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Crag & Route Beta

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How starry do people like their guidebooks?

grangrump

31-Oct-2014
12:22:33 PM

Forget the stars. Just bring back the grim reaper symbol used in earlier ACT guide...


Duang Daunk

31-Oct-2014
12:46:14 PM

On 31/10/2014 pmonks wrote:
>Why the fsck would you be reading the guide cover-to-cover at a crag like
>Pt Perp?? Pick a bowel-loosening feature that you like the look of, look
>it up in the guide and see if it's your cup of tea or not. No one's going
>to ask you to write a 5,000 word literary review on the guidebook afterwards
>ffs!!

Yeh, right on bro. Read it cover to cover as dunny reading material first, then (like this thread), do the 5000 thing on chocky afterwards.

On 31/10/2014 grangrump wrote:
>Forget the stars. Just bring back the grim reaper symbol used in earlier ACT guide...

Good idea.

ODH
>How starry do people like their guidebooks?

Eh bro, I'd like my favourite rockspiders, er stars (I have decided on three!), to grace the following pages of the ACT Select.
stugangous on the cover, simey of konka Kerchoo fame as centrefold (with belly button exposed for M75's benefit), and my good mate estuardo on the arse end cover with a big cobwebby icon on him. Apart from the plain truth of this, it will save him being ripped out as a poo ticket too early in his star role.

One Day Hero

1-Nov-2014
1:21:54 AM

On 31/10/2014 Duang Daunk wrote:
>and my good mate estuardo on the
>arse end cover with a big cobwebby icon on him.

That got a laugh out of me.

If anyone actually wants to come to canberra and take good quality photos of themselves climbing, I'll almost guarantee that you'll get published. We haven't exactly been overwhelmed with photo submissions.

One Day Hero

1-Nov-2014
1:41:32 AM

So it seems that a bit of a consensus is that we should be really picky about 3 star routes and slightly more liberal with 1 and 2 stars? That should work pretty well for short term visitors who don't want to faff around with anything but the best stuff.

Here's another one. We've been toying with the idea of "compressing" the starring at sport crags. i.e. everything gets either 1 or 2 stars, nothing gets 3. The reasoning is that there tends to be naturally less variation in quality at sport crags, and also, once you're at a sport crag you might as well try everything in your grade range anyway since one tends to get quite a few routes done in a day. Thoughts?

One Day Hero

1-Nov-2014
1:51:16 AM

On 31/10/2014 martym wrote:
>If you're an international coming to Australia for a few months, mostly
>climbing, wouldn't you expect a 3star route at one crag to be of similar
>quality to another?

That's not a workable idea. 1 star Taipan routes are better than the best routes at most cliffs in the country. Simey even had to adjust the star exchange rate within his Gramps guide to avoid compression at all the other crags caused by the ridiculously high quality of Taipan.

One Day Hero

1-Nov-2014
2:00:04 AM

On 31/10/2014 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:

>who do you think is your prime buying audience as this may affect the answer
>to your question?

The new market is hopefully local climbers who have felt intimidated by the tricky approaches and sometimes difficult route finding on the granite. Also, and this is a bit of a long shot, interstate climbers who haven't ever seen photos/heard about canberra climbing and don't even really know it's there. I'm not kidding myself that internationals are ever going to show up.

Most of the sales will probably be to crusty old slabbers who already own the last two editions, and know all the routes off by heart.

One Day Hero

1-Nov-2014
2:06:14 AM

On 30/10/2014 Wendy wrote:
>Your percentage thing is all a bit wierd, Damo. What do you do when you
>get to 20% 1 star routes and start arguing over which piece of mank gets
>the last few stars because you want to make 30%???? If the routes are good,
>give them a star (or 2 or 3 as appropriate).

It's not weird at all. Simey and Rob (pt perp) are tight with their stars, Neil and Simon Carter are a bit more liberal, the guy who did the Frog guide threw confetti around like he was at a wedding. They've all made conscious or unconscious decisions about what a star is worth (and its worth different things in different books).

Wendy

1-Nov-2014
8:11:58 AM

On 1/11/2014 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 30/10/2014 Wendy wrote:
>>Your percentage thing is all a bit wierd, Damo. What do you do when you
>>get to 20% 1 star routes and start arguing over which piece of mank gets
>>the last few stars because you want to make 30%???? If the routes are
>good,
>>give them a star (or 2 or 3 as appropriate).
>
>It's not weird at all. Simey and Rob (pt perp) are tight with their stars,
>Neil and Simon Carter are a bit more liberal, the guy who did the Frog
>guide threw confetti around like he was at a wedding. They've all made
>conscious or unconscious decisions about what a star is worth (and its
>worth different things in different books).

It's weird because it's setting a quota that things won't necessarily fit. You aren't conveniently going to find 50% of the routes in the book are really worth 1 star, so you start making up which is the better of the not very good to get a star. What is so wrong with considering each route on it's individual merit?

I do have a problem with this crag relative star system. Basically, if a crag is shît, you don't give 3 stars to the best route there because it's still shît. It's like when someone posted that excerpt from the Crag of all the 3 star routes over 28 and you rather laughably have routes in the Hole (and I will continue to disagree with Stugang that his baby in that disgusting, manky manufactured crag could possibly be 3 star even if I can't climb it!) and Kangaroo Point on it . Whilst I agree you can't just not give any indication of quality because something doesn't compare to the best of the best, the best routes at a mediocre crag aren't really 3 star either. 3 stars should at least be the best routes in the guidebook, and if the whole guide covers mediocre rubbish, maybe there shouldn't be any. What you end up doing is creating a disguised too bloody many stars system, where 3 stars at a great crag is really 17 whilst 3 stars at another is really only 0.5.

How about crappy crags get a yawn symbol to suggest that seeing you've bothered to get there, you may as well stay awake long enough to climb these ones?


ChuckNorris

1-Nov-2014
3:26:24 PM

The most comparable route in oz is the ogive which has 2 stars. So 3 for stugang extension sounds about right.

Wendy

1-Nov-2014
6:08:32 PM

On 1/11/2014 Stugang wrote:
>The most comparable route in oz is the ogive which has 2 stars. So 3 for
>stugang extension sounds about right.

Your extension on the Ogive? I know you're practiced at manufacturing, but that is impressive.

martym

1-Nov-2014
6:47:26 PM

The only three star routes in sydney are banned for climbers


Miguel75

1-Nov-2014
10:09:39 PM

On 31/10/2014 Duang Daunk wrote:
>... SNIP... Eh bro, I'd like my favourite rockspiders, er stars (I have decided on
>three!), to grace the following pages of the ACT Select.
>stugangous on the cover, simey of konka Kerchoo fame as centrefold (with
>belly button exposed for M75's benefit)...

Damo set a pretty high standard, belly button wise, so I'll wait until I see Simey's before allocating any stars.


ChuckNorris

1-Nov-2014
11:30:55 PM

There you go even cynical Wendy cracked and admits stugang willich is an impressive masterpiece.

Respect for your honesty. Boo yah.

Da gang.


IdratherbeclimbingM9

16-Sep-2016
10:32:26 AM

On 30/10/2014 One Day Hero wrote:
>So, given that Neil has started a thread on stars which has a couple of
>guidebook authors chiming in, how starry do people think we should we make
>the new A.C.T. select guide?
>
>It's looking like being about a thousand routes, +/- a couple of hundred.
>(snip)

Is this masterpiece out for public consumption yet, or did I miss something?

dalai

16-Sep-2016
2:14:51 PM

On 16/09/2016 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:

>Is this masterpiece out for public consumption yet, or did I miss something?

I believe it is and with all Damo's routes given 7 stars. ;-)

Jayford4321

16-Sep-2016
8:11:50 PM

On 16/09/2016 dalai wrote:
>On 16/09/2016 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>
>>Is this masterpiece out for public consumption yet, or did I miss something?
>
>I believe it is and with all Damo's routes given 7 stars. ;-)

If Ur right, it soundz like odius's last taswegia trip did something 2 his ego.

widewetandslippery

16-Sep-2016
9:05:23 PM

I reckon u have 11, 17, 21, 23 and a star if worthwhile. I normaly climb no star 11. The two hardest grad
Es are 17 and 23, 21 is piss easy,


ChuckNorris

16-Sep-2016
9:24:44 PM

Wws - wot fish ya get around rushcutters? I know you hob nob round there most weekends. Tackle? Bait? Lures? Need an answer soon as packing now

widewetandslippery

16-Sep-2016
9:34:51 PM

Now we are talking. Bream, flaties and have caught flounder and leather jackets. You can get dawn/dusk surface fish runs. I have had best luck with unweighted pilchard cubes on light line and vary weights of jigs with soft plastic. Slimey mackeral from paddys markets is favourite bait. 6 to 8lb line

widewetandslippery

16-Sep-2016
9:38:43 PM

If at rushcutters cast to the base of moored boats.

There are 43 messages in this topic.