So now I’m delighted to announce Arapiles, 444 of the Best. This is a very affordable, small-format, selected routes guidebook to Mount Arapiles. The author of this no-nonsense book is local climber Gordon Poultney. This is a complete revamp of some earlier budget Arapiles guidebooks which Gordon, in fact, produced back as far as 1995. This book covers the best routes at all grades, it’s pocket-sized and has the usual high standard of photography, design and production that you’d expect from Onsight Photography.

Arapiles has always been a special place for me personally. It was there that I spent eight months full-time climbing back in 1992/93. It was then, when I was taking climbing photos on my rest days from climbing, that I started regaining my youthful obsession with photography, I really started to find my vision, and made the decision to pursue my photography professionally. Soon after I moved to Natimuk to live and started up Onsight Photography. So it has been a real delight working on this book, getting psyched about climbing there again, and being able to put so many of my photos — both old and new — together into this one book.

I first became interested in this project when I started hearing stories of people climbing at Arapiles without a guidebook, mostly short-term visitors I guess. The need for it was then driven home to me when we were getting out of the car at the Pharos car park one day and three climbers came up to us, looking a bit lost, and asked “Where is Bushranger’s Bluff?”. I kid you not! With a recommended retail price of a mere $19.95 this 132 page book will be a little winner for climbers and travellers wanting a budget guidebook. The small format makes it easy to carry around — even up those multi-pitch routes. And Gordon’s waffle-free route descriptions combined with the “tight” design will help make finding the best routes easy. I’m actually really very very psyched about this book — and I can’t wait to put it to use — and get on many of those classics which I haven’t yet done!

See more information and some sample spreads here. The book is at the printers now. Order now and you’ll get your copy as soon as possible — we expect delivery in late June. Just use the Buy Now buttons below:

Merci beaucoup Grimper!

My earlier news about Chris’s send of this route, the hardest route in the world, is here.

Also inside Ascent this year I have a lavish seven page photo feature on Queensland’s Wild Walls. There is a lot of good climbing and a great scene up in Queensland and I’m psyched to get some coverage for Aussie climbing in the international press like that. Many thanks to everyone up there who helped make this happen (Lee, JJ, Duncan, Rob, Sabina – to just name a few)!

Thanks Rock and Ice. Looks great. I’m psyched!

The photo is Olivier Michellod on the massive Typhoon (7c), in Crystal Cave on Telendos Island, near Kalymnos, Greece.

Screenshot of the video footage of Chris’ send:

And after the send:

No, not following the route! Belayer Joe Kinder winching high enough up the route to lower Chris back to the ground! It is a long route (40+ metres).

Chris with Joe Kinder.

“Hey Chris, good job dude, soft punch…”
Coco Carter with Chris after his La Dura Dura send.

Yeah, great stuff Chris! More soon.

This blog might have been a bit quiet of late but behind the scenes things have as busy as ever. Now I’m delighted to announce that our first project for the year is complete and will soon be released. It is an entirely new guidebook to one of Australia’s best climbing areas — the world class Grampians in western Victoria! The book is titled Grampians Climbing: Sport Crags. We decided to note “Sport Crags” in the title because the book covers the main sport climbing areas, however the book actually covers some 53 crags and the trad routes at those areas are also thoroughly documented.

For details and how to order — see below.

This guidebook was personally a very satisfying project to work on. The Grampians has been one of my favourite places for climbing for the last 25 years and it has long been one of my favourite places anywhere for climbing photography. It was great to be able to use some of that photography (seen and unseen) in the book. This guidebook is long overdue and in the 10 years since the last Grampians guidebook many fantastic new routes have been climbed.

The author of the book is Neil Monteith; he has established scores of new routes in the area and has his finger on the pulse. I really want to take my hat off to Neil here. It was a pleasure and an honour to work with him on this. Neil had been researching and recording Grampians crag and route info for years, he was in a unique position to author this book and backed it up with countless hours of hard work to get this finished. During one research trip to the Grampians in late 2012 Neil visited nearly every one of the crags, checked route descriptions or wrote new ones, detailed the access, and took cliff photos covering many of the crags. There are 53 crags in this book; that’s an incredible amount of work! I’d worked with Neil before on Crux Magazine and other projects but never cease to be impressed by how exceptionally prolific he is and by the quality of his work. Basically Neil made my job on the production side of things as smooth and easy as possible. For some weeks there I was smashing out up to 16 hours a day on this, and Neil was doing the same. The result was that we have created something I’m really proud of but also we finished production in super fast time. Thanks Neil!

We got the book off to the printers in early February, it’s now at final binding stage and we’re expecting delivery around the end of March (probably in stores just after Easter). More information, some sample spreads, and ordering info is below. If you are keen to climb at the Grampians this Autumn then I’d like to help you get your book to you ASAP, so for any Australian mail orders that we receive before the end of March, we will upgrade the postage from normal postage to Express Post at no extra charge.

But first a word about the bush fires. In case you are not yet aware, in late February several lightning strikes started bush fires in the Victoria Range area of the Grampians. These bush fires joined together into one massive blaze. Despite the efforts of hundreds of workers and volunteers and a huge amount of resources that were thrown at it, there were incredibly unfavourable weather conditions and the unruly blaze burned out of control for over a week. It ended up burning through most of Victoria Range. They say bush fires are natural and to a degree necessary for the bush’s long term rejuvenation, but at times this was an very intense blaze and it is sad to think of the devastation that occurred. The Victoria Range is home to a fair portion of the best Grampians rock climbing and many of these areas are detailed in this new guidebook. Be aware that at the moment the entire Victoria Range is closed to climbing. It is important that climbers are patient and respect the closure. The latest word I’ve seen from Parks is that the area will be closed for weeks or months, check for updates on the Parks website here. Apparently some of the climbing areas have received only moderate damage, but at other areas the damage was more severe. It sounds as though that Parks are keen to reopen some of the areas as soon as possible but be aware there is a lot of work that needs to be done — if only to fix some of the damaged access roads. Outside of the Victoria Range there is of course a huge amount of great climbing in the Grampians; fortunately a lot of this climbing is also detailed in this new guidebook.

So here it is, presenting Grampians Climbing: Sport Crags:

• Details 53 crags, including 25 crags which have not been previously published.
• Action photos by Simon Carter and Neil Monteith.
• Numerous cliff photo topos help make route finding a breeze.
• In total over 400 photographs.
• 23 access maps and user-friendly design.
• Over 900 routes in total (500+ sport and 400+ trad or mixed).
• A5 in size, 240 pages, full colour.
• RRP $46.95 (including GST).
• For some sample pages see here.
• Expected availability: 2nd April 2013 (check back here for updates).
• Available from climbing equipment stores in Australia. Mail-order from our online shop here or use the Buy Now buttons below.

Please select the correct delivery option.
Special offer: Order by 31 March 2013 and pay for normal postage — and, as soon as we receive delivery, we’ll send your order by Express Post for no additional charge (offer applies to Australian orders only).

The magazine has an article about great lines, so this photo was a good choice. The route is the 60-metre tufa route Tom et je Ris (32) in Verdon Gorge, France.

A huge shout out of thanks to everyone who contributed. I can’t wait to visit Queensland again next winter — to put this new guidebook to use and enjoy the great climbing!

So here we have it, I’m proud to announce the new South East Queensland Climbing, Selected Crags guidebook!

There’s more information below:

• This is a new guidebook for rock climbing in South East Queensland. There is a wealth of fantastic climbing in the area — and this compact yet comprehensive guide covers many areas not covered by any other current guidebook. It includes some of the best sport and trad climbing South East Queensland has to offer — a must have book for local climbing fanatics and visitors alike.
• Details eight climbing areas: Brooyar, Mount Beerwah, Mount Coolum, Mount Ngungun, Mount Tibrogargan, Mount Tinbeerwah, Serpent and the ever popular Kangaroo Point. All up over 1000 routes!
• Authored by local climber Lee Cujes in collaboration with Ross Ferguson, John O’Brien and others.
• Numerous cliff photo topos, access maps and professional user-friendly design help make route finding a breeze.
• A5 in size, full colour, 168 pages. RRP $36.95 (including GST).
• Available from climbing gear shops or by mail-order from our online shop here.
• And to preview some sample spreads from the book, scroll down to the bottom of the page at this link.

The sculpture is inspired by my image of Tony Barron on Agamemnon (10) at Mount Arapiles, Australia. And here is another one of Paolo’s works, this one comes from my image of Mariona Marti on Titulo Ferretero (7b+), Granada, Spain:

Paolo has produced a lot of beautiful and interesting pieces. See his website here. Thank you Paolo for you work!