Guides to Rock Climbing in New Zealand – On-Line
6 January 2010 - 5:16pm
No offence is intended to “would-be” guidebook editors wishing to publish a complete or a select guide to the South Island or North Island but this system inevitably takes funding away from small local climbing communities and climbing clubs. In some cases, the funds end up in the hands of individuals, business or possibly even a national organization like the NZAC. At lease in the case of the NZAC, it is possible for individuals to get funding for hardware if they can provide a good case.
Outraged? Frustrated? Indifferent?
It makes perfect sense that if people buy a guide for rock climbing in Dunedin or Wanaka or Golden Bay, the money should remain in that area for future route building, maintenance, access and conservation. If the climbing region or area is popular, more people buy the guide, which puts more money into the local resource. This concept serves the entire climbing community better, no matter where they are located within the country. I do not favour a free guide system because progress and quality hardware can be expensive. In my experience, people do a much better job with new routing, route maintenance and conservation when they are funded, as least partially. The Wanaka Rock Climbing Club is a good case study for what can be accomplished when funding is kept in the local area.
Intrigued?
My proposal is simple. The NZAC or other non-profit organization could set up a system to offer individual local climbing guides for a fee, on-line. Then, with some basic accounting, all proceeds go directly back into the local areas to be administered on a local level. Already, NZAC offers the Cleddau Valley guide on-line for a fee. The North Island climbing communities have many guides on-line. It is not that big a jump to offer them all from one easy to use web location. There are details to sort out but the idea has merit.
Greg Johnston - President
Wanaka Rock Climbing Club, Inc.
7 January 2010 - 11:01pm
#2
Hmmm, interesting proposal Greg.
This issue of local vs select guides has of course been fought to the death many times in climbing communities all around the world.
I 'm sure we are all aware of the pros and cons.
I like the idea of having some way of getting funds to the local areas to replace bolts and carry out other work, but I am not sure that guidebook sales is the best way to do it.
I think that one of the fairly recent select guides to the South Island is one of the better things to have happened to South Island climbing, at last we had a guidebook that did the areas justice.
As I am currently in Europe, I have had the recent experience of using local and select guides as a traveling climber and generally, the local guides suck! (This comment is only here for the purpose of bragging that I have just spent the last couple of weeks in El Chorro) I and any other traveling climber do not want to have to buy 10 different shitty guides.
Of course the situation in Wanaka works in terms of getting funds so that the locals can place many, many shiny bomber bolts. This would not work so well in other areas where the climbing community is looser, or more varied.
I was under the impression that the Freeclimb idea works because it is largely focussed on one area, with the idea of attracting climbers to that area, so that certain local businesses had customers. This is of course a slightly different take on ways to get funds back to the people that develop and take care of the crags.
There is certainly more than one way to skin a cat, what are some other ways, aside from guidebook sales to get money to local areas for maintenance?
14 January 2010 - 10:56am
#3
Tena koe, Greg,
I am stoked for the Central climbing community's success with Wanaka Rock--it certainly seems to have helped feed development and rebolting initiatives there.
I just have a couple of thoughts regarding the different situation in the Central North Island.
First, we have a far smaller, looser community of developers spread across many areas, rather than a dedicated group at each area.
Second, producing and maintaining an up-to-date guidebook takes a lot of time and money.
Third, we have far fewer climbers to traffic the crags.
Before Cliff's guides, many of the crags he provided info were vanishing into obscurity and vegetation. Without the publicity generated by those guides, there would have been no enthusiasm for rebolting them, money or no money. Hell, half of Whanganui Bay, the NI's biggest crag, still languishes in jungle and obscurity. The most recent guidebook for the CNI area has been out of print for more than a decade now.
I can understand your concern about how a new select guide might decrease revenue for Wanaka projects, but I likewise can't see a motivated coalition of Radcliffe, Hanging Rock, or Maratoto climbers organising and investing in the production of their own guides. There's that old cliche about the goose and the gander, eh?
What I would personally like to see is a wiki-style guide running off user submitted content with a standardised format, preferably piggybacking off of an established brand like Wikipedia. See www.redriverclimbing.com for an example. If I had any IT skills at all, I'd be keen to try to get something off the ground.
I reckon your proposal has some merit Greg - NZAC would be keen to help make this happen, assuming this is what our members and the wider climbing community want us to do!
would be interested to hear comments from others...
Ollie Clifton
NZAC Exec Officer