free pdf GUIDEBOOK files

Y  BERWYNION

In the past, the area’s climbing has been definitively covered by two Climbers’ Club guides, namely Mid Wales by John Sumner (1988) and Meirionnydd by Martin Crocker et al (2002). However, in 2015, the Climbers’ Club decided not to replace Meirionnydd once it sold out;  an extremely disappointing and wholly regressive move which will inevitably consign all of  Mid Wales (Yr Aran, Yr Arenig, Cadair Idris and Y Rhinogydd) and a large area of North Wales (Y Berwynion) to the climbing wastelands.    For far too long, Berwynion climbing has been outside the mainstream, very much the Cinderella of North Wales climbing. Several factors have contributed to this, not least the fact that Snowdonia is  the undoubted big brother in this particular part of Wales. But there is also the undeniable possibility that previous guidebooks have unknowingly undersold the area as a viable and worthwhile climbing destination in its own right, presenting it as something of an esoteric bolt-on to other venues deemed to be both more interesting and worthy. As a result, the area has largely remained a backwater as far as the rock climber is concerned.

  The purpose of Steep Stone's new 2020 Berwynion guidebook is to redress the balance by providing the up-to-date information now required by climbers as Meirionnydd has now finally sold out. Hopefully this new guide will afford a closer and clearer appreciation of what is available in these wild, friendly, relatively untouched and charmingly unvisited Welsh Borderland valleys and so serve to both enthuse and inspire in equal measure.

Y RHINOGYDD

As part of its WELSH GRIT guidebook project, while work on the new guidebook steadily progresses, Steep Stone is now providing a number of new, free, up-to-date definitive interim crag or area-specific  guidebook PDF downloads for selected Rhinogydd crags.   Steep Stone's aim is to encourage climbers to take a serious look at what the Rhinogydd has to offer in terms of rock  climbing and bouldering. All these well-researched,  free-to-download PDF interim mini-guides provide easy to follow access notes, together with accurate route descriptions, photo-topos and action shots.

The venues described by Steep Stone's series of interim guides have been carefully chosen so as to illustrate all that is truly great about Rhinogydd climbing from crags a few minutes from the road to crags that will satisfy the needs of those more adventurous souls; those who like long mountain days or places where an absence of crowds is virtually guaranteed; resulting in a combination which is tantamount to perfection for some climbers. 

"Composed of perfect gritstone, for the rock climber and boulderer, 

the Rhinogydd is arguably one of Wales' greatest, yet least-known,  treasures." 

CORONAVIRUS FRIENDLY CRAGS GUIDEBOOK SERIES

In response to the Covid-19 Pandemic, Steep Stone is also producing a very limited series of  CORONAVIRUS FRIENDLY CRAGS (CFC) 

guidebooks to a number of crags that provide an ideal opportunity to get away from it all.  The first in the series is a fully definitive, 

fully up-to-date  guide to central Snowdonia's CARREG Y FOEL GRON

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL OF THESE ARE INTERIM GUIDES. WHIST EVERY EFFORT HAS BEEN TAKEN TO ENSURE ACCURACY, THE ODD ERROR MAY HAVE  INADVERTENDLY EVADED THE EDITING PROCESS.