Guidebook purchase.

I bought my first Rockfax guide in a long while recently.

I'm not the biggest Rockfax fan mostly because they have a habit of releasing select guides that tend to focus on the honeypots (and anywhere with a load of so-so Chris Craggs & co new routes...) and ignore or even disparage other areas, thus concentrating the load and the crowds whilst allowing good climbing to fall into neglect by lack of attention. I also wasn't impressed with their focus on popularist guides to the Peak District, already well covered by BMC definitive AND select guides.

However I do approve of their guides to some areas that didn't have a good (English) guide already (e.g. Clwyd Limestone, my previous Rockfax purchase, or the Spanish guidebooks), and of course their general increase in guide quality and design which has had a great knock-on effect on the now-supreme quality of BMC guides. That "upping the ante" alone gets respect from me.

However, that effect hasn't knocked onto all guides, including Yorkshire Gritstone (very crude and old-skool and too local-feeling) and North East England and Northumberland (both improved design quality but patchy in accuracy and reliability (e.g. grades). Thus I bought the Rockfax Northern England guide which covers those areas. Fuck it, if other teams can't produce guides that feel trustworthy enough for me, then Rockfax will get more of my cash. Not that they're always reliable but the guide does feel like they've put the effort in - in particular presenting Yorkshire properly, and ironing out the obscurity of Northumberland. It's got me more syked for the areas too, which is always a good thing. Good photo-topos really help....the ball's in your court eh YMC!!