BMC Peak limestone north guide..

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 Peakpdr 14 Jul 2015
Hi..
What did everyone think of the new limestone guide. ?
I like the guide, great photos, good descriptions, loads of crags covered.. My main gripe is why the hell did they leave the information out of who did the first ascents and what style they did them ? If any guidebook should have this in, it's the bmc ones.. Really disappointed with this, as I'm sure the guys who first put up these routes will be..
Post edited at 09:18

 deacondeacon 14 Jul 2015
In reply to pauldr:

Hi Paul, there was a discussion on here when the book first came out and I shared the same gripe. I'd link it but I'm on my phone. I'd also like to have seen a bit more emphasis on the boulder it's its a really important aspect of Peak Lime.
Overall though it's a fantastic guidebook
In reply to pauldr: I agree with you on all of that. The FA download runs to 38 pages which shows how much there is to include, although I suspect a RockFax style name, date & style wouldn't have been as lengthy. It's a shame because it removes a degree of depth from the guide. That being said, guides are now becoming far too big and anything that keeps them at a functional size is good. I saw the Wired Guides Lakes book at the weekend wchih is, in my opinion, stupidly big for the area. At least with Eastern Grit you leave the guide on the floor, but I couldn't imagine carting the Lakes book up 3 picthes on Gimmer or wherever.

 JamieSparkes Global Crag Moderator 14 Jul 2015
In reply to pauldr:

Agree with all that, the photo topos are much better than the rockfax book.

Things that are annoying:
-no page numbers on crag maps, meaning you have to keep flicking back and forth between the contents page and where you are. This would be a relatively easy fix for the south guide.

- no ribbon or page marker, which is incredibly unhelpful at the crag.

- there is no new routes database for the peak, unlike every other defnitive producer. this would be really useful for maintaining a record of equiping dates etc.


 kristian Global Crag Moderator 14 Jul 2015
In reply to pauldr:

Yes you could be correct. I can only speak for myself, and I do feel it's a shame that you have to search for a hard to find download to get the info.
It would have been better to copy the Rockfax format and squeeze the name in under the route in small italics taking up very little space.

One thing that is very noticeable about the download as with the previous double black book is that the historical text accompanying the routes gets more and more sparce as you approach the 90/00/10s era. This is in part due to the fact that the people compiling the info are no longer active or part of the Lime scene.

Also of frustration as a logbook moderator, people are now adding routes to the database without all the required info, meaning I have to find it somewhere because they can't be bothered or know where to find it.

But on the whole the book is mostly accurate and serves its purpose well, to find the routes.
 stp 06 Aug 2015
In reply to pauldr:

Agree about the F.A being missed out. Not just for the history but often this hints at the kind of route too.

It's a good guide but there's some bad errors in there. The classic pic of Ron hanging footless on the Prow is described as Body Machine is one of the worst. And from what I've seen the grade changes are random and just wrong. I'd have hoped the BMC might have done something in relation to the national grade inflation issue. Instead they're very much part of the problem.
 Simon Caldwell 07 Aug 2015
In reply to stp:

I don't have a copy yet, but flicking through it in the shop my impression at my end of the grade scale is that the opposite is true, they've recreated some nasty sandbags by downgrading.
1
 stp 13 Aug 2015
In reply to Simon Caldwell:

That's interesting and even at the higher end there are some oddities.

Ron Fawcett's route Saline Drip was originally graded E5 6b and has stayed at that grade for decades because its pretty damned hard. The new guide has now seen fit to downgrade it - to a mere E2! This means it's easier than Scoop Wall now that has gone up to E3. Yet I find it impossible to believe that anyone capable of Saline Drip would find Scoop Wall anything more than a warm up route. And could Fawcett really be so wrong as to mistake an E2 for an E5?

It seems like they're less interested in getting accurate grades and prefer instead to have a bit of a laugh and create a bit of controversy with the grades.
 Offwidth 17 Aug 2015
In reply to stp:
Almost missed that point on Saline Drip: f7A into a much easier but bold upper wall does seem a bit odd for E2 but just as odd for E5. The logbook isnt much help:

Saline Drip (E5 6b)
Post edited at 12:07

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