trad guide when I came last year and I’ve been eagerly waiting for a chance to sample it. Particularly interested in any cracks you may have!

I have hooked up with Guernsey climbers on two separate trips.  I put a message on the club's Facebook page and got responses through that route.

A lot of the better climbing is very tidal and I would take this into account on future trips.  However, I have managed to tick off a few of the islands three-star routes and they were well worth the effort 🙂.  Not done any bouldering, but one of the well-known exercises is traversing a long stone wall above the sea in St Peter's Port - again, tide is critical.

message me on here - if I'm not free I can find someone to take you out I'm sure. I'm looking forward to it