New North Wales Bouldering guidebook launch!

On Saturday I attended a meetup and party to celebrate the long awaited and much anticipated launch of the new 2017 North Wales Bouldering Guidebook!

Now available from V12 Outdoor.

North Wales has some of the best bouldering in the world. In 2004 Simon Panton published the first proper bouldering guidebook to the area:

I can remember my excitement 12 years ago (in 2006) getting hold of a copy. I grew up in North Wales and was just starting to lead climb outside. The guide opened my mind to the possibility of bouldering - another style of climbing I could try. Over the proceeding years I've visited almost all areas in the old book and enjoyed climbing many fine problems and visiting some special hidden areas of forrest and mountainside I would not have otherwise explored.



The old guidebook has been out of print for a number of years. In recent times we've relied on the treasure-trove of information on the NorthWalesBouldering.com website for updated info and the latest news on the endless stream of new discoveries tirelessly updated by Simon Panton. Every visit to the site would inspire me to get out and checkout the new problems springing up everywhere, the enthusiasm of Simon and other pioneers was infectious.

I was fortunate enough to be on the 'inner circle' of NWB, over the past few years I had the enjoyment of proof reading sections of the new guide. Each time a new .pdf teasingly arrived in my inbox I was blown away by the sheer number of new problems and the quality and thoroughness of the documenting and editing. Whenever I could I tried to visit the new areas and occasionally helped with some photos and corrections.  What was obvious was that the new guide was going to be a BEAST! The old guide contained about 1000 problems, the new guide has over 4000 problems weighing in at 1.1Kg!

On Saturday I attended the launch bouldering meetup and evening party to celebrate the new guidebook. We enjoyed a sunny day out at Porth Ysgo followed by an evening of entertainment at The Caban Cyf, a fantastic community enterprise office space / cafe in Brynrefail. Top effort to Simon for arranging and an even bigger congratulations for pulling off a monumental effort to produce the finest bouldering guide book North Wales has ever seen. Will it ever be bettered?!

Here is a short clip of some drone footage I shot at Porth Ysgo on Saturday, unfortunately it was a bit windy (and I was a bit busy bouldering!) so I didn't get as much footage as I would have liked but at least it sets the scene:


I'm now as psyched as ever to get out and enjoy some of many fine new boulder problems in N.Wales...just as soon as the rain stops!