UKC

I've said it sometimes.Best way to be friendly is comunication.If someone speaks spanish, look at this:
http://www.desnivel.com/textos/foros/index.php?d=foro0025&f=25&id=8

In reply to juan:

What's the gist of it in English please?

In reply to Wilbur:
According to Google, it's something along the lines of, Rockfax are 75% of the way through preparing a guide to NE Spain, and Chris Craggs has told people that they shouldn't buy the local guides.
It then descends into ukc-style bollox.

In reply to juan: good to see other climbing forums contain as much rambling (quite what the Edwards to do with Rockfax) & psudo political drivel as UKclimbing. Seems some of the guys there think Rockfax guides are better than anything Spanish, others that they're dreadful & full of errors. I liked to guy who was in favour as he likes British girls ("Yo tambien quiero una guia de Rockfax. Ademas las chicas britanicas son muy simpaticas.")

But as for the fool who seems to think whisky is English, words fail me.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.desnivel.com%2Ftex...

In reply to Wilbur:

My spanish ain't brilliant but...

" En el foro de UKclimbing.com (el principal foro de escalada del Reino Unido) los de Rockfax (Chris Craggs concretamente) confiesan que estan preparando una guía del Nor este de España, concretamente Cataluña, Aragón, Navarra y Euskadi. Dicen que ya tienen hecho el 75% de la guía y RECOMIENDAN NO COMPRAR LAS GUÍAS LOCALES, ya que segun ellos la nueva guía Rockfax és de itinerarios seleccionados. Que opinais del tema? Debemos dar gracias a Rockfax o cortarles los hu...?"

On the UKclimbing fourm (main climbing forum in the UK), Rockfax (Chris Craggs particularly) states that they are preparing a guide to the NE of Spain, particularly Cataluna, etc. Something about not recommending the local guides and that the new guide will be a selected guide. What are your opinions?

boB

In reply to Bob:


You missed out the last phrase: "Should we thankful to trockfax or cut off their ba..?

Steff

In reply to juan:
What a wonderful Spanish carbon-copy of Rocktalk. 90% rambling and posturing, but with just enough sensible opinions to make it worth reading. I think that a lot of the posturing comes from the fact that it is an *English* company planning to write the guidebook. One wonders how different opinions would be if it were a French company. Fortunately they start discussing the old Spanish/Catalunya/Galicia/Basque issues again, always a good way to degenerte a thread.

Personally I can't see why a foreign lanaguage guide, aimed and marketed at foreigners, can't live side by side with the local language guides (be they in Spanish, Catalan etc.).

However, the issue is more complex in Spain as proceeds from the local guides get given to the bolt-fund for that region. Rockfax contribute to the bolt-funds in this country, have they or will they make any donations to the bolt-funds in other countries?

In reply to Alun: did you notice how the equivalent insult to our 'faschist' is 'falangist'? all it really needed was someone insisting on guides to Catalunya being in Catalan rather than Castillaño. Quite entertaining

In reply to Doug:

interestingly, though all though the main series of Catalan climbing guides are mostly in Castilian, their website onaclimb.com is all in Catalan. Political, but not economically stupid!


And the English think that us Celts moan!

In reply to juan:

PMSL!!
In one thread, accusations of capitalism, arguments about grammar, personal threats and accusations, and linking the publication of a guidebook to the ownership of Gibraltar - classic!
They'd be right at home here!

In reply to Alun:

I replied on this very topic on this thread - http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=116068&v=1#1599843

Although slightly out of date, that reply still stands.

I have yet to have it confirmed from any Spanish contact what format the guidebook-funded-bolting actually takes in this region. Since most of the book are produced by the same outfit, they may now have sorted out some kind of central fund, but I am not aware of that.

Alan

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

A very comprehensive answer.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:
alan, do you have feedback of spanish climbers? it will be useful.
I see advantages of a rockfax guidebook, but I see the disadvantages too.
Ah, do you know that madrid climbers go to Blanca(Alicante for us)for climbing?
I know there exists Cuenca and La Pedriza and Patones.And every Valencian climber knows too.We have better weather.That's the answer.

In reply to juan:

I think Alan's point is that he doesn't know who to turn to get feedback from. 'Spanish climbers' comprises a large body of people.

In reply to juan:

We have contacts in all areas who offer help. Whether these are the best people, I can't say, but in most cases they have been very helpful in offering information and also advise about access.

All Spanish climbers are welcome to give me feedback directly, but I appreciate that there may be problems with language.

Alan

In reply to Doug:

Nobody said whisky is English you fool!!! It says "whisky and Gin are British inventions"

Last time I checked Scotland was part of Great Britain...

Unless you are refering to the Scotish/Irish origin of whisky controversy but then I should point out since whisky is the Scottish version of the beverage it is indeed British .The Irish refer to their own concoction by using the Irish spelling whiskey...

Curiously you failed to point out the actual arror... Gin is not a British invention. It is Dutch!... It originated in the Netherlands in the 17th century from where it spread to England where it adopted its modern form.

Of course what most people thinks of when refering simply to "gin" is actually "London dry gin" which is very different from the original Dutch formula and could be rightfully considered a British invention...

In reply to juan:
Looks like we have an elephant in the room.

The Ent

In reply to Alan James - UKC:
As a catalan climber, so excuse my language mistakes:
I would be most grateful if you gave me the name of the person that has been helping you with the Berga region, if that is not a problem, of course ¡¡¡
Also by mentioning that the same outfit is producing most of the guides, is not exact, but anyway, the people of www.onaclimb.com have put up more than 2500 climbs in Catalunya and surroundings, and THAT is something.
However, as I see that you are eager to give money to a bolt funding, we will be in touch, as I am also eager to get money to put up climbs in Catalunya¡¡¡

In reply to juan: qué Chriss Crags ha hecho siempre en grit?

In reply to Albert cortes:

We don't have a contact at this crag and we probably won't ever have one unless someone offers to help - which would be very welcome. My comment was about 'areas' not individual crags.

Please feel free to get in touch by email if you wish to discuss the other matters.

Alan

In reply to juan:

i think it also worth mentioning that Rockfax guides (the Blanca one at least) give detailed descriptions of the alternative local guides, where to buy and the extra areas/routes that they cover....can't ask for fairer than that!

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

The excuse for not contacting anybody in the Berga area is a lame one, even by Rockfax standards; on page 5 of the Bergueda guide (which I'm sure is providing you with excellent 'research' material, it gives the names and email addresses of the guidebook writers. How much easier do you want it to be?
And what about the Barcelona mini-guide? Did you contact Luis Alfonso from ONACLIMB (who you've already admitted you're aware of) whose 'Barcelona y alrededores' guidebook undoubtedly formed the basis for your book - if not where did you learn about places like Gelida?
And the Montgrony mini-guide? If locals had been consulted they would certainly have corrected some of your many errors; route names like 'Terre de Nineu', which should in fact be 'Terra de Ningu' (Catalan for 'No man's Land)or 'La luna en un love' which is actually 'La Luna en un cove' (a Catalan expresion which translates as 'the moon in a cave' and is the equivalent of 'pigs might fly', would have been obvious mistakes to any local person.
So, given that you could easily find out who to get in touch with regarding the forthcoming north-east Spain Rockfax, will you do so, or will you just continue to use the local climbers and guidebook writers as unwitting, unpaid contributors? Regarding your support for local guides, I think the recent post by Chris Craggs says it all:

"Of course POD is correct, there is an extensive set of guides to Catalunya already. Mind you if you do not want to buy all 14 of them plus the ones to Berga, Morata de Jalón and Rodellar you might be interested in our one volume Selective!! It could save you a bomb on excess baggage!"

in other words 'we'll buy the local guides so that you don't have too'.
I think it's about time Rockfax adopted a more ethical stance on just how it goes about collecting information, and stop treating Spanish climbers with such utter contempt.
Gordo.

In reply to Gordo:


I'm recently back from Barcelona, and we tried to get the guidebook to which you refer, having read about it in the Rockfax miniguide and wanting to know more of the area. But we were told the guide is now very dated, and were unable to track down a copy. My companion got the impression that it is out of print? If I'd been able to find it I would certainly have bought it. I was amazed to discover there is as yet no Spanish Amazon.... the obvious way for foreigners to locate Spanish books. I hope that changes soon.

In reply to Gordo:

The guidebook we are working on to Catalunya is in its early stages; we haven't even decided what will go into it yet. When we do, we will try and make sure that we get in touch with as many climbers as possible locally to ensure that route names are correct, access details are accurate, and local guidebook information is included and up-to-date. To speculate now about what we may, or may not include, and the manner in which we may collect this information, is pointless since those decisions have yet to be made.

Regarding Chris's comment: you have interpreted it one way. An alternative interpretation would be to suggest that Rockfax have looked at all these areas to help people who would never think of climbing in Catalunya plan a trip. Once there, then they can make a choice of crags and may well end up buying local guides and will end up supporting local businesses. It should be added that our provisional plans for the Catalunya guide are to make it less comprehensive in coverage of each crag, but to cover a lot of different crags with basic information - how to get there, what sort of climbing it offers, and some topos for a day or two of climbing. In this sense it will work well with the local guides I feel and will be different to our other books where we tend to give more complete coverage of each crag.

Regarding the research for MiniGuides: these are low scale productions which are put together quickly to make information available for travelling climbers. The Miniguides seldom give complete coverage and most require purchase of local guides as well. They are not printed guides and make very little money; they are purely intended to make information available either before a printed guide, or between editions of a printed guide. You are correct that we should at least try and get correct route names and I shall make a point of trying to do this for future publications.

I am sorry that you feel we treat Spanish climbers with contempt. That is not our intention and it is also not the feeling I get from many Spanish climbers I talk to. I would be delighted to communicate more closely with local climbers in future although I do acknowledge that we haven't always done this very well in the past. On a positive note, a local climber yesterday approached us because of this thread and offered help with the information at Berga.

Alan James
Rockfax

In reply to Gordo:
So how do I go about getting hold of these local guides? Particularly when I arrive Saturday lunchtime, and all the shops are closed until Monday?

So far, my success rate has been low. For the Costa Blanca, the shop in Calpe managed to sell me one guide, they did not have copies of any of the others. In Mallorca, the shop in Palma was closed, and since we were staying in the NE of the island, would have meant a wasted half day to go back.

In Morata de Jalon, one of us had got a copy already, which was lucky or we'd have wasted another day and a half before the shops opened and we could buy one.

This year, for Pedriza, we have bought a guide online from Desnivel. The guide cost 12 euros, shipping to the UK cost 13 Euros (although the postage costs were less than 5, so it was a very expensive envelope).

If you want us to buy the local guides, then you need to think about how to make them easy to get hold of. The Rockfax guides do their best to help, by giving details of the latest local guides, but I'm not going to bother if it means taking a day or two out of a week's holiday, or if I end up paying more for a guide to one crag+shipping than I would for a Rockfax guide to the whole area. And I'm someone who will normally buy every guidebook going!

In reply to Gordo:


Not quite. Have you not come across the concept of a 'selected guide' before? The idea is that first time visitors to an area get to climb at many different locations without having to buy three or four guidebooks. On a repeat visit to a certain crag, it might be worth buying the local guidebook as you have already climbed all the lines that are listed in the selected guide. There are selected guides to almost every region in Britain, people here tend to view them as a good thing, as they increase visitor numbers to an area, thus increase money spent in the local economy etc. For example when I first visited North Wales, I bought the selected guide. Now I have been there several times, I own almost the entire series of local guides.

Despite onaclimb.com's generally excellent guidebooks (I bought and used the Montserrat Cara Sur last month, it is a superb guide) I am not aware of any existing selected guide to NE Spain e.g. if I wanted to a Catalan climbing holiday taking in e.g Montserrat, Terradets, Arboli and Pedraforca I would have to spend over €100 on guidebooks - for one week's holiday!!

With regards to the Barcelona y Alrededores guide - despite my Castilian not being great there is no doubt the local guide is not very good, it suffers badly in comparison with the Rockfax miniguide. Access descriptions are patchy, and both topos and grades are a bit dodgy - it doesn't compare with the newer Montserrat guide for example, which I have already said is superb.

Finally I find all this fuss very difficult to understand given that both Desnivel and Escalar (I read them both - slowly!) regularly feature articles that are essentially mini-guides to various locations in Spain, including detailed topos and grades for at least three or four cliffs in an area - last month there was an article about climbing in the Basque country for example. Yes the article mentions the local guide and where to buy it, but there is more than enough information in the article to have at least a weekend's climbing. Therefore it's not as if Spanish (or Catalan, or Basque or Galician), are not used to seeing or using selected guides.

I understand and accept that the situation re. guidebooks in Spain is different to what we have in Britain because of cost of equiping the routes with bolts. Nevertheless the crags are still there for anybody to use and if Rockfax see a gap in the market, then as a company they are entitled to make the effort to fill that gap. Given that Alan and Chris repeatedly say they are searching for and welcome any contact from local climbers to assist them with their guides, I don't see what you or anybody else are moaning about.

In reply to Alun:

Something that the Spanish guide writers may like to do is print their guides in Spanish, not the local language due to local pride. Of course if they insist the Scottish Mountaineering club may do theirs in Gaelic and the Welsh do theirs in Welsh, and of course not selling many to outsiders.

In reply to sutty:

Or even, shock horror, include some basic information in other languages - German and English perhaps, as Spain seems popular among climbers from those countries, and France as it's next door.

In reply to sutty:

In fairness (and with good business sense) the majority of the of the onaclimb.com series of guides are in Castilian (i.e. 'Spanish'); only their website is in Catalan.

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

i think it looks like some of the local guides may be starting to do this.....i did however see some non-english climbers using the RF Blanca guide on the weekend as well.

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

The Sun Rock Guide had the routes and information in several languages and covered a lot of areas if only with a few routes as a taster.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Just had a thought ( ugh ) how much money do you give to local bolting schemes both at home and abroad ?

As local spanish guides give a percentage of their dosh to bolting funds in the guides area how much do rock fax donate to these areas abroad.?

In reply to anonymous1:

Check replies near top of thread.


As far as I know, the local guidebooks in this area don't actually donate a percentage of their cover price to local bolting. They just tend to be written by people who put up new routes, which is a very different thing.

Again, it is worth reading my reply referenced to earlier in this thread -

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=116068&v=1#1599843

Alan

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

They do that in some guides, like the excellent new Sierra de Espuna guide. I have certainly seen more Spanish guides with English than British guides with Spanish.

In reply to StefanB:

But then you probably get more English speakers climbing in Spain than you do Spanish speakers climbing in the UK

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

You are digging a hole Simon, time to stop.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

As usual i didnt read anything longer than what are the quick replies,my fault.

You are quite right in that if you give money for something and dont get any feed back,then you quite rightly become suspicious and then don't donate any more money.

problem with Spain is too many locals keeep quite about their ''secret crags'' , plus when you get to an area you can never find a place to buy the local guide. So that's the guide book writers fault.

Anyhow its nearly wall time as its Tuesday afternoon, time to knock off in 30 mins.

In reply to sutty:
No I'm not, I'm participating in a discussion, making suggestions for improvements, and guessing as to why things are the way they are. To dig a hole I'd have to have strong opinions on the subject, and the only strong opinion I have on this one is that Desnivel shipping charges are a complete rip-off!

In reply to StefanB:

Hi Steff,

I'm making a trip to Siurana in a week and a half with some friends, have you been there yourself? Don't suppose you can tell me if the local guides to there have any English in them and if theyre any good, and easy to get hold of? Unfortunately my Spanish is non-existant. Otherwise Ill have to order the rockfax I reckon...
Hope lifes good in Valencia!

Si

In reply to Si dH:
P.S. I dont really see why the Spaniards are gettign in such a fuss about this. Its not as if we have lots of spaniards coming over and buying guidebooks the peak. If they wanted t ocome here (shock horror) and there was a Spanish guideboo kavailable I certainly expect them to use it! I dont see why rockfax are causing problems for the guidebook-writers because surely spanish climbers would always buy the spanish version? And if this isnt the case, then the writers obviously need to stick their finger out and sort out a better spanish guidebook! Rockfax have already vastly improved guidebook-writing in the UK, maybe the same will catch on in Spain and everyone will be better off, you never know.

In reply to Si dH:


There is good newish (2003 i think) guide to Siurana available from the Siurana campsite (and maybe other places) which covers something like 3 times as many routes as the Rockfax. Has some English in it + diagrams / maps - we had no problem at all understanding it. The rockfax guide is also good and covers other areas which you may well want to visit - personally I would get both, between a group a couple of guidebooks isn't a big expense. There are guidebooks to the other areas by Onaclimb I think - I probably would have got the Arboli one if I'd seen it, unfortunately they weren't selling at the campsite.

In reply to Si dH:

Sorry Si, I have not been to Siruana yet, but a German friend is there until today. If he tells me someyhing useful, I will get back to you.
Life in Valencia is going well. There is a new family member due soon, which might reduce my climbing time a bit.

Regarding the guide book controversy, I think the issue is that the rockfax guides are becoming quite popular here. The argument of oponents of the books is that local guide books writers do the groung work, i.e. doing all the routes and grading them and then rockfax uses this info for their books, without repeating the ground work. Personally, I am undecided wether this is true, as I believe they do go to all the crags and do a lot of the ground work.

Steff

In reply to StefanB:

Nah - we have a huge telephoto lens and produce the books without ever having to get out of the car. In fact we write guides to crags we have never even been to!


Chris


PS The last bit is a JOKE

In reply to Chris Craggs:

...plus it's amazing what you can do with Google Earth these days...

In reply to Chris Craggs:

LOL.
However, I hope you do more ground work than taking photos. A common point mentioned against you here is that you copy the mistakes of local guides. For the places I have the local guides / topos (Montesa, Gandia, Peñon de Ifach, Puig Campana) I know there are many variations, in particular regarding grades. A guy I met in Salem that claimed to be one of the new routers there, complained about renaming of sectors, rather than about copying.

In reply to StefanB:
If the rockfax guides, written in English, are becoming popular among Spaniards, then it surely says something about the quality of the Spanish guides. Strikes me thats maybe what needs changing in the same way the BMC have got their act together on the peak guidebook front since rockfaxes came out.
Congrats, get the baby out climbing when its 6 months

In reply to StefanB:

>complained about renaming of sectors, rather than about copying.

I think you will find that esteemed organisation used to do that as they would ask the locals waht something was called and use the phonetic name for some Scottish and Welsh hills.

One surveyor was called Featherstonehough, and you know how that comes out don't you?

Actually, if locals call a crag one thing they need to let others know to avoid complications. Brown used to have lots of Crag Xs, and we had to change some of our crag names in the IOM to define smaller areas.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

You mean the bit about the telephoto lens is true?

In reply to Si dH:


It's happening. The new Sierra de Espuna guide is great.


The first shoes might be rock boots.