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So what's the attraction of climbing in Sydney?
To me the essence of Sydney climbing is its convenience - in most parts of the greater metropolitan area you're never
more than 10 minutes drive from a crag. Sydney also offers remarkable climbing variety - there are over 190 developed
crags listed in this guide and more than 1700 routes, and they offer everything from long, loose sea cliff adventures
to short, hard sport routes to top grade bouldering on excellent rock. Not many other large cities offer this much
climbing!
Any downsides?
Despite the wealth of climbing, it would be difficult to classify Sydney as a world class climbing destination. Yes,
there are some fantastic routes hidden amongst the 'burbs, and because of their convenience many of these crags are
extremely popular, but overall not even the most die hard Sydney climbing fan would try to pass the local crags off
as earth-shattering. But don't write the place off just yet! Less than 2 hours drive are any number of world class
climbing destinations - the Blue Mountains, Nowra, Point Perpendicular, ... You could certainly do a lot worse than
choose Sydney as a climbing destination!
As with many other areas in Australia and throughout the world, access to crags is becoming an increasingly major
problem. At the time of writing, almost 20% of the crags listed in this guide are either closed to climbing or
threatened with closure. The best way to ensure that our crags remain open is to support organisations that are
involved in resolving these issues - in Sydney the most relevant organisations are
Blue Mountains Cliffcare and
The Sydney Rockclimbing Club. Both organisations
are actively involved in the greater Sydney region on many issues, including access to crags.
So why put together a guide, and why on the web? Well, there's been a metric truckload of new crags and routes since
Mike Law's last edition of the "Sydney and Sea Cliffs" guide (which is now almost 15 years old). A number of
smaller guides were published in the interim (to Engadine, the Lower Blue Mountains etc.), but most of these just
covered smaller regions within Sydney. I thought it was about time that someone collected the existing information,
updated it and published it in one way or another.
The reasons for deciding to put the guide online are pretty obvious: it's easy to keep the information up to date; it's
cheap to produce; it's free for users of the guide (if you don't count printing costs); it gets information out fast;
and even someone with minimal graphic design skills can put together something half decent. I also thought it would
take less time than organising a proper printed guide, but I'm not so sure now! :-)
Anyway, enough faffing - on to the guide!