Guidebook: Vertebrate Graphics Yorkshire Dales Mountain Biking
15th Sep 2005
It's good to know that the world of good climbing guide books does not solely belong to the BMC and Rockfax. Dave Musgrove, long time activist of Yorkshire has issued us with a gem. Although I am one of the first to sing the praises of photo topo's common to most new guides, that is largely because sketch maps and hand drawn diagrams of our beloved cliffs are so often wildly in-accurate and difficult to interpret. Not so with this beauty. Nigel Baker has obviously put a great deal fo time and effort into the awesome diagrams which are almost painting like.
The guide shows trad and sport routes along side each other, differentiating between the two by simple colour co-ordination (red for sport and blue for trad). Covered crags are: Twistleton Scars, Raven Scars, Trow Gill, Crummackdale, Pot Scar, Giggleswick, Langcliffe, Attermire Scar, Malham Cove, Gordale Scar, Stony Banks, Great Close Scar, Yew Cogar Scar, Blue Scar, Hawkswick Crag, Gate Cote Scar, Kilnsey Crag, Dib Scar, Loup Scar, Trollers Gill, Ash Tree Crag, Beggar's Stile, Chapel-le-Dale, Feizor Nick, Foredale Quarry, Hull Pot, Langscar, Moughton Nab, Oxenber Scar, Robin Proctor's Scar and Stainforth Scar.
I like the crag summary on pages 26 and 27. There are a couple of sentences for each featured crag, with a star rating to boot. Typically of the British definitive guide this useful feature has stopped short of giving other information such as the page number on which to find the crag entry, number of routes etc. Then again, perhaps this is part of the charm of such obviously esoteric gems.
Generally speaking a nice guide with a nice feel.