For quite some time I've
been intending to put a review of Niall Grimes' outstanding
Boulder Britain: The Essential Guide to British Bouldering on this blog.
It's particularly relevant to South East Cornwall too, as Helman Tor
and Downderry Beach are among the 180 venues which appear in this
ambitious new guide.
Boulder Britain is remarkable not only
for its size – 448 pages of beautifully produced full colour –
but its scope in being a selective guide to bouldering areas
throughout the country.
While the coverage is by
no means extensive for any particular area, accurate directions and a
summary are given for a range of bouldering venues. A good selection
of problems is included at each of the better crags. The book also
helpfully directs the reader to sources of further information such
as local bouldering guides and on-line topos. Although it is well
designed and stuffed full of great photos, for me it is Grimes'
humorous writing style that is the highlight of
Boulder Britain.
His frank, often highly
amusing assessments of an area's qualities provide a perfect
recommendation – or indeed condemnation – for the guidebook user
to follow.
It is pleasing that
Cornwall's bouldering gets such favourable coverage among Britain's
more well-known areas and notable that this is due, in no small part,
to some of the country's top boulderers. Mike Adams and Dan Varian
both helped the author with the South West section generally, and Godrevy in
particular, and seem to have a high regard for the region's merits.
I'm sure any boulderer or
keen rock climber will find this book to be an invaluable travelling
companion and it will no doubt help raise the profile of numerous
under-rated bouldering spots throughout the country. It may also be
of interest to mention that within a week of the pre-order copies of
Boulder Britain becoming available (mid-December 2011) I was
bumping into climbers out and about with it – a telling sign of how
useful and much needed this guidebook is.
Boulder Britain: The
Essential Guide to British Bouldering is published by Ape Index
and is available from the usual outlets or via their website,
www.apeindex.com,
at a price of £25.00 – ISBN 978-0-9570578-0-7.
