In reply to JonC:
> (In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com)
>
> old-fashioned
"Old-fashioned", us FRCC types? Surely not! Well yes actually, I'll admit to that I guess, but mainly from an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" point of view.
Thus the guide is the same shape and and has the same colour spine and the same plastic cover as the previous Gable (& Pillar) guide, and the one before that, and the one before that... The reasons being that the guide is much easier to fit in your pocket if climbing multipitch routes (which most of the climbs in the guide are), the plastic cover protects it from the rain that it will almost certainly end up in if you use it regularly and from damage if you drop it, and the yellow spine makes it very easy to distinguish from all your other climbing guides so you don't and up at the crag with the wrong book because you left the house in the hurry. All these things are tried and tested and all work well so why change them? The title font on the cover is peculiarly FRCC but again, it works - what reason is there to change it? Inside are far more historical photos (and information) than there have been in any previous FRCC guide and I admit that the history of Lake District climbing is a particular interest, but there are other reasons for including it too. The FRCC has a wealth of old climbing photos in its archives many of which haven't seen the light of day since they were taken and it just seems a great thing to be able to use some of these to illustrate the guides, especially when they show so clearly the suicidal equipment that many first ascents were made with. It is doubtful that a future series of guides will be able to include such information again as space will be at a premium by then due to the extra routes that will have been done.
The route descriptions are old-fashioned in that they follow the same tried and tested formula that has been used in FRCC guides since the 1920s - not sure how we could change that? Or why anyone would want to?
The colour photo-diagrams look fantastic to my mind but I guess they are old-fashioned too as the FRCC first used crag photodiagrams in its very earliest guides although those ones were in black and white. But what the whole thing looks like is far less important than whether it gets you to your route and then up it and otff the top of the crag without getting lost. These new photodiagrams should do that really well I hope.
