Nude Climbing To Take Britain By Storm...

Nude climbing is 'tipped to take Britain' by storm according to a somewhat improbable article in today's Daily Telegraph.

According to the respected broadsheet, the pursuit already boasts 'hundreds' of keen participants in the United States with one of its principal pluses being the, erm, lack of equipment needed to participate in the 'new American craze'. The trend, they say, follows on from the increasing popularity of 'nudist adventure sports' in the UK with the leader being nude hiking.

It's all well and good, we say, but the nudie revolution could thrown rock climbing into crisis with massive revisions needed to grading systems to accommodate the increased technicality of nude ascents - we're talking overall, technical and naked grades here, with maybe a VS 4c gaining a supplementary N4 grade thanks to the presence of unfortunately placed ruggosities on the route.

Meanwhile a technically harder route on a smoother rock type could score E3 for overall seriousness, but rank a mere N1 for nudist seriousness. Of course, once you get to overhanging rock, all bets are off, with major embarrassment potential likely to boost the N-grade to 5 or above.

Back in the real world, could it be that the whole article is a transparent excuse to showcase some images from the latest Stone Nudes 2009 calendar.

More Stone Nudes - and the images are rather beautiful, no, really, it's art - at www.stonenudes.com