North Wales Climbs spans the major mountain crags from Llanberis Pass, to Cloggy; and from Ogwen to the Carneddau. It also includes the Llanberis Slate quarries, Tremadog, the Moelwyns, the Gwynant Valley, Mid-Wales, Gogarth and the Ormes of Llandudno. As is normally the case with the selected Rockfax guidebooks, the choice of what to include is based as much on the crag it is on as the route itself. If we include a crag then we tend to include a good selection of routes on that crag.
Correction – The graded list on page 44 has some repeated routes in the HS category. Here is a corrected version.
Gordon Stainforth (verified owner) –
My revised review:
This a beautifully produced book, covering most of the main areas very well, and I have perhaps never come across a guidebook in which I have been so in agreement with the grades and graded lists. But there are two glaring omissions. First, the mega classic crag of Cwm Silyn (with such three-star routes as Outside Edge, Dwm, and Crucible) is omitted. Worse: there is no section on the climbing history. Sadly, this is symptomatic of a shallow, philistine age that has no deeper interests, but is content with only the surface of things. From this point of view, the book lacks the respectful connoisseurship of a classic rock climbing guide. If it had not been for these two serious omissions, I would have given the book 5 stars for its visual flare and the enormous amount of care that has gone into its design and production.
Alan James – Rockfax –
Hi Gordon
Cwm Silyn was omitted on the advice of local guides due to the vast amount of unstable rock left after the major rock fall a few years ago. My understanding is that the situation is quite serious. Outside Edge is still possible but the main slab routes aren’t.
As for history – well the omission is hardly new for this book for us. We took a decision years ago to let history take its place in beautiful history books. We make guidebooks to inform what is there to climb. That has always been our style.
Thanks for your other comments.
Alan
Florence (verified owner) –
Overall a great guide book. Excellent selection of starred routes, clear full colour topos, clear descriptions.
Only thing missing is route lengths. Length of individual pitches is given, but no overall length, this can be derived by adding pitch lengths where they are given, but single pitch routes are not given at all.
Generally though, thank you for this excellent guide book.