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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

 Page 3 of 4. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 72
Author
The new Blue Mountains guidebook

muki
11-Apr-2007
9:34:59 PM
On 11/04/2007 n00bpwn3r wrote
>Your not going to say it's bad, seeing as your the one selling it and
>taking the profit.
>Any of the royalties coming chockstone way to help pay to run this site?
>Or you happy to take the advertising for free?

Troll!... get back under the bridge/stone you crawled out from under.

On a more pleasant note, nice looking guide book Simon, can't wait to get it and then make the
pilgrimage to the bluey's to use it.
Tho I'll have to apply for a visa bieng a mexican and all!
gfdonc
11-Apr-2007
11:03:36 PM
On 11/04/2007 anthonyk wrote:
> i don't think my comments are out
>of line.

Good evening everyone. Since I started this debate on another thread not so far away, I'm happy to chip back in.

My initial point was to query the mandated policy with the intent of allowing the moderators to clarify the situation and also to come up with something that is considered fair in the opinions of the community that this forum serves.

As I noted (partly with sarcasm), if advertising (say in particular for guidebooks and mags) is allowed then let's state that and also allow the rule to apply to publications regardless of whether any of the moderators have a financial or hobbyist interest.

But (say) allowing the new Bluies/Blueys guide to be promoted here because some of the publishers have some links to Chockstone, but also (say) not allowing a WA guide (or worse, another NSW guide) to be promoted because of a lack of those links does not seem fair or to be really serving the climbing community as a whole.

There's been some passion in the debate which is never a bad thing. At the end of the journey, though, can we state where we've arrived?
regards

anthonyk
11-Apr-2007
11:34:56 PM
On 11/04/2007 One Day Hero wrote:
>Here's a bit, I've only had a brief look at the guide and it looks great.
>One thing that did jump out at me though was the big move to four and five
>star routes.

yeah thats confusing.. and gonna be a lot of contention about the starring i'm sure! personally i don't really get it, climbs are so subjective and some people like some more than others, i think going beyond "good", "great", "classic" into more detail about how good routes supposedly are is trying to put too much detail in where there isn't really any detail. but having gone that way i would've thought it would take a helluva lot for a climb to make the 5-star grade, but i've already seen a few i'd scratch my head about.

anyway more stars to argue over at the pub. but it does make the poor unstarred ones feel kinda lonely too i'm sure.
simey
12-Apr-2007
8:44:26 AM
Impressive guide which sets new standards. The layout is clean and attractive and overall the book has a really good feel to it.

Any criticisms I make here are extremely minor in the scheme of things.

I'm not that familiar with using 5 star ratings, but I would have thought that 5 stars should be reserved for only a handful of routes of exceptional quality. A climb with 5 stars should be a stand-out in the whole of the Blue Mountains. I was extremely surprised to see the 5-star rating thrown around like confetti and given to dozens and dozens of climbs. Wally's World (22) and Bareback (25) are a couple of examples not worthy of 5 stars in my opinion.

And then to see such classics as 'I Must Go Down to the Sea Again' (25) only get 3 stars... well I surprised to say the least.

Superb guide, massive undertaking... but the starring needs to find some consistency.

cruze
12-Apr-2007
9:05:14 AM
I thought stars were to keep tourists on the trade routes, so that the real classics were free for the locals...

JJ
12-Apr-2007
9:08:27 AM
Hey Simon,

top work!

Like the old saying goes.......

"you can keep most of the people happy most of the time but you cant keep all of the people happy all of the time."

Everyone was saying a new guide book was overdue and you will always have discrepencies over grading in any guide book. A guidebook is just that........a GUIDE not the gospal.

The 5 stars is a nice change for me, as it helps distinguish between the classics. A change is always refreshing =)

Dont worry about the Trolls Simon, the rest of us appreciate the hard work & time it took to compile the new guide

JJ

HM33
12-Apr-2007
9:20:29 AM
i think everyone appreciates the work that has gone into the guide, i certainly do, but are merely offering some advice to make the next one better.

i personally think the stars defintely need some work. there are quite a few good routes in my opinion that get one or no stars which in a 5 star system makes them out to look crap and a waste of time. people new to an area use the stars as a guide of what routes they should potentially try first.

perhaps thecrag.com quality score would be a good cross reference. even if you dont personally use the site surely the opinion of the 40-50 climbers that have ticked a particular route on that website and given it a quality score should bear some resemblance to the quality of the route.


anthonyk
12-Apr-2007
11:10:21 AM
On 12/04/2007 shawkshaw wrote:
>perhaps thecrag.com quality score would be a good cross reference. even
>if you dont personally use the site surely the opinion of the 40-50 climbers
>that have ticked a particular route on that website and given it a quality
>score should bear some resemblance to the quality of the route.
>

good point. there's only so much of an impression you can get from the handful of people helping catalogue a particular area (and the people they're in contact with), something like thecrag.com allows ratings from a much wider community.
ardnbob
15-Apr-2007
11:18:58 AM
Hi Simon,

Recently bought the new guide and am thoroughly impressed with the amount of work put in to produce it. Hats off to everyone involved!

Could you clarify something for me from the Local Ethics section on p12 please? It says "don't top-rope directly through lower-off anchors as it wears them unnecessarily". Does this mean that you should clip quickdraws onto the anchors and then pass the rope through your draws for top-roping?

Thanks & Great Effort on the Guide

JamesMc
15-Apr-2007
11:39:07 AM
ardnbob,
I'd say you're spot on. Lowering a climber on top rope puts a lot of friction in whatever the rope is running through. It's better that this friction and any resulting abrasion goes into your karabiner, not the ring bolts on the cliff. If hundreds of people top rope directly to the bolts (especially with dirty ropes) then the bolts will wear through and need replacement. Much better if lots of people abraid their karabiners a few times.

And that way if you don't keep your rope clean it's your problem, not everybody elses.

JamesMc
ardnbob
15-Apr-2007
10:09:25 PM
Cool, thanks for the clarification JamesMC.

Cheers.
dalai
15-Apr-2007
10:12:14 PM
Note the notch on the ring in the picture. Toproping directly through the rings speeds up this process...

ardnbob
15-Apr-2007
10:18:37 PM
Yikes! okay point taken, thanks for the graphic example.

BigMike
15-Apr-2007
11:07:35 PM

Ahh memories of the lockers hanging off threads at the tops of climbs in Thailand. Where was that pic taken, what route?

hangdog
16-Apr-2007
2:16:02 PM
Bought the new Bluies guide last week and was very impressed.
As a result decided to try a new Trad destination. Kangaroo Corner seemed pretty good and the access description was clear and concise. That was until we tried to get out there. After flogging through the scrub trying to make the description fit the terrain we bailed out. I had hoped this guidebook had avoided the problem of some of the others in that the access description is written for people who already know how to get there. It appears that this description was not checked prior to print as there were many landmarks that could have been used to let people know whether they were going in the right direction or not. i should have known when the description mentioned a clump of trees as a marker. its the bush there are trees everywhere!!!
don't get me wrong i think that this guide is generally excellent however it can be really frustrating when all this effort has gone into it and you can,t get to the crag via the description.
Not all the descriptions are off as we found the abseil down cave climb at Narrowneck ok, however the guide mentions double rings and all we found were the 2 old belay carrots in the cave.
If anyone knows the way to Kangaroo Corner, let me know ?
WM
16-Apr-2007
4:53:30 PM
The clump of trees was a very obvious landmark when I went there many years ago....its surrounded by a big grassy area! (although I understand there's been fires through there since then). For what its worth my pre-fires access description can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/willmonks/kangaroo_corner.htm

matpalm
16-Apr-2007
8:20:44 PM
i have the previous edition but was surprised that sublime point, and in particular my fav climb sweet dreams, wasn't in it. is sublime point covered in this addition? i'll have to check when i see it in the stores...

HM33
16-Apr-2007
8:52:06 PM
not all of sublime point is in the new one but sweet dreams is

steve

nmonteith
17-Apr-2007
12:05:27 AM
On 11/04/2007 gfdonc wrote:
>But (say) allowing the new Bluies/Blueys guide to be promoted here because
>some of the publishers have some links to Chockstone, but also (say) not
>allowing a WA guide (or worse, another NSW guide) to be promoted because
>of a lack of those links does not seem fair or to be really serving the
>climbing community as a whole.

When did we ever remove posts about other guidebooks? We have allowed every concieavble book
and guide to be mentioned on this forum. Our spam policy is constantly evolving, but the basic rule is
if your FIRST EVER post on chockstone is an attempt to sell retail gear then you will either get
deleted or banned. We encorage everyone to join into this online community in discusions and build a
relationship with other Chockstones members. I will say this again, there ar emore than 80 climbign
retail shops in Australia, if we allowed everyone of them to post on chockstone then the place would
be over-spammed. Compare this to the product of this discussion, Blue Mountains Guidebooks. How
many of these are in the market place? Maybe 2 or 3. How often do retail shops have sales (every
week it seems with Katmandu!), compare this to how often a new Blue Mountains guide gets published
(once very 5 years?). So logic says it is ok to let guidebook authors talk about their product. How else
will they get corrections and feedback? This is the reason we have forums in the first place, to share
information. Enough ranting.. its past midnight and i need sleep.
gfdonc
17-Apr-2007
9:29:09 AM
I suggest modifying the policy to allow advertising from climbing-related publications would be acceptable to all, and not to the detriment of the nature of the forum.

 Page 3 of 4. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 72
There are 72 messages in this topic.

 

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