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"New On Chockstone"

Karl Bromelow

2-Oct-2009
6:46:44 AM

What happened to Chockstone to halt the "New On Chockstone" postings, at the bottom of the
homepage, in May of 2006? Prior to that it seems that there was a regular flow of articles. Please
excuse my ignorance of the history but I'm new to this forum. Did Chockstone run out of steam
sometime around then? Is it now largely a climbing discussion forum with some old guides?

On a slightly wider subject, would it be fair to suggest that, generally speaking, some of the energy
and momentum that rockclimbing in Australia enjoyed through the late 80's and the 90's has dissipated
and interest has waned? Was that a golden age of international visits and ground breaking ascents
from both locals and foreigners? Places like Araps and the Grampians don't seem to figure in the
international media so much now as then.

Or is it just my energy that's running a little low these days?

ajfclark

2-Oct-2009
8:06:31 AM

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Mike puts more energy into photography than climbing these days. That might be why the news dropped off...

There has been some updates to the site in the meantime (some new tech tips for instance) but they were never added to the new on chockstone section.

Karl Bromelow

2-Oct-2009
8:47:19 AM

You're right the site author admits as much in "About Chockstone"...."I've been climbing since 1993,
but these days I'm more interested in taking photos than climbing". Fair enough he takes a good
photo.

But linked in with that wider note I just looked at the VCC website and they seem to have a similar
thing going on. Click on "Articles" for articles, reviews and trip reports and you get one 4 line "article"
about a self-rescue session at Dog Rocks in early 2008 and one 4 paragraph entry about a trip to
Werribee Gorge in 2006. That's it.

I don't really understand the lack of material being published considering the huge amount of traffic on
the Chockstone forum. That kind of implies there is enough appetite in the Victorian climbing
community (small as it is) for climbing on the internet. Trawling for an internet presence in the way of
published material turns up very little though. That implies the opposite is true.

ajfclark

2-Oct-2009
9:09:51 AM

I'm not exactly sure of the history on the VCC website. I get the impression is has been somewhat neglected of late until very recently and there has been more pressing issues to deal with. Incidentally, the horrendous load speed issues the site was having have just been resolved.

In terms of content, I get the impression a lot ofpublishers struggle to get regular contributions. Look at the trip report threads on here for example, there was a call a while back for more TRs. I think there's quite a few climbers that are happier to just go climbing than spend the time writing about it.

I do tend to write up my trips for my own records at least but I don't submit many TRs to Argus or here because a lot of them end up as a summary something like "I climbed this and then this and then this and then this" which is a little dull to read.

Sometimes other things happen (like discovering a bearded dragon in the middle of the pines) which lends itself to something more interesting (like pondering on the fierceness of this Wimmera dragon vs some others) and I'll submit something but those happen less that the climbing trips where I just go climbing.

bl@ke

2-Oct-2009
11:37:44 AM

Im not to sure about some of the locals (shudder). I woulds happily write up more TR's, buuut i dont get out climbing much these days :(. Would love to do a bit of work in the "guide" section, writing a guide is something iv always wanted to do.

WM

2-Oct-2009
12:51:04 PM

bl@ke - in that case you should get stuck into contributing to ACA. you could go down in history as the guy who wrote the ACA guide for The Rock, for example (no one has done it yet). Start here!! --> http://www.climb.org.au/index.php?page_id=10&state=NSW

in response to the OP, I'd suggest CRUX mag attracted most climbing articles in the past few years - it's voluminous nature might have exhausted the community's creative juices for a little while. since Crux's demise there seems to be no momentum for anything more than Rock mag, yet.

Wendy

2-Oct-2009
12:53:31 PM

On 2/10/2009 WM wrote:

>
>in response to the OP, I'd suggest CRUX mag attracted most climbing articles
>in the past few years - it's voluminous nature might have exhausted the
>community's creative juices for a little while. since Crux's demise there
>seems to be no momentum for anything more than Rock mag, yet.

I still have a few things that were intended for Crux but have nowhere to go to ... well i suppose they could go to Rock, but it just doesn't have the same feel ...

wallwombat

2-Oct-2009
1:21:26 PM

On 2/10/2009 ajfclark wrote:
>I do tend to write up my trips for my own records at least but I don't
>submit many TRs to Argus or here because a lot of them end up as a summary
>something like "I climbed this and then this and then this and then this"
>which is a little dull to read.

I find the thing with trip reports is, it really depends on the subject matter. Long trad climbs and mountain routes make for interesting trip reports, whereas one about a days sport climbing ends up sounding like someone describing what is in their fridge.

Of course it does depend on the writer. Photos always help too. A well written trip report with a little humour and some good photos can even turn a day bouldering into a interesting read.

A few years ago, a guy on CragX wrote a trip report about going to the gym. Believe it or not it wasn't as lame as it sounds (it probably was) and everyone got a lot of value out of it. If it had photos it would have been an all time classic.

Also a lot of the better trip reports end up being links to other sites, which is OK, I suppose but isn't really the same as one posted ON the site.

What we need is Capt Mulch to get back into it. Mulchy can write a trip about a trip to the bottleshop, include photos and make it interesting.

Hang on! That is interesting.

evanbb

2-Oct-2009
3:18:07 PM

On 2/10/2009 Wendy wrote:

>I still have a few things that were intended for Crux but have nowhere
>to go to ... well i suppose they could go to Rock, but it just doesn't
>have the same feel ...

Yeah, I felt the same loss Wendy. I fixed it though by blogging through Wordpress.

IdratherbeclimbingM9

6-Oct-2009
3:40:21 PM

On 2/10/2009 Kaj wrote:
>I don't really understand the lack of material being published considering the huge amount of traffic on the Chockstone forum. That kind of implies there is enough appetite in the Victorian climbing community (small as it is) for climbing on the internet. Trawling for an internet presence in the way of published material turns up very little though. That implies the opposite is true.

Building on wallwombat's post higher in the thread, I would suggest it also depends on the nature of the material being published.
The 'New on Chockstone' material consists largely of guidebooks and interviews. These both require a lot of effort on the part of those involved, and are not things knocked out quickly.

I agree that most people would sooner be climbing than writing about it.
It is also interesting to note how the pendulum of writing creativity swings back and forth over time. There are threads that showed quite a bit of creativity (short stories, and the poems threads come to mind readily), that have temporarily gone dormant, due to the changing demographic of participants in Chockstone.
Sooner or later I expect that those threads will be revived, but I don't see anyone putting their hand up soon for conducting an interview;... ~> although I am fairly sure that Chockstone Site Author would be happy to include it/them if done to similar standard as existing.

Also interesting to note where people prefer their material to go too (supporting Crux / Rock etc), and I recall similar input when the last Blue Mtns Climbing Festival was on.
It is easy to take our resource (Chockstone) for granted as it is 'always there', but likewise I think people tend to end up in a degree of routine that precludes making extra effort to resource the resources!

bl@ke

6-Oct-2009
5:21:01 PM

I think they should interview me.

ajfclark

6-Oct-2009
5:27:29 PM

Who is 'they' Blake?

Also, what do you do in your spare time?

Why do you climb?

What did you have for breakfast?

Sarah Gara

6-Oct-2009
5:32:37 PM

and that's why we need quality interviews...eek!

Actually i think you'd be a good one to take on that role Andrew.. you'd have to put a bit more thought into it of course. x

bl@ke

6-Oct-2009
6:25:41 PM

Ah good old "they", i think they would be mike??

In my spare time i generally think about climbing, play with my gear (chuckles). I just live to climb really and occasionly take time out to pay a bit of attention in class or read a book.

I climb because its the best sport ever! I wont go with what people usually say and say it has everything to challenge you, it dosnt but it does have quite alot of different ways to go about it and succeed at it.

My breakfast usually consistes of uncle tobys Fruity Bites (wild berry flavour) but thismorning we were out so i had to settle for thick cut raisin toast with heaps of marg and a milo. When im at Arapiles i usualy have an Up and Go with a packet of fruit in jelly some chocolate and a packet of Uglies, I organise it the night before in the order i will eat it so it releases its goodness while im halfway up my first route of the day and powers me to lunch which consists of......

:) did i pass

Sabu

6-Oct-2009
8:39:23 PM

On 6/10/2009 bl@ke wrote:
>Ah good old "they", i think they would be mike??
>
>In my spare time i generally think about climbing, play with my gear (chuckles).
>I just live to climb really and occasionly take time out to pay a bit of
>attention in class or read a book.
>
>I climb because its the best sport ever! I wont go with what people usually
>say and say it has everything to challenge you, it dosnt but it does have
>quite alot of different ways to go about it and succeed at it.
>
>My breakfast usually consistes of uncle tobys Fruity Bites (wild berry
>flavour) but thismorning we were out so i had to settle for thick cut raisin
>toast with heaps of marg and a milo. When im at Arapiles i usualy have
>an Up and Go with a packet of fruit in jelly some chocolate and a packet
>of Uglies, I organise it the night before in the order i will eat it so
>it releases its goodness while im halfway up my first route of the day
>and powers me to lunch which consists of......
>
>:) did i pass

no you are supposed to say your breakfast at the pines consists of the scrapings from
nights dinner and whatever the neighbours threw away, which gives you a great excuse
to laze around at camp instead of climb!

bl@ke

6-Oct-2009
9:17:49 PM

On 6/10/2009 Sabu wrote:

>>

>>
>
>no you are supposed to say your breakfast at the pines consists of the
>scrapings from
>nights dinner and whatever the neighbours threw away, which gives you
>a great excuse
>to laze around at camp instead of climb!

I left that bit out.. did i mention that i stoll all my breakfast ingredients from sleeping euro's?

pmonks

7-Oct-2009
3:49:37 AM

Sleeping Euros? At Araps?? They're usually up at the crack of dawn french freeing some moderate classics!!

There are 17 messages in this topic.