UKC

I'm planning to go to the dolomites for a couple of weeks this summer and I'm going to pick up the alpine club guide and the 100 classic climbs. I've also seen the 'mid grade trad rock' book advertised but I'd like to know what grades it considers mid grade before I shell out.

Anyone know?

In reply to birbeck:

Mid grade trad goes up to UIAA 5+ or thereabouts which I guess equates to around VSish.

I didn't think much of the alpine club book from the brief flick through I had of it.

In reply to Mike_Watson_99:

Excellent, I'll get it. I was worried it might only start at that grade and would therefore be only of limited use for me.

Thanks

In reply to birbeck:

There's also a Dolomites rockfax out this year

In reply to Em66:

Any idea when it's out?

In reply to birbeck:


We are working hard on it noes but I suspect we will be too late for your trip. Aiming for August/September.

Alan

In reply to birbeck:

The routes are generally the better ones and easier to follow in the 100 classic climbs book than the mid grad trad rock climbs. We had both and I thought the later was a waist of money unless you are going to an area not well covered by the 100 classic climbs book. Yes it doesn't look as good but the picture diagrams in the other book are not as detailed as the pictadiagrams in the 100 classic climbs book and the text can be misleading and harder to follow we found.

In reply to Mike_Watson_99:

UIAA V+ is generally around VS/HVS 5a in my experience and VI- HVS/E1 5b sort of ground.

The mid grade trad rock books go up to TD which is around E1 ish and down to pretty easy stuff.

The 100 classic climbs book is better though.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Personally I found the Mid-Grade Trad Rock guides clearer, better descent notes and much better topos than Classic Dolomite Climbs when we climbed in the Sella Pass area a couple of years ago.
Worth having both vols. of Western Dolomites Mid-Grade Trad Rock and Classic Dolomite Climbs if money allows - don't bother with the outdated and user unfriendly AC guide.
This very recent thread covers similar material: http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=584602

In reply to birbeck:

As Stevo says the Mid Grade books cover climbs from approx UK Severe to probably the odd E2. Most routes in them are VS - E1 in British terms.

In reply to The Ivanator:
More info here
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=561950&v=1#x7478399
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=554523&v=1#x7396638
Sounds like both guides suffer from inaccuracies although we didn't find that with the routes we did from classic dolomite climbs.

In reply to The Ivanator:
Did you actually use both guides like we did Ivan or did you just use the mid grade trad rock?

In reply to CurlyStevo:

We did use both, had no problems with the routes we did in Mid-Grade Trad Rock (a small sample admittedly). On the traverse of the Sella Towers where we used the Classic I ended up off route - from the col between 1 & 2 I got on something quite a bit harder ...more like V+ than the supposed III+ we were meant to follow. I realised I was on the wrong line as the climbing got steeper and harder, and I was heading for a roof that seemed to cut off the corner I was in, thankfully there was a sensible way of coming out of the corner and avoiding the roof!
Also made a slight scary detour on the Kasnakoff route on Sella 2 - had both guides with us, but think a mistakenly placed fat shiny peg was really the culprit in me heading off route in this instance - did a hard UK 5bish move up onto a ledge that turned out to be appalling disintegrating rock, reversing the move was sketchy.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Having just browsed your other links I would agree that some very good routes in the Classic Book are rather mysteriously omitted from the Mid Grade Trad Rock volumes, like you the Route of Friendship on Piz Ciavazes was one of the highlights of the trip (glad I only seconded the two hard pitches).