Gaileen Sutton

You may be planning to climb outdoors, especially if you’ve exhausted the possibilities at your local indoor climbing wall. Whether you’re aiming for traditional routes or sport bolted routes, the humble climbing book is an essential piece of equipment no climber should ever go climbing without.

Path guides have been an integral part of rock climbing since the early 20th twentieth century. When rock climbing initially started gaining popularity, paths were documented with scribbled notations and drawings that would later be carefully and manually reproduced. Novices had a hard time establishing themselves in the field, as the ability to obtain these guides were limited. Climbers are essentially pampered now with the multitude of climbing books available that thoroughly document virtually every rock that has ever been climbed on Earth.

Rock climbing guides are essential to keeping you on the right path, unless of course you are trying to discover new courses. However, remaining on the proper course is essential for ensuring your safety. You could easily wander onto an E1 route, though you embarked on a Vdiff course. If you are experienced with E1 paths– great; if not, you will be in dire straights!

Most modern climbing books are superb and feature a wealth of useful information, including:

Photographic images documenting the paths;

Carefully detailed descriptions of the climbing route;

Plots that illustrate how to discover the crags;

Detailed descriptions of the crags including aspect, altitude and the type of rock;

Data concerning the situation of the routes, i.e. protected, well covered or exposed.

These days, finding a well written, informative book on climbing is easy to do. Good publishers include: Ground Up, ROCKFAX and Vertebrate Publishing. The guides put out by these companies have been proven to be particularly useful for many climbing adventures.

Rock climbing books are the subject of several articles previously published on my blog on rock climbing in the United Kingdom. This is a good resource to look at if you are trying to decide which rock climbing book you should choose. Each book reviewed was used during a real rock climb to provide the best, unbiased review possible on each.

Rock climbing outdoors can be a dangerous sport; it is imperative that you are completely primed and thoroughly outfitted before starting. The only comprehensive method of gathering this information is to obtain climbing books that will educate and inform you about the journey you are about to take.

Gareth Hanson is an adventurer and adrenaline addict. Check out Gareth’s climbing books reviews on his rock climbing blog, Rock Climbing UK.