UKC

Headed north soon as a visiting climber, I have Gary Latter's northern volume. Is there a consensus for whether to get the southern volume or the newer wired guide? 

Thanks,

I'd get the wired - I like Gary's volume 2 more than the vol 1 and the wired is pretty good and with bigger topos. 

I've got both (as i owned both Gary's books but they didn't include a crag i wanted to go to).

My 2ps worth... They are both great guides. Gary's has more routes in (unsurprising as its 2 volumes) but there is a slight difference in coverage. I.e. the wired one has more caithness crags, Aberdeenshire coast and a think a few lowland ones that Gary's didn't cover. The wired one is also a work of art and has loads off really amazing inspirational photos, in some ways it's more of a coffee table book where as Gary's is more functional for the crags it covers.

I've just been using the Wired guide in anger for the first time in the NW. I also had Gary's guide. Gary's guide has quite a lot more crags in it and often a lot more routes on the crags covered by both. It does this at the expense of presentation with things being more squashed in. So, if you only have one, you will have more options with Gary's guide. However, the Wired guide is more recent and covers some more recently developed or newly popular areas (though I imagine Gary will address this in the next edition). Ideally get both; the Wired guide is a beautiful and inspiring thing!

Neither. All the best Scottish climbing is in the NW

If you already have GG North, GG South is the obvious way to cover all Scotland.

You already have half of Wired or SMC Greatest Hits.

You cannot be serious - this is UKC don't yer know 😁

More seriously, this one has come up more than once before on UKC and (from the position of being an innocent bystander) is I think the "which guidebook" discussion with least consensus.

I'm in the planning stages too and have both. The wired guide is prettier and easier to use but there's so much missing that you still really need Gary's. 

Thanks for all the advice, sounds like GL's Southern volume is the sensible choice.

I have often wondered why the Latter and SMC guides have word for word descriptions of the same routes. Why is this?

Gary wrote the chapters for the SMC guides?

Don't think you'll find that's what the Acknowledgements in the SMC guides say.

He's definitely acknowledged in the Northern Highlands North, and I know he wrote the Reiff text. 

I've got the Wired guide & Gary Latter South, the Wired guide has better photos and descriptions (and larger text) but fewer routes. It's on the Rockfax app though, so if you're taking pics of pages anyway then getting the app for a month might be an idea.

Dont want to get into a debate about this minor issue, but the SMC Northern Highlands North states : “Reiff Sea Cliffs by Andy Cunningham”.

Ok perhaps I misunderstood when i saw a draft from him, but perhaps you should bring this up with the parties involved rather than in this thread? 

SMC have the copyright for SMC guides written by Gary or anyone else.

 I think the copyright always stays with the actual author unless they have signed it over?

Chris

I was told this is not the case with SMC guides and many others such as Lonely Planet.

'Any rights he had as author have been passed to the SMC in return for any payments paid to him for his work. This is very common in publishing. For example the copyright of almost all general travel guides (Lonely Planet, Rough etc) is in the name of the publisher, not the contributors.'