UKC

I picked up a copy of this selective mountain rock climbing guide while I was out in Slovenia recently. I haven't had a chance to climb any of the routes in it yet, but I thought I would share some impressions.

TL;DR Summary: A good but not quite perfect guide to climbing in the Julian Alps. The best I have seen in English by a long way.

Longer version: I have been going to the Julian Alps on and off for a few years now but have mostly confined myself to walking and VF as climbing information in english has been a bit thin on the ground. I spotted this book in the alpine museum in Mojstrana on Wednesday and knew that I was about to spend some money...

The book describes 102 routes on about 30 mountains in the Julian and Kamnik-Savinja Alps. Each route has a text description, detailed topo diagram and a less detailed photo topo showing the line on the face.

In addition to grade and length the text typically includes an introduction, access route, details of relevant mountain huts and bivouacs and a description of the route. There is often some extra text covering historical context and general colour but this doesn't apply to all routes.

Due to the length of many of the routes the textual descriptions are not broken down to the level of pitches but the topos make up for this.

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but grades of routes I have looked at range between about UIAA III and VII with plenty of aid, so something for everyone there!

The book is derived from a Slovene language original by Tine Mihelic* and Rudi Zaman. The translators, Stanko Kilnar and Margaret Davis, seem to have done a good job - the text is clear and accurate as far as I can tell.

Now I have to say something negative, so I will pick up on something common to many climbing guides - the size. Physically the book is a hardback which is slightly too large to put into the lid of a rucsac. This means that I can't really use it on a route without the help of Mr. Photocopier. This is not a major problem but it does limit the amount of route selection that can be done in the field.

There is a kindle edition available from Amazon, but given the limited amount of abuse electronics can survive relative to paper I don't really see it as an option.

Another very minor niggle is that the book title is printed the "wrong way" on the spine relative to most other books so it looks as though it is upside down in my bookshelf. Bah!

Overall: There are a couple of minor improvements that could be made but so far as I can tell it is very good. Probably the only choice for english speakers who want to do long routes in the Julian Alps.

*I can't figure out how to get the accents on the letters correct. Even copy and paste has let me down this time.

In reply to davidbeynon:

thanks for that David I've been meaning to check out the Slovenian alps for a while.

In reply to davidbeynon:


Given how many people use their phone camera to take a shot of the relevant page and then take their phone on the route, this is not the problem it once was. Better to have a nice big book to make the most of the info and photos, have a good read at home then go without it completely.


Can't you just reverse the dust jacket, you know, in the name of Spinal Conformity?

In reply to Damo:
I take your point about the phone, but they don't have the same degree of indestructibility as pieces of paper. Doesn't help that my phones camera and screen are @rse. No dust jacket so that won't work unfortunately. I'm not going to print a label to stick over the spine either

In any case, they were minor things not worth getting worked up about - as a package it still comes highly recommended. It's just that scaling it down by a few percent and giving it an SMC style plastic soft cover would make it even better.

In reply to davidbeynon:
"Another very minor niggle is that the book title is printed the "wrong way" on the spine relative to most other books so it looks as though it is upside down in my bookshelf. Bah!"

Guess most of your books are in English, most French books to have the title going the 'wrong' way - makes my book shelves look very untidy !