Sunday, April 13, 2008

Arapiles Selected Climbs - Second Edition

Arapiles Selected Climbs - Second Edition
Authors: Simon Mentz, Glenn Tempest 2008 (hopefully) ~400pp
My Rating 5* (for the genre) / NA (for the non-climber reader)
Read in proofs during March 2008

Promises to be the best of the many rock climbing guide books I've used for the following reasons:
  • Equal attention paid to routes of all difficulties
  • Allows first time visitors to area to easily orient themselves and locate climbs.
  • Clarity and accuracy of route descriptions, including solar exposure
  • Route locator photographs ("topos"): Photos of extreme clarity with the path of individual routes painstakingly superimposed on top of them
  • Ability to humorously and concisely convey what makes a given climb noteworthy as well as the history and lore of the area.
  • Sweating the details: many changes were made to route descriptions from the first edition, often even for very obscure climbs
  • Captivating action photos that show the allure of Arapiles climbing across the difficulty spectrum

Since the book hasn't been published yet, I do have a couple of caveats:

  • The indices were not ready when I proofed it. Though I've been assured that they have been much improved in format and accuracy from the first edition, they were the notable weakness of the predecesor volume.
  • The printer could screw things up and fuzzy photo reproduction could greatly detract from the usability of the book.

No comments: