Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

Adventure Bouldering - pic Lee Robinson As the festive season kicks in and the year ends, we all turn to lists for next year, but what of the year that's gone? What were the top ten Scottish boulder problems? I'm not elitist, but I do like a strong line and a good story to a problem, so here's my attempt at the most exciting top Scottish bouldering problems of the year! Apologies to those not included or those classics excluded - this is just a wee list trying to represent a geographical whistle-stop tour of Bonny Blocland! Counting down as is traditional: 10. The perfect example of the 'community' nature of bouldering is this particualr problem - a hybrid of two hard previous problems by Tim Rankin, linked into the natural 'hardest line' ideal which leads all us boulderers astray! Seeking the boundaries of the climbable is what it's all about, it wouldn't be as much fun if no-one had gone before and we had nothing to 'stretch'. This contin...

I'll be uploading some new topos to Stone Country soon, but as a Christmas Scottish bouldering offer, we are selling Bouldering in Scotland, Stone Play and Elelments the DVD at only £40.00, check the sidebar on the right if you want to take advantage. It's been a good autumn and early winter season for folks out bouldering, I'll put a report up soon of what's been done, in the meantime I'll get on with going square-eyed over fonts and upload those topos. Santa Claus goes bouldering (aka Bernd Zangerl )

Due to technical issues the boulderscotland.com website has been taken down and will not be up till next year, so anyone wanting to get hold of the new Dumbarton Bloc guide, can do so here through the blog (on the sidebar) or on the Stone Country main site. It's a nominal price of £2.50 for a download, which allows you to print the 12 page booklet at will and leave in the rain or tear up in frustration! Also of interest to you greener boulderers, we will be having a Stone Country Dumbarton clean-up, provisionally Saturday 14th February. Put the day in your diaries and come along, we'll provide gloves and bin-bags, you'll be alotted a corner of a boulder and by the end of the day we should have a cleaner playground. I'll try and organise a little competition as well maybe, might be good fun. Get back to me if you want to help out on the day with the clean-up and I'll be in touch: boulderscotland@gmail.com We'll be doing a round-up of autumn bouldering so please s...

I thought I knew the forest and decided to produce a guidebook. Now, there are a few infinite numbers in maths, such as the Golden Ratio, or the elegant vanishing point of Pi, which suggest we cannot map the world without a formula that summarises our human limitations. My formula was to be that guidebook, the key to a forest's secrets. The forest of Fontainebleau is to me one such infinity, and my brief years of wandering the forest and bouldering on its rocks has only brought me closer to a love of the infinite and the endless adventure of climbing, whereas when I started out I thought there might be a revelatory summit to all this climbing - some, well, point to it all. There wasn't and there isn't, but something of the code was understood. I had grand ambitions when I first came to Fontainebleau, but it decided to rain on us for a week, so we walked around a lot, boggling at the maze of boulders and trying to find famous problems such as Carnage , Sur-pri...

The Hotaches Committed series of films are now a raptly anticipated event in the climbing calendar year, and this new film, featuring five 'incredible climbing stories' is the best yet. The quality of production is superb and the film stories are future treasures of climbing documentary. They followed some high level traditional UK climbers throughout the year and the viewer is treated to an armchair sauna of the fear, trauma and elusive elation of high-end climbing. The choice of stories is apt and varied. The first story begins with the thoughtful James Pearson attempting the 'last great problem' of The Groove at Cratcliffe Tor. This blank groove between two gritstone breaks was always deemed unclimbable but this did not deter James, he is filmed clutching a pebble the size of a peanut, rapt and intent... so this first film leads us gently into the microscopic obsession and invisible geometry of a climbing magician. The bizarre sequence of moves that James finall...

At last! The Stone Country Guidebook to ESSENTIAL FONTAINEBLEAU is now available! The main issue with publishing a guide to the best 350 problems in the forest was actually identifying them. They had to be varied, they had to exhibit character and they had to be good! I enlisted Colin Lambton as editor... with over 20 years of experience, he knew precisely what to put in and what to leave out, though we did have some mighty editorial arguments. J A Martin was the venue that caused us to come to verbal blows again and again, and Rocher Guichot was finally given a page as I caved to the blackmail of a free pint of beer. Colin I think has done a super job in selecting and balancing the guide and deserves all my thanks for trying to keep the guide on the straight and narrow. Colin Lampton on an early ascent of 'Bivouac' at Cuvier The point was to create a guide mainly for the first-timer which did not confuse and offered a n entry-level to the complexity of Font bouldering, both th...

Balloons over the Forest at sunset Originally uploaded by Stone Country Press Having sprained a foot on the second day of a trip to Fontainebleau, it was time to be philosophical and sit atop a few viewpoint boulders. Sometimes this is not a bad thing and allows you to absorb the spirit of the forest and let a little serendipity creep in when otherwise you would be obsessed with brushing the excess chalk off the microscopic fantasia that is bouldering! Atop a boulder at Gorges aux Chats, I was pleasantly surprised by the sight of two hot-air balloons rising over the sunset canopy like contented thought bubbles. They drifted off over the woodsmoke inversion of the dusky sunset and vanished into a distant field. With the multi-coloured autumn leaves raining down over the grey rocks, it was simply the best place to be and the right moment. Just like the first morning setting out under a cool blue sky and crisp air to the ochre rocks of Potala... 'it doesn't get better than this...