Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Rockclimbs Around Melbourne guidebook 20-Jan-2011 At 10:36:57 AM OSP

Message

Hi All,

Thanks for the great feedback on the guide. We are really pleased with it although as with all of our books we always think we can do better! We wanted to try a new format with this book - putting it in landscape so as to take advantage of the fact that many of the cliffs are shorter. The spiral bound is also a first for us. The benefits of this are that the topos can be seen completely flat - perfect in the case of the double page spread. The pages can also be flipped around. With regards to the durability of the spiral binding - time will tell and your feedback on this will be greatly appreciated. It is enough of a concern that we will be monitoring it - should the cons outweigh the pros, we have designed the layout as such that it can be stitch bound for the next edition if it fails to live up to expectation. We also wanted to bring onto the market a really decently priced guide that covers the selected climbs of many of the areas. At $29.95 the guide definately falls into the decently priced category - stitch bound would substantially push the RRP up. VCC guides are still great for comprehensive coverage and would think that this guide would be a companion to those guidebooks.

And in answer to some of the questions re Blue Haze Peak and any new routes....read away....
Falcons Lookout has been almost completely reworked. Some of the routes have been rewritten, and all of the bolts are now indicated on the topos. There are a few new minor new routes that have not appeared in print before. At Mt Beckworth there have been a couple of new routes added and many new descriptions. Bolt anchors have also been placed on top of the Main Wall. Half a dozen previously unrecorded (or new) routes have been added to Dog Rocks and Wabbit Wocks at Mt Alexander. Camels Hump has also gone through some major topo reworking. Again, a few previously unrecorded (or new) worthwhile additions have appeared, grades have been changed on a few routes and the topos are now much clearer. Black Hill has also undergone quite a few changes. Due to the efforts of people like Mark Rewi and Steven Wilson there are a bunch of new climbs and some of the older routes have been rebolted and rap anchors placed on top of a couple of tors. In the Cathedral Range there have been quite a few changes and additions. Since the fires Sugarloaf Peak has had a complete reworking of four or five climbs left of Cherrys Flake. This area has been climbed all over for nearly 60 years but the sometimes poor rock and long runouts on the few recorded routes made the climbing very serious at the grade. The route descriptions in previous guides were also flawed so climbers were always getting lost. The climbs now recorded are on generally much better rock, have good belays (a bolt was placed on Baghdad [10], to make the belay safer) and are generally well protected. South Jawbones has had a couple of routes added or straightened out and the topos reworked. Blue Haze Peak is a new cliff which has about a dozen new climbs recorded between grade 11 and 21. North Jawbones has also undergone lots of rewriting. Previously unrecorded (in print) routes include Cadence (18), Captains of Industry (18) and Travelling Home (13). On the Left Buttress, Jerry-Pot, Jerry-Pot Direct and Junglescope (for example) have been completely rewritten.

Thanks again and keep the feedback coming.

The team at OSP