Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Author

Bouldering circuits at arapiles

mankrambler

6-Apr-2008
5:58:00 AM

Wouldn't this be good?!

....a group of experienced local climbers/guide book authors could get together and carefully plan out a sequence of problems, moving from boulder to boulder, where all problems in a "circuit" are around the same grade. Each problem is located near the previous one; these circuits could move through the whole central gully region.

The model is Fontainbleau, where the circuits make the whole place MUCH better than it would be without them. Note that this system is very different to the three easy/medium/hard grading system suggested in the Arapiles boulder grade topics, becuase problems in a circuit are very close in grade to one another. The trad climbers in the Peak district UK, have also recently started to do this for the superb bouldering found at the base of their cliffs.

e.g. at Font, my initial guestimations of approximate Ewbank gradings for the colour coded circuits would be:
white: 10-13
yellow: 14-17
blue: 18-21
red: 21-24
(harder problems are not part of circuits, and are given bouldering grades)
(I realize that other colours exist at font too)

It may not be necessary to paint numbers on the boulders, if the guide book is good enough.

muki

6-Apr-2008
10:16:11 AM

Wow what a great Idea, wish I'd thought of it!

Duncan

6-Apr-2008
9:51:06 PM

It works at Font due to the sheer concentration of problems. I think you'd do a lot more walking than climbing at araps. Plus, the markings at Font are an established tradition. Anyone trying to paint boulders at araps would probably (deservedly) be castrated.

mankrambler

7-Apr-2008
6:39:54 AM

On 6/04/2008 Duncan wrote:
>It works at Font due to the sheer concentration of problems.

I think it is concentrated enough in the central gully region as some of the boulders have a number of problems at the right grade. The lower concentration of problems might help fit all the problems in on a 2D map/topo in a guide book! (the 2D maps of the font boulders work well, but they have trouble listing all the problems that way.) Maybe google maps/earth could help for tracing the topos. Also, GPS coordinates could be listed in a guide book for each boulder.

>do a lot more walking than climbing at araps. Plus, the markings at Font
>are an established tradition. Anyone trying to paint boulders at araps
>would probably (deservedly) be castrated.

It may not be necessary to even mark the rock with paint if the guide book topo was accurate enough. But the paint does not much damage to the rock, at least not as much as the bolts already do at Arapiles, so it may be acceptable. Depends on concensus.

TLockwood

7-Apr-2008
9:12:36 AM

IMO paint does as much damage as bolts in a visual/aesthetical sense

rodw

7-Apr-2008
9:19:15 AM

Just install a painted ring bolt at the base of each problem.

mankrambler

7-Apr-2008
9:21:34 AM

On 7/04/2008 TLockwood wrote:
>IMO paint does as much damage as bolts in a visual/aesthetical sense

fair enough. Araps is not exactly very French anyway. I think I would prefer not to see paint too, it seems too synthetic, and would be unnecessary with a good guide.

mankrambler

7-Apr-2008
9:50:59 PM

On 6/04/2008 bomber pro wrote:
>Wow what a great Idea, wish I'd thought of it!

I realized you mentioned font earlier. I thought it might be useful to have a separate thread about it, as it might be considered separate to the other guide book discussion. Also, the easy medium hard system discussed for the current guide book, is quite different to the font system.

muki

7-Apr-2008
11:08:28 PM

I wrote this in the post about bouldering grades at Arapiles, and how to address the issue.
The easy/medium/hard system is the one with colour coded circuits as used in France, but they use
more than 3 colours, my idea was "quite different" because I was suggesting it as a model for
Arapiles.
Hence my comment "this would keep everyone happy"
It would require a detailed topo of the area and the colours flowing through the map to detail the circuit.
And not paint on the boulders as some have mentioned, that's such a sad idea it ranks up there with
GPS to find the boulders

>I really like the font system of having a circuit listed and a colour coded system of easy/medium/hard
>and the individual grade given to each problem as well, this makes for a great day out with mates
>doing a circuit and the potential for each member of the group to look at the colour of the problems to
>find out if the boulder on the circuit suits them or not, this would keep everyone happy.

mankrambler

8-Apr-2008
12:02:38 AM

On 7/04/2008 bomber pro wrote:

>The easy/medium/hard system is the one with colour coded circuits as used
>in France, but they use
>more than 3 colours, my idea was "quite different" because I was suggesting
>it as a model for
>Arapiles.

the important thing is that the problems selected for a circuit are all around the same level of difficulty. I don't think this was clear before, because I think Simey was suggesting putting all problems into one of these classes (correct me on that, if i'm wrong). With circuits, only the problems of about the right grade would go into the circuit.

>Hence my comment "this would keep everyone happy"
>It would require a detailed topo of the area and the colours flowing through
>the map to detail the circuit.
>And not paint on the boulders as some have mentioned, that's such a sad
>idea it ranks up there with
>GPS to find the boulders

They probably thought using a guide book for bouldering was sad a few years ago (some still do). Both GPS to locate areas and paint works well at Font. Even though most folks don't want it at Arapiles (myself included), there's no need not to consider it. Is the whole of Font sad?

Duncan

8-Apr-2008
2:11:34 AM

Araps is not Font. Paint should NOT be considered. It will be considered graffiti and vandalism by non-climbers, and a good portion of climbers too. Personally I don't think it'll work, but good luck to you if you want to try. Just don't go painting anything unless you have a penchant for tar and feathers.

muki

8-Apr-2008
8:30:33 AM

It may work at font due to the scale of the area covered in the guide book, it's many square kilometres of
boulderfields some in deep forests, hence the need for such a detailed map/guide, but Arapiles is much
more simple and easy to navigate, paint is NOT needed, and with a well drawn topo neither is GPS.

There are 12 messages in this topic.