Cheesewring climbing guide in today's Western Morning News!

There is a two page spread featuring the Cheesewring & South East Cornwall guidebook in the Living Cornwall section of today's Western Morning News (Tuesday 20th August 2013). The article - Rock climbing guide pays homage to beauty and art of the 'mother granite' - can be read online here on the Western Morning News website. The feature, written by Des Hannigan, has a number of photos from the guide. Des's original piece can also be found amongst the articles on the Cheesewring Climbing website.

Heaps of adventure and delightful coffee on the South Coast

The last weekend of June was a busy one for new routes on the South Coast. First up an experienced team of South West pioneers descended on Nare Head to climb a three pitch ridge-line which had been on Pat Littlejohn's 'to do list' for quite sometime. For this adventure Pat assembled a crack team of veteran climbers which included Dave Garner, Dave Hope and Des Hannigan. The resultant rock climb, named Finger Ridge (pictured above), turned out to be 200 feet of VS fun. Des Hannigan commented on the route's greatest attributes: "The coffee at Nare Hotel was a delight," he said. I dare not hazard a guess at the combined age of the route's first ascent party!

The following day just along the coast at Dodman Point, the slightly more youthful pair of Tom Bunn and Alex Orr put up a clean aid route that sounds truly terrifying. The Pioneer takes a crackline up the overhanging wall between The Jolly Farmer and Horrorshow and was climbed without recourse, of course, to hammered or drilled protection.

Unbeknownst to Tom and Alex the Littlejohn and Garner team responsible for The Jolly Farmer were just a few hundred metres away on the Prince Heathen Cliff adding more climbs to their Dodman stomping ground. A VS named Pretender, and two E2s called Quartzophenia (pictured below) and Handsome Prince were the result of a good day's work for the greatest devotees of Dodman's adventure climbing. According to Pat: "We had a great day at last finding some solid rock to climb on Dodman!"

Full descriptions of all these routes and more photos can be found on the New Routes page of the Cheesewring Climbing Website. I'd be grateful to anyone with information on new routes or other climbing news in South East Cornwall if they could get in touch to let us know. Finally many thanks to Pat Littlejohn, Dave Garner, Dave Hope, Des Hannigan and Tom Bunn for providing details of these new routes and permission to use the first ascent photos.

A new guidebook that celebrates Cornish climbing and publishing

This week's edition of Cornish local newspaper The St Ives Times & Echo, Friday 16th November 2012, contains an extended review/feature about the new Cheesewring & South East Cornwall guide. The article was written by journalist and travel writer Des Hannigan who is well-known in climbing circles, not least for writing the 1991 and 1992 Climbers' Club guides to West Penwith. He is currently editing the forthcoming new series of CC guide books for West Cornwall.