Agree with JamieG on this one. PDF's and better UKC guides do encourage traffic{ Northwest Outdoors, Ted's guide to Primrose and Cummingston and Robbie's guide to Sheigra } . Just needs someone with enough time and drive to document it. A larger question might be- "Should we"?
For the uninitiated. What’s the current Scottish guide situation’?
When are you up?
I've developed around 60problems with Caff, Adam, Ben and Ray on our trips up Coruisk, all without a pad. Hardest one somewhere around 7C+ish but most are in the sixes and low 7's. There are boulders all round Coruisk which have nice flat access walks and mostly nice gabbro which hardly needs cleaning (hence the high evening problem tickage). It's just not been worth writing them up with the current scottish guide situation and general lack of umph up there. Writing stuff up clearly is also a talent and requires time. I'd thoroughly recommend an overnight trip in there on the boat and camping near a cluster at the far end of the loch. Lots of hard stuff to do there without having to slog up the hills. If you take some Binos the lighter gabbro is the best for bouldering, the dark purply boulders tend to be a bit rough for hard problems.
I thinks its likely to change in the next few years. A lot more boulderers and its easier than ever to document stuff. But it still takes lots of time. And a lot of days hunting and scrubbing are climbing days lost… Ive prodded the SMC about starting to record boulders but got little response and cant change things from within as I haven’t walked up enough large rounded hills to qualify for membership. Something like Unknown Stones would be great with lots of folk uploading smaller pdf guides. A lot more feasible than a printed guide. Agree that documenting encourages more climbing, cleaning and further exploring. An obvious one would be an updated guide to Glen Nevis for anyone local on here? Theres loads more giants hidden in the glen and a topo revival might be what spurs that on. On the other hand if I was local I wouldn’t want to be shouting about anything until Id had a good shot first! On the popularity note, I was chatting to the couple who own the house where you park for erraid and they’ve seen a considerable rise in the number of climbers and large student groups piling over to island since the lovely pink walls were published in Latters guides. Pretty photos and insta posts make ripples. To the point where they don’t want any of the rock further south of erraid published (a large SSSI I think?). So its not entirely a moot point. Torridon is another example like Gaz says. But maybe more documented areas might help spread the load?
Interesting discussion. I'd agree with Andy that Torridon isn't yet trashed but there's no question that since the guide and it going 'big' you can start to see wear and tear creeping in. Finger tape, more worn paths, donkey lines, cretins playing music etc. Nothing as bad as the average Peak venue (which I'm always dismayed by) but I guess we just have to be careful what we wish for.I hope Rich wont mind me saying that seeing these changes was part of the reason he started going less.