UKC

The beginnings of climbing on the Culm Coast and Baggy Point in North Cornwall and North Devon seem to follow a pattern; discovery, enthusiastic exploration and then, once the idea of it as a new climbing area has been thoroughly conceived, complete inaction; for decades. This in contrast to other...

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In reply to UKC Articles:

LOOKING GOOD!!!!

In reply to UKC Articles:

Great article. Absolutely love climbing down on the Culm. Anybody know what the latest is on the Culm & Baggy guidebook? CC website still says early 2021. Cheers!

In reply to The Pylon King:

Thanks Mark, I really am happy with how this has come out.

Full credit to James Mann for writing this one too, as well as filming our forthcoming Friday Night Video, and - as if that wasn't enough - he's compiled another five articles within the series too (not an insubstantial task!!). We'll be rolling these out over the coming weeks, so hopefully the psyche will be high ahead of both the guidebook's launch and our ability to travel again.

Thanks are also due to our Developer, Andy Ovens, as he's done a lot of work on the new format, which is a massive improvement on its predecessor.

In reply to Gabe Oliver:

I think it's a case of 'watch this space' currently, but whenever it does come out we'll be running some separate activity (and a review) around its launch, so you shouldn't be able to miss it.

In the meanwhile, sit back and enjoy a further six awe-inspiring articles

In reply to UKC Articles:

Nasty snappy death rock

(can’t wait to get back out there this year)

In reply to Rob Greenwood - UKClimbing:

Nice one Rob, looking forward to it!

In reply to Gabe Oliver:

Springtime!

In reply to UKC Articles:

Superb piece. Great research and photos - that opener of Moonshot in particular is a peach.

In reply to UKC Articles:

A fantastic article James and I cannot wait for that guidebook to come out!

Cheers

Dave

In reply to UKC Articles:

Great read James. It's number one on my  hit-list once this lockdown is over. Can't wait for the new guide. Thanks for all your effort!

Ps. I can recall Pyatts climbing guide that covered all of England and his Sandstone book too. Must have been mid 60's thereabouts.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Fantastic photos and the Tom Patey letter is priceless.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Fairly obvious vested interest here, but I'm really chuffed with this. If you've read the article on a phone, the photos are worth looking at on a full sized monitor. Thanks James and Rob for getting this together.

In reply to Paul Sagar:

Me too!  I still have some real classics to tick off and it would be great to pointed at some new places to explore too.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Am pleased that people have enjoyed this. It stemmed from the work that Iain Peters and I have been doing on the Culm historical section for the guide. There was so much extra stuff that wasn’t appropriate in the guide but was a lot of fun. For me, it was the eccentricity of the characters that made it and also celebrating those whose spirit of adventure and exploration began the development of what was to become a real forcing ground for local climbers of the late ‘60s and through the ‘70s and beyond. I think all of those pioneers would be pleased and possibly amazed to see what the area has become today. 
 

James

In reply to UKC Articles:

Fantastic effort James. This article looks fabulous on a big screen, so well done UKC too. The tracking down of all that source material is really impressive. - great photos and the letter from Tom Patey is a gem.

The modern photographs are first class too. 

I am really looking forward to seeing the new guide. Congratulations to Mark Kemball and the team.

In reply to UKC Articles:

So does this clarify the confusion about which one is Scrattling and which one is Moonshot? See UKC Forums for July last year - Scrattling Crack - Have you climbed it? (ukclimbing.com) for previous debate. It seems from this latest article that the guide book was right all along and Scrattling is on the left and Moonshot on the right.

In reply to Gerry:

Realistically there's no way we can find out which line Longstaff climbed, but there's a photograph proving that Lawder and party climbed what is now called Moonshot. As there's no way to know, we've decided to leave the names as they are.

In reply to Mark Kemball:

Super, many thanks for your reply.