How do I know if I've made a "first ascent"?
Last night I was walking the dog near area where I climb a lot. Above the quarry where most of the climbing happens there is a really nice natural short crag. Looking at this crag I thought there were a couple of really nice boulder problems on them. A lot of the stuff was junk (low grade scrambling) but there were definitely a few really nice overhanging prows:
(dog for scale)
I've had a look on the UKclimbing database and I can't see anything logged in this area:
This makes me think this could be an unknown crag! What's the etiquette on this? If I get a first ascent can I confirm this and how do I document it? Just stick it on ukclimbing?
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There may be "formal" ways to go about this, potentially online, but I know nothing about this, so I hope others can shed light on that aspect. However there is a "traditional" way about this: Phone up the local climbing "gurus" (for lack of a better word). These may be people having established climbing crags in the vicinity or simply well connected resident climbers.
You will hardly know who that is directly (if you do, all the better), but you will be able to find some initial contact point trough guide books, local groups of climbers or simply by an online search. Then tell them that you found an interesting climbing area and that you're interested in whether it is already established for climbing.
If they know, great, if they don't, ask them who might know. This might seem very time consuming, but not only am I convinced that it yields more accurate results than any online database (especially for obscure "non-elite" climbs), but you will get to know great climbers and through that you might also learn about other climbing bijous.
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