This is the third edition of Michal Kajca's climbing guide to the Janowickie Ore Mountains. The topo, dated 2022, is over 430 pages long, making it not only the most accurate and up-to-date guidebook describing the region, but also the most comprehensive study of the rocks of southwestern Poland.
The book describes 117 sectors (including 10 new ones), with 1,688 routes and more than 700 bullders.
When Michal Kajca first undertook to describe the Ore Mountains in 2011, the region was considered a "poor relative" of the Sokoliks. In the dozen years that have passed since then, thanks to successive editions of this iconic guidebook, climbers have been reassured that it is just as attractive, but - thanks to the much larger area it covers - even in the most interesting sectors we can still find peace and quiet.
As always with this author, the topo includes excellent quality photographs of the rocks with lines drawn in, a verbal description of the vast majority of all routes, GPS coordinates, accurate maps and plenty of climbing photos showing the beauty of climbing in comfortably insured sandstone. There was, of course, an extensive practical section describing the infrastructure, ideas for a rest day or the possibilities of climbing in the rain or winter.
Traditionally, Michal Kajca has not neglected the historical part either - in addition to an outline of the history of climbing exploration, the guidebook includes three interesting memoir texts.
A word from the author
You are holding in your hands the third edition of a climbing guide to the Janowickie Ore Mountains by me. At the moment I'm writing these words (the end of March 2022), it is roughly 21 years since I began my adventure with the local rocks. Taking a longer view, it's hard not to notice how much has changed in the area - in climbing terms - over the years.
Before 2006, when the first guidebook to the area was published (by Konrad Burzawa and Artur Sobczyk), the rocks scattered in the mountain forests between Janowice Wielkie and Strużnica were not yet known to the average Polish climber.
At that time, almost all attention was still focused on the nearby Sokoli Mountains, which for decades had been the main destination of expeditions of climbers from Lower Silesia and other regions of Western Poland.Not much had changed in this regard by 2011, when the first edition of my guidebook was published.At that time there was nothing to indicate that in a few years the Ore Mountains would become a region that was widely known and liked, or even equal in popularity to the neighboring Sokoliky. It is fortunate that in the case of the Ore Mountains this popularity is spread over a much larger area.Thanks to this, one can risk saying that it manages, for the time being, to preserve the original character of the region.Of course, the number of climbers, routes and facilities has clearly increased, but to the extent that we can still enjoy the omnipresent nature and tranquility of the mountain forest.Unfortunately, increased logging in recent years, now carried out with heavy equipment, has not spared the Janowickie Ore Mountains. Enthusiasts of these mountains certainly know what I am writing about.... Let's hope that decision-makers will start to reckon more with the - after all, protected here - landscape, which is our common property. The less than four years that have passed since the previous edition of this guidebook (published in May 2018) have brought many changes to the network of climbing routes and bulldozers, and previously undescribed rock objects have also appeared. Although the list of novelties counts several hundred items, this is not just a quantitative change. Several important projects were dissolved during this period. A strong highlight from the autumn of 2021 was Kuba Września's delineation of the most difficult route of the area, Prodigy VI.6+/7. The line solves an exposed pillar located on Urwista near Bolczów Castle.
In March 2022, the bar was raised slightly by Pawel Wisniewski, who the aforementioned
line extended by a several-meter long bulldozer in the hood (above the Prodigy chain), which leads to the top of the rock.Thus, the most difficult line in the Ore Mountains became Firestarter, for which Pawel proposed a valuation of VI.7. In turn, the highest valued bulder in the Ore Mountains - the problem of Chalk Norris SD with a difficulty of 8B+ - was marked out in 2020 by Czech Martin Stranik near Fajka.In turn, the most difficult trad road - Paranoia VI.5 - is located in Krowiarki (its author is the writer of these words).The number of difficult novelties marked out in recent years is a great proof that the exploration of the region continues at its best, and the potential hidden in the granite walls of the Ore Mountains is far from exhausted. If you are interested, I refer you to the historical part and to the section devoted to bulldering.
The bulder part of the topo has been greatly expanded (I added several important sectors). I have described 90% of the existing problems this time, and the quality of the data in the sectors included in the previous edition has improved significantly. Therefore, we can risk saying that for the first time it was possible to create a full-fledged bulder guide to the area.
In the third edition of the guidebook I describe 117 sectors (including 10 new ones), in which you will find 1,688 routes and more than 700 bullders. I hope you will find lines among them that will inspire you to take up a climbing challenge and give you a lot of fun in the process. See you in the rocks!
Michal Kajca
