In reply to Alison Stockwell: Fair enough if you wouldn't want a critical letter ublished, however, if every letter starts or finishes with "great mag keep up the good work" or "just thought I'd write and say what a great mag this is" then why even publish the letters? They're the same every time, not worth reading. Compare that to Summit, or mags from other countrys, (or possibly gravity-I don't read it often enough to say) and there are people raising points on contentious issues within and outside of the magazine. I find it hard to believe that there are no ciritical letters being sent in-so why aren't they publishing them?
In my humble opinion, the state of Climb and Climber is pretty dire. They are just sooo boring. Some of the writers and writing are excellent-don't get me wrong, but they offer very little. I don't want to read a vapid review of destinations-all they are is a list of good routes at good crags, and then a list of how to get there-if you bought the guidebook (which you would if you were going) then you'd find all that inf in there-it's called stars. Better to have good pics and an interesting story to inspire you-the boring facts and reality can wait till plans form. Climber in particular tends to be a collections of "go here, climb this" articles-if I wanted that I'd go on Planetfear and look there-they cover that pretty well.
AS to what I'd like to see is: Interesting articles, fiction, poetry, excellent photography for its own right (OK-that's already there), good comedy/humour (not tedious repetitive and cliched jokes in a reeeaallly tame cartoon), interesting editorial and opinion from the editor and columists, in depth news (bearing in mind that most people get their news from here), different writers-not the same every time, oppurtunities for people to contribute and complain. I really do think that Mick (is it Mick? Or Alan?) should do some of his cartoons-they were really sharp and funny.
So sorry if that isn't a terribly glowing report-it is at least constructive...! I personally think that like Brian from Gravity, the editors of Climb/climber should look at this site-theres always loads of opinions about their mags, so why shouldnt they condict a little market research??
Sam