North Wales Rock: Selected Rock Climbs in North Wales

 

North Wales Rock: Selected Rock Climbs in North Wales
Page Type Gear Review
Object Title North Wales Rock: Selected Rock Climbs in North Wales
Manufacturer Ground Up
Page By Nanuls
Page Type Oct 23, 2009 / Oct 23, 2009
Object ID 6510
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Product Description

North Wales Rock: Selected Rock Climbs in North Wales


This is the 2009 2nd edition of North Wales Rock, a selected climbing guide to the world famous crags of North-West Wales. The guide showcases over 676 of the finest climbs from all the best areas: the Llanberis Pass, the Dinorwig Slate Quarries, Cloggy, Lliwedd, Ogwen and the Carneddau, Tremadog and the Moelwyns, Gogarth, the Lleyn Peninsula and the Llandudno limestone crags. This is a thoroughly modern production using full-colour topos, extensive area maps and individual crag approach maps. It also features an unprecedented collection of inspiring action shots and wild landscape images.

This is a thoroughly modern production using full colour topos, extensive area maps and individual crag approach maps. North Wales Rock also features an unprecedented collection of inspiring action shots and wild landscape images.

It has been researched and produced by the Ground Up team, which consists of Simon Panton (principal author and editor), Al Williams (designer), Rob Wilson, Al Leary, Graham Desroy, Simon Marsh, Mark Reeves and Pete Robins.

Features

ISBN 13: 9780955441738

No of Pages: 544

Page Size: 116 x 170

Publisher: Ground Up*

Published Date: July 2009

Cover: paperback

Illustrations: colour photos and topos

Images

Reviews


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Nanuls - Oct 28, 2009 8:34 am - Voted 5/5

North Wales Rock: Selected Rock Climbs in North Wales
North Wales Rock is one of the new generation of climbing guides that relies less on in depth route descriptions and more on visual aids such as photographic topos and action shots. It's a general guide that covers most of the best routes in North Wales, encompassing everything from the roadside crags of Tremadog, the towering mountain cliffs of Snowdon, the Glyderau and the Carneddau, the slate quarries of Llanberis and the sea cliffs of the Lleyn Peninsula, Great Orm and Gogarth. Now I say most of the best routes because there are some discrepancies, while a few neglected classics have justifiably made their way into the book, some better known, and equally good routes have been pushed out. A small problem perhaps, since the book contains descriptions of over 500 trad and sport routes, as well as general descriptions for the area's bouldering venues. Incidentally, bouldering venues are not given too much attention, perhaps because the people at Ground-Up are by and large the same people who produced 2005's excellent North Wales Bouldering/Bowldro Gogledd Cymru guide.

The presentation is superb, echoing what Rockfax have been doing for some time now, and in many instances, exceeding even what they have produced. Each distinct area within North Wales gets its own little section, which are made easy to find by the inclusion of coloured tabs on the edges of the book's pages. Each section contains a clear and legible map directing the reader to the crags in the area, and each crag has a short introduction, which includes a colour coded list of routes sorted by grade. In short it makes selecting routes a joy, and one can spend many happy hours at home leafing through its pages planning future adventures. An interesting deviation from the norm is the omission of stars for rating route quality. In this case, it's a nice touch, implying that since this is a general guide, all the routes are of high quality and more than worthy of a climb.

The book's photographic topos are most welcome, showing just enough to get an idea of the route, but not enough to spoil its mystery. The plethora of action and landscape shots are also very nice, many of them taken by the authors themselves, while others have been taken by some of Britain's foremost professional mountain photographers, including Snowdonia's very own Ray Wood.

If I am to find fault in the book in any way, and this is a purely personal opinion stemming from my usual geographical disposition, is that the crags of southern Snowdonia have been more or less ignored. Cadair Idris is of course there, but I would have liked to have seen crags such as Craig yr Aderyn make their way in there too. Subsequently, I won't be retiring my now rapidly dating (in light of this and the new Climbers' Club guides) Rock Climbing in Snowdonia by the late Paul Williams. Having said that, given the rarity in which South Snowdonia's crags are visited, and the size of the book as it is, any new southern additions would likely result in the omission of more popular crags in the north.

Basically, if you're looking for a high quality, general guide to North Wales, then this really is the only book for you.

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