In reply to UKC Gear:
Just back from a great week in El Chorro - first time there and very impressed, looking at going back same time next year.
Every non-brit we thought the guide was stunning - lets face it, it is an awful lot better than the local guide, but most of the brits thought it was a bit below the usual Rockfax (high) standard. The impression I got was that it was a bit rushed and it was clear the author usually climbed "black" routes. For a start it seems that a high proportion of the photos were mostly of harder routes (6c and above), which combined with the lop-sided selection of routes in the top 50 gave the impression that the area was of limited interest to lesser mortals - not so.
We found a number of routes were at least two grades out - in both directions. For example on Sector Suizo at Frontales, we thought SuperPotencia (6a, 2 star) was 6b and poor, but the nearby Irmchen (6a+, 2 star) was no more than 5+, but 3 star. Yep, grades and quality are very subjective, but we seemed to find one or two big anomalies each day.
Understand that the access situation means you have to only give the legal approaches, but the approach times for Los Cotos and El Polvorin - 25 minutes - were wildly optimistic for anyone going via the walkway. There's is about 25 mins of normal walking, plus however long the via ferrata section would take you (at least another 25 min, assuming you aren't stopping to take photos, admire the view, have a nervous breakdown, or get stuck behind someone else doing any of these things). Oh, and crossing the river is no doddle either. So are the approach times for walking through the tunnels ? - naughty, naughty!
Finally, my mate had a few problems reading some of the text. Black text on blue background (for example p80, p100, p142) were one of the problems. Another was the size of the info boxes on the crag pages (i.e. approach time, sunshine etc). This is surely one of the best Rockfax innovations, but they are getting smaller (yes, I've just compared with Peak Gritstone East!) and yet I couldn't see anywhere where this was neccessarry to fit onto a photo. OK you don't need to read the description for "lots of sun", you can tell from the icon, but you do need it for the approach time. A bigger font would help old-timers....like my mate.
Sorry to be so negative, as I say it is clearly much better than anything else on offer, but you guys don't want to get complacent now do you?