Book - South Island Rock?
30 April 2010 - 11:26pm
To cut a long story short, I was surprised to find this website...
http://www.thecrag.com/web?DN=1&P=11872213
It lists 62 routes in my area I had little to no idea about. (I was told there were only a few old ones and the bolts were dodgey) I suspect they may be listed in South Island Rock... I've heard the book is old and outdated, but I'll buy it if some one can confirm that the climbs have indeed been copied from the book. Does it also list 253 routes at Elephant Rocks? Anyone know if the book is going to be revised in the future?
Rock Deluxe of course only lists Elephant Rocks and Hulk Hogan. Is there much difference in the grades of the boulder problems between the books by the way?
Also some talk of bouldering competitions in the area like 10 years ago and older? Anyone remember? Who ran them? Doubt it was local.
1 May 2010 - 6:43pm
#2
Faulty Towers huh. Yeah spotted that today, still made out the competition lines from the road. Interesting what you said about the French international teams, because the farmer I spoke to out there today also talked about them, trouble is, he reckoned it was only 10 years ago! (Not 20) I've been told it was late 80's.
Doug Carson I think is good mates with Murray Judge. Murray is a bit of a mentor for us younger blokes, he's still keen as for climbing and exploring. He's a real good guy. I think it was both of them that kind of pioneered Elephant Rocks or at least cleaned it up. He told me elephant rocks almost got closed at one stage but they fixed it up with the farmer.
I have no idea where this Willow Wall is, which accounts for 26 of the 62 climbs. Maybe it's situated after the Y intersection on the way to the hulk hogan on the right side of the road. I think the boulders below there might be called Rhino's Rocks. It's possible these climbs and grades are on the verge of being "lost." I'll talk to Murray, there is obviously a whole lot of info about this area that I guess he's just never thought we'd be interested in hearing.
Think it's important to try and collect the old guide books of the area though, it wouldn't surprise me if those 62 were on the way to being extinct, if it's only the old guys that know about them, and they aren't in new guide books, especially with the trend to bouldering. I'm out that area a lot and while I bump into boulderers all the time, never seen a single rope on the island cliffs. We might look at creating a guide book for North Otago. Some of elephant rocks needs revision in my opinion hard out V1's and soft V3's not making sense, some routes close together are too hard to tell apart.
The old Canterbury guide book is rumoured to cover North Otago, any one can confirm whats in it? Any one got any old guide books of the area I can copy/beg/buy/scan? 
1 May 2010 - 9:44pm
#3
I would imagine Murray or Nick S has some of them ( I know Nick did a bit of climbing around there with Steve Dawson)but the early ones had less info than current ones. Ivans Elephant Rocks (Duntroon) is prob the most accurate in terms of bouldering grades
Willow Wall according to S.I Rock is "an extremely pocky overhanging wall down near the river" -It is near Sin City
2 May 2010 - 10:17am
#4
The first edition of South Island Rock probably has the most comprehensive guide to routes in the Duntroon area. It's in the Oamaru Library.
There were a couple of good routes around the place, but the bolts are getting pretty old and should be treated with suspicion or outright contempt.
Fill up a car and make the drive to Hanging Rock if you're keen to do some good climbing on bolts.
4 May 2010 - 12:52pm
#6
i can think of where sin city is but not the willow wall ill ask around for you man i would be quite keen to know
7 May 2010 - 12:02pm
#7
South Island Rock Rev 2 has no listings for elephant rocks and hulk hogan bouldering problems. I found that out after I purchased it :(
Looks like I will have to photocopy the libraries book. Unless anyone can part with a Rev 1? 
Good scans of the Duntroon pages would be greatly appreciated.
Ask Doug Carson.
The first competition climbing event took place outside on some routes in island valley at Fawlty Towers - lines were drawn on the rock to show the boundaries and there were two French national climbing team members there and one female - the top route was around Gr 29. I have photos somewhere. 1988 possibly.Climbs were "manufactured".
These climbs are in the 2000 edit of SI Rock and may have been on the old John Davis Geocities site (he still has all the data) some not all are in the 2004 edition.
We had several boulder comps at Elephant Rocks - at one around Dec 1990 I think I recall because I went there with a friend Marty Hunter and he snapped a pulley so we went to Mt Cook and did a route on Hicks as he could hold his ice tools.A short fun movie was made there too - you may see a clip somewhere of dozens of climbers piling out of a small car!!
As an aside I once started a spreadsheet of what crags were covered by what guidebooks as there were/are some covered by a variety of guides and some only in old ones. I never finished it !!
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