Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #394910 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

From the Back Cover
For more than twenty-five years, FalconGuide has set the standard for outdoor recreation guidebooks. Written by top outdoors experts and enthusiasts, each guide invites you to experience the endless adventure and rugged beauty of the great outdoors.
Rock Climbing Europe points you to more than 1,000 of the best ascents in Europe, including traditional and sport routes of all degrees of difficulty. Expert rock climber and outdoors photographer Stewart M. Green provides in-depth information and precise detail about finding and scaling the finest face, crack, and alpine routes in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, and Norway.
This guide provides all the information needed to plan, execute and enjoy a memorable European climbing experience. Learn how to get to each destination, where to stay, what to bring, and how to communicate and find your way around. With this guidebook in hand, you can get off the tried-and-true tourist routes and venture into the backcountry.
This guide features:
Guaranteed binding - if this binding fails, the publisher will replace the book for free
Pitch-by-pitch route descriptions, ratings, and recommended gear
Detailed topos and clear overview photos
Descent information on multipitch routes
Easy-to-follow driving and approach directions
Climbing history and visitor information for each area
Tips on food, camping, climate, and more

About the Author
Stewart M. Green is a freelance photographer and writer based in Colorado. He travels the world working on projects for The Globe Pequot Press and other publications and has written many books for Globe Pequot, including the popular Rock Climbing Colorado, Rock Climbing Utah, Rock Climbing New England, Rock Climbing Arizona, Scenic Driving California, and Scenic Driving New England. He is currently working on a collection of essays about the climbing life. Stewart has over thirty years of experience as a professional photographer and is one of the world's leading climbing photographers. In addition to books, his work appears in many catalogues, advertisements, and national publications.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Cornwall, or Penwith to use its Cornish name, is a distinct and unique part of Britain. The county of Cornwall comprises the final joint of the finger, with its very tip, dubbed Land's End, the westernmost point of mainland England. The long rocky coastline of Cornwall is walled with compact cliffs broken by occasional beaches and secluded bays. "This Cornwall is very primeval," wrote the great British novelist D. H. Lawrence who lived at Zennor in 1916. "Great, black, jutting cliffs and rocks . . . and a pale sea breaking in. . . . It is like the beginning of the world, wonderful: and so free and strong." Climbers make pilgrimages to climb these wave-resistant, granite cliffs, to test their strength, ability, and nerve on some of the best sea-cliff climbing in all of Europe.
The sea adds additional dimensions to the climbing experience. Sea-cliff climbing is atmospheric. Out there you're pinned on the sheer cliff face. The surf crashes onto rocks below, the smell of salt water lingers in the air, and the scenery is boastful and grandiose at this meeting of hard land and ill-tempered water. These aesthetic factors combine with more pragmatic and serious difficulties, such as timing your climbs with the daily tides, to make Cornish sea-cliff climbing a potentially risky but immensely satisfying business.
Climbing here is not like monkeying up a bolted sport route on the south coast at Portland. Instead Cornwall is a brilliant arena for adventure climbing and a major climbing area that is still free of bolts. Come here and you won't find a bolt every 5 feet or drilled anchors at the end of a pitch, but you will find a natural crag environment with no bolts and few fixed pitons, which corrode anyway in the constant wash of sea air.
Cornwall is a place to find all the thrills and chills of real traditional climbing. It's a place that places a premium on experience, competence, good judgment, and self-reliance. By no means, however, does this mean that the Cornish cliffs are dangerous. Adventure is never equated with danger, but with commitment and resourcefulness in the face of adversity. Most of the routes are well-protected with modern gear and you don't have to climb those that aren't. As at any climbing area, it's up to you to create a safe experience by relying on your own good sense and climbing ability.
The Cornish climber needs to be competent at his rock craft. Successful climbing here is not about busting hard moves up steep stone, but about being aware of all the subtle aspects of climbing. You need to be competent at leading pitches and placing gear. Competent at setting up equalized belays on ledges, small stances, and sloping, grassy cliff-tops. Competent at finding the right descent to the cliff base and competent at reading tide tables. You also must be competent at evaluating both objective and subjective dangers, of knowing when to be bold and when to retreat.

Customer Reviews

Great Overview and more...
Provides a detail overview of all the best climbing spots that Europe has to offer. Usefull for the 1st time climbing visitor, with good crag maps and topos thrown in on the best areas and routes in each spot.

you might want something more detailed at the crag, but provides a great overview with lots of handy detail.