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AVON & CHEDDAR

• Avon & Cheddar by Martin Crocker (May 2004)

• Artwork by Don Sargeant

• ISBN 0-901601-75-6

• 720 pages of text, maps and photodiagrams (double-volume guide)

• £23.00

• SEE ACCESS NOTES

Seasoned guidebook author Martin Crocker has undertaken the mammoth task of thoroughly revising and updating his 1992 Avon and Cheddar guide. Since the last guide over 500 new routes have been climbed. These include, for example, The Quiet Mind (E7 6a/b), with its blind and reachy crux, and the sport route Academic (F8a), both at Avon. Holcombe Quarry in the Mendips has provided over 50 sport routes, Brean Down nearly twice that number of mainly trad offerings. Cheddar is the scene for three F8a+ testpieces: Homegrown, The Empire Strikes Back, and Bristol Weed, as well as the E8 free version of Fornicator Simulator. Not all the additions are at cutting-edge grades however; Cheddar has a host of sub-E1 additions.

A feature of the guide is the significant number of new crags. As well as Holcombe mentioned above, Croscombe, Mells, Dinder Wood, and Horrington Hill will give a change of venue in pleasant settings.

For new route information in this area, see http://www.mendipclimb.org.uk


Left: Dave Viggers on Central Buttress (E1 5a), and Anna McDermott on The Arete (VDiff), in the Avon Gorge. Photo by Don Sargeant.