UKC

The second edition of North Wales Limestone: The Definitive Guide has just been published. Building on the original book, now nearly 10 years old, it adds hundreds more recent routes, helping to cement the reputation of the area as a major destination. Steve Long takes a look.

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The guide is a great improvement on the layout of the original and ease of use and I appreciate the efforts the authors have gone to.

I have no doubt it is the best guide to the area.

However, I’m afraid, it is still far from perfect. There are still quite a lot of issues with the harder (E5+) route description at Craig y Forwyn, including at the Manhattan Wall area, and a lack of usable topos for this major crag (ie very foreshortened perspectives - drone shots or even a camera on a boom would have improved this). Some judicious editing out of the “locals only” link-ups (Manhattan Highrise, cough, cough) might have helped too: I’m unconvinced that five highly starred routes can exist on a wall 4m wide.

But, I repeat, I have no doubt this is the best guide to the area.

Does this guide include bouldering topos?

There are a few of the longer linkups in Parisellas described and it mentions the shorter problems these pass through but really you need a bouldering guide. Unfortunately that’s awaiting a new edition (the current published N Wales bouldering guide only covers the inland areas).

Great review Steve. I love this guide not just because it is clear, up to date etc but because it exists at all. The amount of effort that has gone in to maintaining these crags with fixed hand lines, new bolts, lower offs, access negotiations and now into producing a second edition of the guide is really humbling. Well done and thanks to all involved.

I totally agree, despite the huge amount of anticipation I was disappointed too, it still hasn't got a topo of Space Mountain. Then there's the issue of the cover... Mind you, Pete Harrison's version was a really hard benchmark to beat, my favourite guidebook in UK.

What’s wrong with the cover?

The image is backlit and it has a big blue bar on it and the typeface could be better. A bit like the difference between Dragons and Totems, subtle but makes a difference

I think the guide is good but the photos are fairly low resolution and a lot of the topos pixelated or blurry. The cover pic is also blurry which IO think is pretty inexcusable. I know making a guide is hard but this does let it down a bit. That said an update is long overdue and these concerns are more aesthetic than practical; it will do the job of getting you to the crag and to the routes well.

Yeah fair, there’s a few low res photos. I like the book, tons of new stuff to go at, but on the whole I’d sack off quite a lot of the “action” photos.