Guide to climbing English crags

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33941, 6 September 1975, Page 10

Guide to climbing English crags

Rock Climbing in the Peak District. By Paul Nunn. Constable. 304 pp. N.Z. price $7.25. This is a practical handbook of no practical value to New Zealand climbers—unless they plan to spend a strenuous holiday in the southern Pennines. For those who do, the author’s climbing experience throughout Britain and abroad, and his accumulated knowledge from editing an official series on the Peak District, combine to. provide a valuable guide and a likely catalyst for the venture. The condensation into one small volume of 1100 routes in an area in which more than 10,000 recorded

climbs have been made has resulted in more than usual reliance on photography and graphics for clear visual information. Tony Riley, who was commissioned to take the photographs, had inevitable problems with distortion, but mastered most of them by a careful choice of viewpoint and the use of technical camera movements. The success of this team effort to provide a reliable guide for climbers cannot be fully assessed by the armchair critic. The true test will come when he stands, guidebook in hand, under his chosen crag and attempts to locate the route from a general shot of the face taken from elsewhere. Although few New Zealand climbers are likely to have the opportunity to put, the guide to this test, it could still have a place on the bookshelf. The excellent photographs, and the pitch grading and star rating applied to the routes described, give the book an interest value beyond that of practical application alone. The climbs include many which are technically among the most difficult in the British Isles. Who knows, the mere photographic record of them may stimulate some dormant rock climber’s spirit.