Bouldering in the Burren at Oughtdarra

Leaba Na hAon Bho in Oughtdarra is an inland crag a little further up the road pass Ballyryan crags in the Burren (park at the Crumlin stone sign).

It's a bouldering option when Doolin boulders are soaked by sea spray - because the same sea wind that sprays the boulders in Doolin dries those further up inland.

Tayto Boulder - South Face

The cracks and features of this boulder were filed with empty crisp bags. 

This may be part of a local cult but given the proximity to the crags, it is possible that this dirty practice belongs to various social groups including hill walkers and climbers. 

I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

I've removed many of these bags but if you find some more, please take them home. 

The Burren is no one's backyard. 

1. Tayto, 5. Sit-start in the groove crack and go straight up to top out.

2. Mister Tayto, 6a. Same start but traverse the diagonal crack to reach holds beyond the round prow then top out.

3. The man inside the jacket, 6c. Traverse from far left (sit-start on big vertical crack) and link into 'Mister Tayto'.

The reach (6a?)

The cool moves of this problem are actually the start to a trad route called The Reach (E1 6a).
Start to the left of the slab with both hands on a sharp pocket and reach far right for an obvious crack. After this, it's either an easy highball or a jump off back to the bouldering mat.

 Arán Is Im 

1.  Arán, 5. Sit-start on the bottom right of the prow and climb it straight up on sharp holds. Top out.

2.  Im, 6a. Stand start on the left side (north facing) and climb up using a system of cracks. Top out.

3.  Arán is im , 7a. Hard link. Sit-start on Arán but cross leftwards using a slopey crimp (right hand) on the arête to reach the cracks to the left. Then finish up as for Im.

Location

Undeniably Glendo

Glendalough from the sky

The beauty of watching British TV crime series is that you get to see Wicklow, where they are actually shot.

Ailefroide's new Guidebook

Following an old post of Dave, I've been playing with wordle and here's the best picture I have come up with.:




Talking about the Short Span, Dave the Flan has updated his PDF guide of the bouldering in Ireland - that's no big news given that it's been up and running on his website since 04 September. The main 5th edition's addition features the Black Valley, a great spot in Co. Kerry that Damo Sullivan & Co had started to develop back in 2007.

Moving onto John Watson's comment on the last post, I did write a little review of the new Ailefroide's topo, which I had sent to the Short Span, but I think it collided with Dave's guide publication, so I'll stick it here instead.

Is it worth buying the guidebook?
(I bet you ask yourself that question every time you try a new destination)

Ailefroide’s new guidebook (Ailefroide, Topo des blocs, Team les Collets, 2009) was published last June, right on time for the coming summer event, the Ailefroide bouldering meet following the “Tout à Bloc” competition. I was going to spend a week there in August so I spent the money on what I thought was the result of some hard work from the locals.

Apparently this 2nd edition is an improvement compared with the 1st guide. According to Zebloc, 100 new problems have been added to the original 200 in the first edition, with 5 news areas and 2 children circuits added. The quality of the paper is better and the cover stiffer. The whole document is in black and white apart from the usual colourful sponsoring ads.

The info is plain but well organised. For each area you get a numbered list of climbs with their names, grades, and a quality indication based on a 3 star scale. Each boulder has been photographed and has been attributed a letter. The problems have then been indicated on the photos by a white line and the number corresponding to the list. And if you’re not sure where you are, a basic map of the boulders and their corresponding letters is also given for each area.

A small “Edito” introduces the guide. It is written by a certain Gilles Estrambouli but you cannot be sure if it is the right spelling because the name is handwritten and does not appear anywhere else. However the guy clearly wants to become famous because he claims Ailefroide “contributed to making him a legend.” I might be wrong but when you have to tell people that you are famous, somehow I think you’re not there yet.




Apart from this you do not get much text and this is maybe why I felt a bit cheated. It looks like the authors have wanted to keep it easy and simple. The photograph approach is indeed very handy for identifying the problems. On the other hand photographs do not give you indications of how to climb the problem. Of course we do not want the tricks to be given away, but when no description is given, you always come across that one problem where the question remains: “Is this in? Naaah, can’t be, that’d be too easy... wouldn’t it?” So you climb the line again without the hold to make sure you have done the problem properly. It can be fun and it can be a good way to get strong. I think it can also be a good way to frustrate visitors, and this is how I felt a few times.

So the question remains, is it worth 13 euro?

Here is a comparison including various guidebook details I gathered on the net:

. Guidebook Problems Pages Hardback Price year . Ailefroide,Topo des Blocs 300+ 66 No € 13 2009 . Boulder Albarracin 200+ 7 PDF free 2007 . 7+8 2000+ 288 Yes € 28 2002 . The Short Span 1400+ 114 PDF free 2009 . Northumberland 1800+ 433 Yes £19.95 2008 . Peak District bouldering 2000+ 384 Yes £19.95 2005 . Bouldering in Scotland ? 188 Yes £19.99 2008 . Targabloc 2005 350+ 35 PDF free 2005

However to really find out the answer to our question, we would need some sort of rule of thumb to compare prices. For example, spuds are priced per Kg, childminders per hour, and translators per word. So I think guidebooks should be price per problems. This way we can see that The Peak and Northumberland are roughly £0.01/problem, while Font is about €0.014/problem. We can also note that the sneaky John Watson does not want to give away the price of his hard work. The real bargain is coming from people like Dave Flanagan who give you the best competitive rate on the market at approximately €0.00/problem: the guy must be Chinese. But Ailefroide’s guidebook, at €0.043/problem is far from the crowd and should not therefore be contemplated...

But if you are not one of these brainless traders who made a fortune by putting the world’s economy on its knees, you might be able to acknowledge somebody’s good efforts (after all someone had to clean these boulders, right?) and in that case I strongly recommend you to buy the guide on the following webpage:
http://boutique.tlcprod.info/

SMART MAPS

Another cool exploring feature launched very recently on the net is the Ordnance Survey Ireland Smart Maps. Unlike Google Earth the aerial definition is pretty good all over Ireland.

Here is what you get on Google Earth for Glendalough:


And here is what you get on Smart Maps:


And moreover the maps have a few extras. There 4 types of viewing:

• "environmental" shows you the basic features you would find on an OS map,
• "ortho" is a bare aerial photo,
• "Land reg" shows you the latest update of the land registry office (more info to come on that matter)
• "Wind report" (my own favorite) is a map of the average wind speed: for those who wonder about conditions, how fast a place can dry, which place is most likely to get midge infested, how exposed is Glenmac, etc. Here is the map of Ben's Font:

• 

By the way for those who still wonder, Cloghole seems to be the name given to the valley on the other side of Luggala hill (also Fancy mountain). But if one insists, Ben's Font could be called Cloghole river.

To browse the smart maps, you need to register first. It is free of charge and you do not need to provide many details. Once you are logged in, click on "browse maps". Again, please note all this information is protected by copyright.

Enjoy your exploration!