As the internet becomes more and more a part of everyday life, few climbers can fail to be aware of UKClimbing.com. Whilst not quite A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Centre of the Ultraworld, it is a huge and ever-growing phenomenon that sits at the centre of the web-world for British climbers.

Originally formed as an amalgam of the climbing shop Rock and Run and guidebook producer Rockfax, the website UKClimbing.com, and its forums in particular, has become the place where climbers come to discuss, opine, rant and generally mutter on about matters that may - or may not - have anything to do with the sport.

Overseeing this throb are the god-like forum moderators, and chief among them, Mick Ryan. Born in Lancashire, Mick climbed in his local county then was instrumental in the rise of sport climbing in Yorkshire in the mid-1980s - most notably producing the 1990 Yorkshire Limestone Rockfax.

Mick then moved to the USA in 1994 where he married his American fiancé, Gabriella, and they had two children. Whilst there, he developed, publicised and produced guides to the USA; six in total, with the one to bouldering around Bishop being the most notable. This raised the profile of the area from a dusty backwater to one of the USA’s premier climbing venues. In 2006, Mick returned to the UK, and now lives in Kendal, where he works full-time for UKClimbing.com.

As a nipper I had an I-Spy book of climbing.
It told me to keep your nails short, cut your hair, roll your trousers up, find a bit of rock, all that sort of stuff. I did all that because I’d seen climbers in Langdale when I was there with the Scouts and I was mad keen to try it.

We formed a group, the Quarry Hoppers, and our heroes were Les Ainsworth and Dave Cronshaw.
I met climbers during 6th-form and they started to take me out climbing in the Lancashire quarries, to Denham, Stanworth and Wilton. Back then, Les and Dave were the men, and we heard that they used to blow up quarries to make them climbable. Legends.

I used to milk cows and I was mad about James Herriot books.
So I wanted to become a vet, and I grew to love Yorkshire limestone. We had a brilliant time developing places like Malham. There was an amazing sense of group energy, sport climbing was sexy, and the whole thing was such a lot of fun.

Climbing mags at the time were so stuffy, they didn’t reflect what was actually happening at the crags.
A lot of people were talking about starting a new magazine, and eventually Ed Douglas did, with On The Edge. I approached him to write something for it, and he was keen.

Some people see journalists as parasites: I see journalism as a noble art.
You’re there to inspire people, to give them something, to broaden out their experience. As a young lad I had kept a garden diary in the school magazine, and I had been good at it. When I started writing for On The Edge, I suddenly felt that journalism was my vocation.

Yorkshire Limestone Rockfax stuck the fingers up to the established guidebook producers.
It was the first guidebook to document sport climbing. Nobody else would touch it. And I was immensely proud of it. Again that reflected the group dynamic that we had climbing there at the time, and perhaps doing with guidebooks what Ed had done with magazines. You know, getting off your arse and doing something.

The thing I’m most proud of is my guidebook work.
I was instrumental in developing Bishop bouldering in California. Not only in producing the guidebook to the place, but dealing with the land managers over access, and keeping everything sweet. It all went well, and that was a great feeling.

I work full-time now on UKClimbing, and I love it.
I do the editorial, write the news and sell advertising. It’s all hard work, and it’s all fun.

The best thing I’ve seen in the climbing media in the last year was the picture of El Cap in the last Summit.
Amazing. I love the web for its immediacy, but that’s the one thing it falls down on, being able to look at a big, high-quality image like that.

There’s too much celebrity in the climbing media now, it’s not real. If you read the mags or look at websites, it’s all just the same people bigging each other up and being very positive.
I find it very contrived. I try to put my slant on it, and to view it with a bit of healthy cynicism. If you get a press release and you don’t just want to be part of the marketing arm for Berghaus, or Leo Houlding or whatever, you have to interpret it for yourself. There must be a line drawn between advertising and editorial. If there isn’t then both are compromised.

I think that magazines have once again lost touch.
It doesn’t help that they fill themselves with the same people. They seem to be recycling the same old articles month after month. Climbing is bigger than a handful of reliable contributors. As well as cutting edge stuff I want to know about real people and the experiences that they’re having.

Since I’ve come back from America, I’m really impressed by some of the stuff I see.
The Hot Aches guys and Alastair Lee are out there making some great films. They aren’t just shallow productions; they’re delving in to what it is that climbing really is. And there’s Chris Doyle’s film West Coast Gimps. Absolutely fantastic. That sort of stuff doesn’t get enough publicity, and it should.

The BMC should make it their business to pimp that sort of stuff up.
You know, quality. They should also get all the archive climbing stuff into climber’s faces. People would like that.

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