Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

The new pocket guide to Fontainebleau is almost here! The pocket book is full colour with maps, approach notes, photo-topos of over 350 problems and key secrets to solving the problems. It has been designed to give new visitors to the forest an introduction to the art of bouldering in Fontainebleau, or it can be used by the experienced as a lifetime ticklist of the most-wanted! The chosen problems (it was a difficult editing process!) range from 2+ problems through to 8a, but most are in the 6a-7b range and accessible to the on-sighting boulderer (if you are lucky and talented, being plain strong doesn't always help!). The guide will be available late October or early November and as a special offer to those who check into this blog, I'm selling two copies of the new guide with a free copy of Pete Murray's Elements DVD for only 20.00. As the guide retails for 9.99, that's a saving of 15 quid! Plus you get a spare copy of the new Font guide or a DVD to give as a Christ...

Gut Buster 8b+ (note protection!) Malc Smith has just climbed the hardest problem in Scotland to date, aptly named Gutbuster and more akin to hard power-yoga without the ground as support! It's a truly sapping excursion through the upside-down caves at Dumbarton Rock and the first problem to break into Font 8b+ territory. It anticipates the imminent arrival of the magical 8c grade as Malc already has spied another link-up that may not survive much longer. After a long time sitting in the dank BNI through-cave in mild autumn weather, Malc took advantage of a cold and breezy day on 27th September to bite into the angular basalt and complete the problem. It is an inspiring natural challenge to any highend boulderer, logically linking his own Serum of Sisypus 8a+ through the crux cave sequences of Perfect Crime and up the 8b of Sanction which Dave MacLeod did in 2007. With MacLeod beavering on a possible contender for hardest Scottish problem in Glen Nevis, it was left to Malc t...

The far northwest coast north of Aberdeen was always a bit of a blind spot when we did the guide, not much had been developed or found there at all. However, things appear to be changing and after a tip-off from Chris Fryer, Russell Birkett developed the steep wall at the Buchan Ness lighthouse, a full topo is available here . Neptune's Kiss looks like a local classic! Buchan Ness - Neptune's Kiss Font 6c For stamina freaks and sport climbers looking for training problems, look no further than the classic traverse at Boltsheugh, Newtonhill, Aberdeen. Guy Robertson managed to eliminate as many jugs as he could and ended up with the Newtonhill Powerband , a staggering F8a+ traverse. Newtonhill Powerband, F8a+, Guy Robertson Guy reports: Wilson ’s (Moir) low level traverse without any of the jugs / resting holdz. Probably F8a+, whatever that translates to in bouldering money (don’t ask me!). It’s a pretty cool prob, and to my mind cleans up all the many variations on variat...

Ajare E6 Niall McNair We are currently seeking photography for the next exciting project from Stone Country Press – Big Stone Country – A Selection of Scottish Mountain Climbs (draft title). Unlike the previous (bouldering) guides, this book is intended for much wider consumption; it will be structured around the great Scottish mountain crags, featuring both summer and winter climbs. Guy Robertson will be the editor in chief. The core purpose of the book is to profile Scotland 's best mountain crags and inspire people to climb in the hills, keeping the focus primarily (but not exclusively) on more recent historical developments and routes. We’re aiming for the ‘contemporary traditionalist’, and hope to both challenge and inspire. If you would like to contribute photography, or you have a photograph of a classic Scottish modern extreme or winter route over Grade 5, please submit a jpeg or two to Guy or myself . All photography will be remunerated, or if you...

Kite Flying at Sheigra The older I get the more the 'things to do' list gets bigger, not smaller. When you're a young climber, you think you have all the time in the world, every route will get done and this list will just get smaller, but in the end there will just be more climbing out there than when you began this vertical game. It sounds contradictory but it's true, and with too much work on my hands and too many sacrifices made to bouldering, I felt I needed to attend to this list and get back into the 'management game' that is trad climbing. Conscious of ticking time and this withering rule of climbing physics that routes are only done in the present, I phoned the ever-reliable and super-keen 'Crofton' who had a week off between doctoring jobs. We trawled the forecast online and on Tuesday night...

Dominic Ward and Lee Robinson have been busy exploring the remoter possibilities of bouldering in Applecross & Torridon and they sent me some topos of new bouldering for the Stone Country Bloc-Sport Guide for the NW. There seems to be no shortage of potential and the recent good weather allowed bikini-clad walk-ins (for Lee and Lisa anyway), who found billions of boulders under the Horns of Alligin it seems... an impressive field, makes me think of that scene in the Matrix when Neo is shown the billions of cloned humans! Nic Ward followed the attractive siren calls of the boulder field visible below the Bealach na Ba mast in Coire nan Cuileag and found the gem that is the 'Sanctuary' boulder, a good looking roof offering a little shade for tired and thirsty dogs as well as boulderers! GR - 777 428 The boulder is NW facing, and is visible from the Applecross side of the Bealach, on the way up to the mast car park. It lies below the mast in the field of vision marking the SW...

Travellling the world looking for climbing and bouldering leads you to some fine cities which are always colourful stopovers on the way to the mountains. I've got plenty of pictures of high mountains, remote boulders and wildlife, but we've seen all that and sometimes the city provides a jungle of different hues and colours. Here are some shots of my favourite Graffiti art I've come across, inspired by a rather surprised return to Dumbarton Rock which has had something of an upgrade in terms of the usual graffiti! I consider Graffiti any human mark on the landscape, something that just says 'I wuz here' in some form...sometimes it's elegant, sometimes spiritual, sometimes plain ugly, and sometimes a little too clever for its own good (cairn-kickers unite!), whatever or wherever, it springs from the same human desire to scribble something down... Graffiti World