UKC

The ROCKFAX guidebook Western Grit has won the 2004 Outdoor Writers' Guild Guidebook of the Year Award. This makes it a double success for Chris Craggs and ROCKFAX since Peak Gritstone East won the same award in 2002.

UKC News - http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/

Well done. When are the 2nd editions coming out with corrections, eg the Bamford access point?

In reply to Philip:

That would be the second edition of Peak Gritstone East.

Probably 2006.

Will you use better paper so that the new copies don't deteriorate so quickly. The BMC guides are very nice.

In reply to Philip:

The paper in the BMC guides is the same weight as ROCKFAX guides. We are both using about the best quality paper available. Thicker paper would make the guidebooks dramatically heavier and no-one has ever commented on our paper quality before.

So, no, we won't be using different paper.

In reply to Alan James - UKC: Maybe just round the edges off then to stop them curling back quite so much?

In reply to ally smith:

I'll investigate this but I have looked into it before and the quote last time was going to put about £3 onto the price.

Water seems to effect the Rockfax more than the BMC, but I think the larger size also contributes. OPR had a hard cover, maybe this is the way forward.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:
I think what he meant to say was -

"Well done lads for putting in so much effort and lifting the standards of UK guide books almost single (double) handedly - oh and by the way ....”

Chris

Also, have you considered putting the whole thing (ie both grit faxes) on PDF? Either as a download or a CD.

In reply to UKC News:

So what are you gonna do with the prize money? Trip to exotic climbing destination, new car, better Rfax IT facilities or buy one pint with a straw for each of the other Rfax guys?

Well done guys!

In reply to Philip:

No and we are not going to. Too many people currently rip-off MiniGUIDES. I am afraid that climbers can't be trusted with this sort of thing.

In reply to Philip:

The BMC presumably wouldn't agree, since the re-issue has a soft cover

In reply to Philip:

Hard covers are expensive, heavy and often come detached from the book; that's why hardly anyone is using them anymore. The current Staffs guide cover (same as Jingowobbly guides) is semi-hardback and worth looking into I think but I am certain it will also be expensive.

That's a shame. From the point of view of a club, it would be nice to have a PDF copy for the library from which disposable copies could be made for meets. Otherwise guidebooks for general use just get trashed or lost.

In reply to Chris Craggs: Great books both. The curly edges make them look like I might actually have done some climbing, which of course, I haven't!

In reply to Philip:

"lost" - I think you answer your own question. Let me tell you that club guidebooks never get "lost".

In reply to Philip:
I agree, it would be nice if our club could by a single copy and then print out a few dozen disposable copies for meets. Of course, this would mean that Rockfax would only sell one copy rather than several, so they'd have to price the PDF correspondingly...

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Is this the same as the North Wales Bouldering guide???

I like the cover of that very much!

It has stood up to much more abuse than my PGE did!

God rest it's soul!

Luv Barra! xx

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

A multi-user licence! Sounds a bit tricky to police.

In reply to Barra:

Not sure since I haven't got a copy here and I can't remember what it was like.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:
Go on let's do it - PGE and WG on a single CD ROM - charge 20K for it and see how well it goes!

Chris

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Crap homoerotic photo, but printed on card fold-out card!

The same way I do the covers to my PDFs'!

Luv Barra! xx

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

On a different note, Alan, when is the new Dorset Fax due for release?

ps. A very well done on the award!

pps. Like Barra says, the NW Bouldering guide cover is very hardy, much more so than PGE & PGW.

In reply to Jus:

April/May 2005 and we are well on schedule. Just seen some amazing PDFs that Mark has produced today!.


Thank you


I must take a look at this. Thanks both of you for the tip off.

Alan

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

How is the new one going to be any different? Will it just be corrections or any major changes etc? Will it include Black Rocks, or much bouldering info?

In reply to Chris Craggs:

I thought the Peak Guidebook lot did that?

;0P

In reply to SidH:

Black Rocks plus a few other new crags. Many new crag photos (we have got much better at producing them over the last 3 years). However there isn't that much room for new stuff since the book is quite big already. Haven't yet decided about bouldering but it may well find a place in there.

Alan

In reply to UKC News: for club meets, i think it is legal to photocopy up to 10% of a book for your own personal use. surely this might help people?

In reply to Alan James - UKC:
We might struggle to get Almscliff in but it will be worth it

Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:
Congrats Alan and Chris on the award.
Glad to hear you're going to include Black Rocks in the next one. Almscliff? That'll make you really popular amongst the BMC guide people won't it?!
I may even order one to put on the bookshelf in Oz as I'll probably not be around here when it comes out.
PS How about an Arapiles Rockfax?

In reply to UKC News:

Shouldn't such self congratulatory threads be in the chat room ?

In reply to UKC News:

Wait a minute...

This is the year that both the stunning North Wales Bouldering guide and the benchmark-raising Staffordshire Grit guide were released??

Sorry but for all that Gritfaxes are popular, well-put together, and have a useful role to some, give those two excellent contenders it didn't deserve to win. Although, those two might be too recent for inclusion...

In reply to Fiend:
Since Western Grit was published last year, I suspect that the awards are for the best from the previous year

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Fair enough. It should have lost to North East Outcrops (Scotland), then =).

Next year could be messy: Staffordshire Grit vs. NWB vs. Northern Limefax (token RF contender) vs. Possibly the Northumberland guide if they get their arse in gear which quite frankly I doubt.

In reply to ceri:


If its for your 'own' use how would that help anyone on a club meet ?

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

But not impossible. A number of educational publishers do it for their software, selling the same thing but at different prices depending on the numbers of users. It seems to work okay most of the time, with purchasers generally being honest. But I'm not sure I'd want to go down this road with your guides...

In reply to tony:

oh, and congrats in the award - two in two years suggests you've got something pretty well sorted!

In reply to tony:


Alan's already made his position clear above, hasn't he?: he doesn't trust climbers.

Lovely.

In reply to Anonymous:

Would you over something like this? I don't think such an attitude reflects badly on Rockfax.

In reply to Anonymous:
Horses for courses. Having spent more hours than I care to consider debating the suitability of multi-user licences for different types of products, I don't see that there are any particular commercial advantages in going down that road. The general public (of which climbers are a subset)have a fairly sketchy awareness of copyright laws, and I've seen enough photocopies of guidebook pages to make me think Alan's right to take the stance he does.

In reply to Anonymous:

There are climbers that I don't trust - I have found enough pirate copies of MiniGUIDES to support this. That doesn't mean that I don't trust all climbers, it just means that there are some I don't. You could apply this to the whole of society. The problem with downloadable guides is that one bad person can undermine a lot of effort by distributing an illegal copy all over the place.

Now, why don't you tell us why you think that all climbers can be trusted, or are you going to do you usual cowardly trick of disappearing from the thread after a single snide remark?

I discussed this with a friend over lunch. If it was the BMC comprehensive guide, there would definitely be good support for producing PDF cd-roms for clubs (ie BMC affiliated clubs). Less chance of the BMC getting ripped off as they're there to support clubs. Obviously people would have less respect for rockfax but I'm sure there's a way. What about a club guide that involved the book and a CD. If the CD only had the crag sections not the intro / approach stuff I'm sure you wouldn't lose that much cost.

If my club had the PDF it wouldn't put me off buying the Rockfax, although I prefer the BMC guides. I plan on buying the Rockfax next editions. So many of my friends have the current ones it's not worth getting them, I either borrow theirs/share/climb with them.

At the end of the day, it's not going to make you much money doing the PDFs, you'd just be doing it to earn karma amongst the climbing community.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:


I wonder who is being 'snide' here ...

To answer your question: I do not differentiate at all between 'climbers' and anybody else. Why should I? So, of course, not everybody who goes climbing is trustworthy.

In reply to Anonymous:


His decision has probably been affected by the fact that the copyright has been openly flouted in Kalymnos. Not only are there are least 2 bars with the Rockfax pages on billboards, but there have also been reports that various places have been selling B&W photocopies of the PDF for more than the cost to download.

I'd love to see more guides on PDF - particularly to places like Pembroke where something that you can fold into a pocket is really useful - but I not sure they are commercially viable.

Perhaps a different approach to guidebook writing would help. If we had a publicly available guidebook text, protected by a Creative Commons license, and crag topos (drawn) also licensed the same way. PDF guidebooks would be easy to make. I have a lot of experience producing PDFs including guidebooks and it is not that hard to set up a computer to automatically generate a guidebook (including index, intro, approach/crag info) from a route list. This could be hosted by the BMC. Under this license, companies like Rockfax would be able to take the info, and print guidebooks which they could enhance with their own (very good) photo topos.

This allows for the existence of both companies producing guidebooks and freedom to copy/share the route infomation. It differs from the existing method because Rockfax (for example) have to produce an entire guidebook from scratch and there the cost is higher.

I'm not sure what the licensing on Hot Pud is, but certainly the crag location and route name+grade database on there would be an exellent starting point.

A database similar to the rockfax one, on a server paid for my adverts would provide a way for everyone to contribute to the route discription. Volunteers could add the route line to diagrams.

In reply to Anonymous:

Which means then that it is sensible to not release PDF versions of books for download since it only takes one untrustworthy person to misuse that PDF for Rockfax to potentially lose thousands.

So if you agree, as you seem to, what was the point of your post which has been universally interpreted as a dig at Rockfax.

In reply to Philip:
All sounds a bit pie in the sky to me - who is going to do all this work and to what real ends? Knowing the effort in producing one guide - this sounds like a mammoth task - all in the interests of philanthropy - somehow I don't think so.
Next idea??

Chris

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

What is the break even number on something like Gritstone East, and then how many more do you need to sell to make it worth while? I reckon it's probably sold better than you imagined, would there be a possibility to release PDFs of the previous editions when you update?

Secondly, were all route descriptions written by Chris and you or are you allowed to borrow from the BMC guide / new route books?

In reply to Alan James - UKC:


Your paper guides can be ripped off by photocopying already. But I was not trying to advocate one approach, or the other. I accept that this is business: you can do whatever you want, and whatever you think pays best.


My post more or less just reiterated your business point: you won't publish PDF's since you don't trust climbers enough not to copy them.

It's very similar to open source software philosophy. Works well in software and totally fails in the music industry. I think there are 100s of climbers who would help. I believe Rockfax East has about 500 Stanage climbs, that's 5 routes each to type in and sketch on a drawing. Few minutes work to produce a "free" guidebook.

Why would people do it? Why not, why always rely on the BMC / local clubs or 3rd party companies to produce guidebooks. I think the future of guidebooks is a very interesting area. As Alan has said, the economics on which Rockfax works just doesn't allow for PDF guides.

In reply to Philip:

These are all good ideas many of which are in the pipeline or have been discussed before. However there is one thing that you should realise - writing guidebooks is not big business in fact it is tiny business. Rockfax UK consists of me, a couple of virtually full-time subcontracted authors and a few other occasional helpers. That's it. The office is my attic which also doubles as a spare room and my wife's office. The things you suggest are great in theory but in practice the resources are just not in place to do that kind of thing. I can't spend time checking things like multi-user licences and creating CD-Roms if I don't have the time. That doesn't mean that they aren't good ideas it is just that there are 50 other good ideas ahead of them in the list.

So I am afraid that I can categorically state that Rockfax won't be producing any CD Roms of guidebooks in the near future. This probably won't be because we don't trust people not to mis-use it, but because we don't have the time.

As for your general ideas about central guidebook information; great in theory but horribly complicated in practice. You also bring up the touchy issue of "the route information". The words of a route description belong to the person that wrote that route description. The intellectual property of that route description doesn't really belong to anyone. The only person who might have a claim on that is the first ascensionist. Therefore a database such as the one you describe could never really exist since commercial companies like Rockfax would just ignore the database and write our own descriptions in order to save money.

(BTW this brief discussion is about 1/100th of the information required to answer this question. A question which no-one has yet answered.)

Alan

In reply to Philip:

Don't see the relevance but I'm not going to tell you anyway.


No. See post about resources.


Yes. We always write evry route description and always will. That is what writing a guidebook is all about.

So if I ran a database, publicly maintained, with up to date route description and grade. Which you could use for free, say available in an XML format, you would not make use of this by simply formating the text and adding photo topos.

If this was open source software. You would take all this for free and then provided you could make a profit out selling the guidebook, you would give something back, like sponsorship or diagrams.

I think open source and free and non synonymous. I would expect that a open online guidebook would be able to live in harmony with a "for profit" printed guide.

In reply to Philip:

No. I 'write' guidebooks meaning that each guidebook contains the author's opinion on a route, not some generally approved description but a personal view. That is what it is all about. Without that you would just have a load of guides that looked and read identically.

Alan,

Don't get so defensive, I'm not attacking either the quality ot your methods. There are some parts of a guide which are mechanical, the route description can be simple and even repetitive. It's comments like "Point unwanted husbands in this direction" that make a guidebook, and I guess if you're going to that much trouble then you might aswell right the whole guide.

In reply to Philip:


People are attempting to do this in several locations.

Mick

In reply to Mick Ryan:

Could you point me in the right direction (other than the Rockfax one). I know about Hot Pud but that's not route info.

Actually, I've just check out Hot Pud and they've started recording Route info too.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Name & Shame!!

In reply to Philip:

www.rockclimbing.com is one. It has a huge number of registered users but the route database is pants.

This one I think is better, because it is regional

http://www.climbingboulder.com/

and then there is drtopo.com........

M

In reply to UKC News:
Well, regardless of what anyone says, I always recommend the Rockfax guides to people I know who are visiting from Oz or the US. I like the full guides as well and if you're spending a lot of your time climbing in a particular area then they are what you might need but for visitors who are trying to cover larger areas in a relatively small amount of time then selective guides like Nthn Limestone & the two Grit Rockfax ones are much better.
PS Alan, I was only half kidding about the Arapiles Rockfax thing earlier!

open source guides: it does sound fantastic in principal but I too don't believe it would work.

A lot of open source software revolves around a core of developers who for whatever reason choose to devote hours of their free time to create something bigger than any of them can achieve alone. They create some impressive projects but what they lack in many cases is good documentation and a focus on the end user; at the end of the day 'communication'.

I would guess that the user base of a open source project far exceedes the number of people involved in developing it. This same user base in the majority will expect something for nothing and still be as good as commercial software. Just check out the forums and see what people are saying. You then need to support these users, theres nothing worse than unanswered questions on a forum.

Sure setting up a database of routes isnt difficult. Mick has pointed out www.climbing.com, there is also www.climb-guide.com and our own ukclimbing.com and I am sure many others. Maybe there is a way to automate the process of compiling a guidebook. Think of itunes and the way you can create your own play list, you can upload track names and its easy to use. But how do you deal with the diagrams? Yes we can all walk along with a digital camera and snap away, but how much junk is going to be uploaded? or who is going to filter it. Will people really open up photoshop and draw little red lines on the rock? I think diagrams are the biggest problem. When was the last time any of us took out a pencil and started sketching the crag last time we were out? Who decides whos is the definative diagram?

Dont under estimate the role of editing. Good content doesnt grow by itself on a page. Ok you can create a standard template, but drawing a diagram is a skill. How many professionally produced guide books are unuseable simply because the diagrams are crap.

www.coronn.com have a slightly different approach. The have some nicely designed pdf guides which are either free or for sale but hardly a definative coverage. You can submit your guides to them, how many people here have done that? It is work, and skilled work.

In general I find I am using the web to find out general information about an area, then I buy the guide book when I get there. I am not anti 'open source' and admit I would 'abuse' a service if it was offered, but contribute to it? I dont know.

And anyway, if the product is good what is wrong with someone making money from it? If you dont like it dont buy it, visit a crag and climb like you are the first person to have ever climbed there. If you have the spare time dont forget to take your sketch pad, you can even invent your own grading system just make sure you clear it with Fiend at the ministry of grading.

In reply to Philip:

Sorry, I was trying not to be defensive but it did come across as such.

The idea of an online national route database is not only a good one, it is already someway to being realised as others have pointed out. The idea of an open source national database held by someone like the BMC and accessible for free by all is a long way off I think. I have discussed such a thing with representatives of the BMC on at least 3 previous occasions and yet we are probably now further away from such a DB than ever. In this respect, I don't think there is much hope that the various sectors can co-operate in a way which would ever create such a database.

In reply to Enoch Warner Time AOL:

Yeah but compare the Staffs Guide & the Rocfax one & U will see the same rock but differng topos.....

Stealng information.

Now what does that mean? does stealng info from old guides for a selectve guide constitute it??

Just playing an advocat of the devil....

S

In reply to Enoch Warner Time AOL: just take a random slection of guidebooks and you will see (perhaps coronn being an exception ) The same goes for any kind of informational illustration. Some of it is i think slightly led by the graphic tools at hand i.e freehand/illustrator which will mostly produce a reconizeable 'line', its down to the skill of the illustrator to them and to develop his own style.

In reply to Enoch Warner Time AOL:

Crags are massively different from cars and have many more features. I have probably drawn more topos than anyone else in the country and I'll be up there on a world top ten as well. Believe me when I tell you that there is no way that two diagrams drawn independently by two different people ever look remotely the same. Drop them over each other like I did in this example and you'd think you were looking at two different crags yet they may both work adequately as topos.

In reply to Simon: i think this thread has already gone far enough off-topic! perhaps best to leave this point to a search through the archives

In reply to Simon:

Define what you mean by 'information' and then establish who owns it in the first place.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Like i say - playing devils advocate thats all.

i would say that information is based on history & recording it as such by those who have written it up. As to who owns it bugger me!??

it would be interesting on your point of view Al on the old Paul Nunn Guide's. The first to use photo topos in the Peak.

it was PGE with Limestone!!

;0)

In reply to Simon:

That is just the recording of information, the information itself is something different, but let's not get into that.


I have no strong thoughts on Nunn's guides. Good guides for their time with some good photo-topos and some bad photo-topos. That's it really.

In reply to Alan James - UKC: & Chris Craggs

Well done for an excellent guide book winning the award. Its well thought out and easy to use, the photos give the areas justice and have hopefully pulled people away from Stanage.
For me its more a coffee table guide as I prefer the obscure crags/routes, but I have discovered places like Castle Naze - the guide made it look well worth a visit.
An excellent guide for students, visitors and people just wanting the classic's and new quallity crags without the cost of 5 guides, at least 1 out of print.

In reply to craig h and others:

Thanks very much for the positive comments they are all appreciated. We tend to respond to some of the questioning ones more but the good ones are certainly noticed and welcome.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:



Really i suppose i just wondered when Nunns guides came out if there was the sort of "rip off" claims that are bounded about today...

i suppose i should as Dave Greg or someone that question....

Me - i think Rockfax guides have produced some stonking books & made the BMC wake up & therefore ended up producing the best guide ive seen in the Staffs guide...

S

In reply to Philip:

I agree with your (and alpkid's ideas) but think it's a job for the BMC. Moving eventually to a 'publish on demand concept' allowing customized guidebooks to be created.

Congratulations to the Rockfax team on the award!

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Congratulations on your award.

I have to take issue with this paragraph:


www.lakesbloc.co.uk

I rest my case.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Congratulations on your Outdoor Writers Guild Award.

I've just returned to climbing after a 4 year break, and so I am completely ignorant of the ROCKFAX Climbing Guidebooks. By all accounts they look impressive, copies of which are quite likely to be added to my guidebook collection in the near future. In the mean time my well thumbed BMC guides will be dusted off and put into use again.

I truly acknowledge the years of knowledge and experience that must have been used in order to compile these books.

It just goes to show what a very small group of people, who are obviously aware of what we “climbers” want in a guide book can do. As apposed to the “hefty” list of contributors required to produce the BMC guidebooks, not that I’m knocking the BMC of course as producing good guidebooks books is just a small part of an organisation that is good for mountaineering in general.

I can fully appreciate that this is commercial adventure born out of the love of the “Great Outdoors” and for people to ask for PDF versions of the books would seem a bit cheeky except for one thing…………..the books look far too smart to be taken out cragging!

I don’t suppose there is any commercial sense in building an extension, and employing a few more people to produce abridged versions of the guides in PDF format for registered owners of the guides to download, and print out pages for use on the selected days climbing so as not to spoil the coffee table copy?........ no?.......... I thought not! Ah yes! I have it now, buy two copies! Of course!.... Now that makes commercial sense!

Even the O.S., that last stubborn bastion of the Great British Empire was until recently very loathe to let us, the scally wags, have access at a reasonable cost, to digital maps and believe it or not they say we can print as many maps as we like ( for personal use mind you!)

Having said all that, it is more likely we owe you more the you owe us, so there it is!

Jeff.

In reply to Prestonian:

You misunderstand. We were talking about the effort required to maintain a national route database.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:
The bigger the route database gets the better. It will never be a substitute for a proper guide in any case, for a variet fof reasons eg. photos, having to print endless pages off the database, and, of course, where do I put my ticks?
Just to add my support, the peak gritfaxes are the best guidebooks ever, by far. The staffordshire grit is getting there but the photos are simply not as good and its more difficult to tell exactly where the route goes from the photo - although the little historical stories in it are brilliant, and it includes some bouldering - a great bonus. Western Grit still wins over it for me though - after all, it has loads more crags in it! Oh and thanks for including cheshire sandstone!

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

I would love to see a central route database where the raw information is 'free' and from which anyone would be able to use it to create their own guidebooks.

Probably the best approach I have seen would be to operate a wiki based site where users can edit pages directly so that there is always just one definative entry. The most popular entries are brought to the top and the crap is filtered away. Im no programmer so I dont know how difficult this would be to set up, but having found myself on a few (usually from google) I have found difficulty in finding my way around them.

IMHO a good guidebook is not necessarily what is put in but what is left out. A database based site would be good at collecting information but the key for it to be successful would be collating it into something accurate, functional and convenient. This is something that people like Alan and other guidebook writers/designers do before adding their own personal touches to make a desireable product.

Regarding the question of who owns the information I think it is accepted the route names and grades are free for all but the copyright to route descriptions and diagrams remain the property of the authors unless they choose to relinquish them. If someone wanted to sit down and copy all the route names out of the Stanage guide and publish it as a pdf I wouldnt have a problem with it. I think the market would naturally choose what it sees as value.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Tis a great example of a successful regional climbing website though that provides a great free service to the bouldering community.

Fuelled by enthusiasm and passion......and much hard work.

But yeah a bad example of what this thread is now about.

M

In reply to UKC News:
Well done and well deserved, Alan and Chris

In reply to gingerkate:
Thanks for that.
Sorry for not replying earlier I have been bobbing about in front of the Toix Sea Cliff all day (metaphorically speaking of course).

Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Congrats on the award! I really do think the RockFax layout design is the best I've ever come across.

However - as a side note - just got back from Costa Blanca and was horribly, horribly sandbagged by your 1997 guidebook (couldn't get a hold of the later RockFax Guides)!!!

Ugh - hopefully this won't be so much of an issue with the new guide?

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Well done, I think the PGE is great. Any possibility of doing something similar for Ireland? As pointed out in another thread, It isnt possible to get a guidebook for the mournes at the moment - maybe a business opportunity?

In reply to Jenn:
Not sure what you were sand-bagged on (?) but I think a lot of the more popular routes have become horribly polished in the past 8 years. I did those small routes right of Kashba last time I was a Sella - they were downright ugly - and desperate too!
Hope the grades are right in the new guide - get the votes in on the database.

Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Chris,

Thanks for the reply - I can imagine it's pretty difficult having to justify things that you wrote 8 years ago and I realise that much of the change is due to [over-] use since then .

One example was Le Tina de Turner on Cabeza de Rhino - 5+ in your guide, 6a in the 2002 Rockfax (which we didn't have a copy of at the time), but bloody hard now (6a+ / 6b maybe). The key foothold moving on the blankish section between bolts 2 and 3 is as smooth as glass.

Another is The Yellow Route at Toix Este, 4 in your guide, 5+ in Rockfax 2002 and as slippery as hell to even get into the groove.

Probably of more importance and still at Toix Este, the "lower-off" on Spolli is currently two threaded pieces of tat next to the down-arrows. It would be useful if future climbers were alerted to this. Also the move over the bulge seems a bit more like your 5+ (if not higher) than the Rockfax 4+ (a Rockfax 2002 sandbag maybe?).

Just trying to help - no offence intended, I guess writing guidebooks can sometimes be thankless work.

In reply to brian crawford:

Sadly we are pretty busy for the next few years with more local projects. It may be a long time before a gap for Ireland develops.

In reply to Jenn:
Thanks for the feedback - it will all go into the new book - rest assured.
As to writing the guides - I can't speak for Alan - but for me its the best job in the World, go climbing, take photos of, it write about it, produce a guide - then tick it off - marvellous!
Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Glad that I could be of some help and that I didn't upset you .

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Sounds a real pain!! :P

In reply to Chris Craggs:


can I apply to be your apprentice, could add the family slant to the guides if you could accommodate 2 adults/2 children, we will fully research all crags accomidation, etc.

In reply to craig h:

Position already taken. Sorry.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

agree about the stuff left of kasbah is polished to bugger at Sella - but probably maybe worth a plus rather than a whole new grade maybe??

Wish i was there right now!

....look forward to the new guide

Si

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Seen the photos of you and (think your daughter at New Mills) I know you have to have kids, but not too much on child friendly crags in the guides. Could escape this by just saying safe level bottom? but then again would you like to say any crag is safe for kids? Peak Rock sort of went that way.
You don't need an apprentice?, can make good brews and have found an excellent place for long stands and skirtingboard ladders.

In reply to craig h:

I went down that road a little way with Peak Bouldering (bottle symbol). However after a few trips where I saw some dodgy stuff going on with kids at crags that I'd recommended as child-safe, I decided that I didn't really want to be a part of that. I think some people have very different ideas about what is safe and what isn't.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:
However after a few trips where I saw some dodgy stuff going on with kids at crags that I'd recommended as child-safe, I decided that I didn't really want to be a part of that. I think some people have very different ideas about what is safe and what isn't.

At Cratcliffe on the weekend before last after a quiet start I got engulfed in a couple of family groups at the Top Boulders. Bloody disaster! Had kids lounging around all over my mat, a sweatshirt and a bottle of water went missing and I had to retrieve my guide from various people twice. After 20 minutes I escaped over to Robin Hood's Stride.
Definitely a good idea not putting in the 'family' stuff I reckon.

In reply to UKC News:

I just had a mailing from the Outdoor Writers Guild re the award -

"Judges comments: a virtually flawless climbing guide – an admirable and practical book – extraordinary clarity."

That's nice, made my day - again


Chris )

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Yes, well done both of you. I for one am very grateful to Rockfax for demonstrating what can be done with a bit of imagination. It's not how guides used to be done and now they are better.

And, let's not forget, you've got a lot more at stake than I have! I'm glad it's working out for you.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Very thin red line ' child safe' they do graze their knees at crags no mater how many bouldering mats you put out.
Can you tell me who was last to quarry at Millstone as they left a sharp edge that my child cut her finger on. There are no signs pointing to the hazards of sharp rock. She also got sore feet due to the long walk in on hard gritstone rock, we expected peat and there was no mention of this in your guide.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:
However after a few trips where I saw some dodgy stuff going on with kids at crags that I'd recommended as child-safe, I decided that I didn't really want to be a part of that. I think some people have very different ideas about what is safe and what isn't.

Think thats the problem, our garden is unsafe to the in-laws child, our children are fine. the only difference is the in-laws child does not play out much as its unsafe and dirty out doors