[Dave Flanagan]

Inspired by rocktalk, curiousity and boredom?

[cofe]

surely you mean 'uk AND ireland' dave...?

and my answer is - no comment.

[andy_e]

i'd say lancashire tongue-in-cheek stylee but you lot would all annihilate me... so i'll say Yorkshire.

[dave]

i would say that places like the peak/yorkshire/nwales/northumberland/lakes all have bouldering that meets the criteria of best in the UK, i.e. the best problems at all of the areas are as good as the best things in the peak.

recon its hard to say where the best area is though. we thing of yorkshire and the peak as being areas, but in reality say the bridestones is nowhere near the slipstones and burbage, the roaches and wimberry are nowhere near each other really, in the same say that kyloe and shaftoe are not neighbours. the areas we think of are too big to be fair. it'd be better to think of say smaller areas that are more directly comparable. like you could compare the eastern edges with the almscliffe/ilkley/shipley/caley group, with the south lakes, with staffs grit, with the bowden/back/kyloe group, with the pass/ogwen/mallory group, with the orme group as the main UK areas in terms of density of good climbing. in which case i recon you'de be hard pressed to choose.

having said that, obviously the peak is the best.

[Dave Flanagan]

surely you mean 'uk AND ireland' dave...?

and my answer is - no comment.

The best bouldering area in Ireland is Glendalough, no doubt about that. How it compares to the UK I don't really know.

[Bubba]

Inspired by rocktalk

Does not compute

For me it'd be a toss-up between Peak and Yorkshire - boringly predictable I know, but that's where I'd choose if I could choose only one place to boulder.....but then there's loads of places I've never been bouldering - like Ireland for starters.

[cofe]

surely you mean 'uk AND ireland' dave...?

and my answer is - no comment.

The best bouldering area in Ireland is Glendalough, no doubt about that. How it compares to the UK I don't really know.

it more than holds its own. i'd like to spend a bit more time up at glenmacnass - the potential looked mega. solidarity at glenmacnass is one of the best problems i've ever done. amazing. and that place on the deforested hillside looked good.

[Sypeland]

The Peaks

[Sypeland]

Only Joking!!!

[Dave Flanagan]

surely you mean 'uk AND ireland' dave...?

and my answer is - no comment.

The best bouldering area in Ireland is Glendalough, no doubt about that. How it compares to the UK I don't really know.

it more than holds its own. i'd like to spend a bit more time up at glenmacnass - the potential looked mega. solidarity at glenmacnass is one of the best problems i've ever done. amazing. and that place on the deforested hillside looked good.

We are going down tomorrow staying in the hut, its Michael's birthday so we are having a small gathering. Funny you mention Mall Hill (the deforested place) I have had a strong craving to go there for the last while.

[dave]

personally speaking i've always said that the best stuff at glendalough was the same quality as the best suff anywhere.

Below that quality level i found that it seemed to drop off quite quick into the territory of "locals" problems, i.e. low roofs in scree, dodgier landings, lip traverses etc. In many ways this can be good though cos theres pleanty for locals to go back for, and at the same time a visitor can feel like they've pollished off the bulk of quality up to their grade in a couple of visits. I don't think its quote got the depth of quality of some places, but its very good and got some amazing stuff.

[Dave Flanagan]

personally speaking i've always said that the best stuff at glendalough was the same quality as the best suff anywhere.

Below that quality level i found that it seemed to drop off quite quick into the territory of "locals" problems, i.e. low roofs in scree, dodgier landings, lip traverses etc. In many ways this can be good though cos theres pleanty for locals to go back for, and at the same time a visitor can feel like they've pollished off the bulk of quality up to their grade in a couple of visits. I don't think its quote got the depth of quality of some places, but its very good and got some amazing stuff.

All good points there. I suppose the really measure of an area is the quantity of the quality (AND  for you boolean heads) as opposed to just one or the other (XOR).

[AndyR]

solidarity at glenmacnass is one of the best problems i've ever done. amazing.

I thangyew.

Did you do the left-hand version or the right hand side?

[cofe]

RH. LH was much trickier although robins managed it eventually. RH was just great. check it out here homie:  http://www.beardownproductions.co.uk/video.html

[Fiend]

Yorkshire, for the quality.

North Wales, for the variety.

(The Peak isn't a contender really, yes it's very good in a hugely hyped and over-developed sort of way, but Yorkshire kicks it's ass for variety of settings, gritstone flavas, climbing styles, and for the amount of quality)

[Bubba]

Hmmm - a lot of Yorkshire is over-hyped as well. Plus the fact it's spread out over miles and miles.

[cofe]

i love these debates - i'm hoping it'll pick up more so i can flick between this a the cricket...just needs  someone to wind dave up.

[Stubbs]

NTBTA is shit.......

[Bubba]

Earl crag is a green bag 'o shite.

[squeek]

Best bouldering area in the UK, well from my house I can get to yorkshire, peak, lakes, and North Wales in a day.  So the answer's my house  
I like the crags in yorkshire they seem to have more of an individual feeling to them all, but it takes longer to get to Slipstones from my house than the Peak, so you can't really class it as the same area.

How long does it take to get to Almscliff/Caley from Sheffield?  Can't be that much longer than some places in the Peak.

If you were coming for an extended holiday/trip then you could easily go to all the mentioned places, North Wales, Yorkshire, Peak, Northumberland, et al because they're all close together.

Depends what you class as an area I suppose, a small cluster of crags close together, or all the crags drivable in a few hours...

[squeek]

Earl crag is a green bag 'o shite.

Troll!  Quick ban him! Earl's great, in fact I might try to get up early one morning when it's dry and do underpants, or at least repeatedly fall off it again.

[Stubbs]

Earl is probably one of the top hard bouldering crangs in't country.  Will prob be up this weekend, so might see you there.

[cofe]

less than hour to almscliff/caley.

[Bubba]

Troll!  Quick ban him!

Damn, I'll get back under my bridge.

For the record, Earl is a fantastic crag.

[Jim]

earl gets my vote, awesome crag

you should have named this thread 'desert island crag' (but obviously it'd be a cold desert island with good conditions) and no pun intended with the arete been at earl either