Just heard the terrible news about Todd Skinner’s untimely death on the Leaning Tower in Yosemite. Any climbing related accident is tragic, but is made even more shocking when such an accomplished climber is killed in such unfortunate circumstances.

Tom over at All Climbing has some insight on the accident, citing an initial report that suggests his harness broke.

A Memorial Fund has been established for his wife and three young children, details of which can be found on his official website.

Todd Skinner’s Official Website
Wikipedia page

OK, Just sent another release into the wild, with a whole bunch of new bits and bug fixes:

• Add your location to your profile to customise Bouldr
• Pagination of forums (should have been done long ago)
• Refactored the explorer, so it should be a bit nippier now
• The Bouldr Newsletter, customised to your location
• Many improvements to site speed and responsiveness

As ever, constructive criticism, bug reports and praise are all welcome!

New Shoes!

Boosh! I managed to finally get a new pair - I settled on a pair of RedChilli Sprint VCR’s, and though they have turned my feet pink each time I wore them since, and I have a feeling they are going to end up fading from Chilli Red to pink in the near future, they feel snug on my feet, and far grippier than my old, holy pair.

Thanks to everyone that sent me advice!

My rock boots are dead - gone - kaput!

The rubber on the toe (exactly the points that I use most - under the big toe) have worn through, making it appear that I live out in the boulder fields. In order to stop the small change donations and sympathy, I need to get a new pair.

I have only ever owned this one pair of boots, so I am not particularly faithful to one brand or design. I’d like to know what the best pair of rock boots you have ever owned are.

Answers on a postcard!

It’s been a long time coming (mainly due to the fact that bills need paying at some point), but today we finally deploy a brand new version!

We should be able to dedicate a proper chunk of time over the next few weeks to add a number of features and refactor a few areas of Bouldr that we are not too happy with at the moment.

Anyhow, here is a list of this releases main highlights:

New Stuff

• Brand new voting system for climbs - vote up good submissions, vote down erroneous ones.
• Bouldr leader-board for all you wonderful contributors
• More points on the explorer map at the same time
• You now get emailed when a comment is added to one of your climbs
• A notification will now be sent when someone replies to a thread you are involved in on the forum
• Automatic centering on your country in the explorer
• More forums - new Tips & Tricks, Travel and General forums.
• Better forum organisation
• Link to the current page on the explorer - get a direct URL to the current map view
• Lots of minor changes to navigation elements and layout

Fixes

• Pagination links on the explorer are now out of the results bar
• The show climb page no longer has an epilepsy-inducing load procedure
• Climb editor now loads in a prettier way

As ever, if you find anything that is not working as it should please do nip over to the bug reporting forum to let us know about it. Suggestions are also always welcome, as well as constructive criticism - tell us what you think is missing / rubbish / great over in the feedback forum.

Have Fun!