Pennine Lines w/c 11 March 2024
You might expect that, mirroring the recent vinyl boom, print guides might be on for a comeback? As climbing is reaching commercial maturity there are no shortage of brands keen to flog you all manner of high-margin must-haves in an increasingly crowded market; bluetooth recruitment gauges, capybara-hair brushes, anatomical leggings, any number of Japanese artisan chalk formulations blessed by a Shinto priest (absolutely not all from the same quarry in China), even plant-based performance beverages - thankfully consigning those meat-based energy drinks like Bovril Sport to the history books. But yet brands notably aren’t falling over each other to produce beautifully designed, lovingly and painstakingly researched grassroots definitive guidebooks.
Pennine Lines w/c 26 February 2024
Because of course if there’s a problem with sunrises it’s that they aren’t very user friendly. This is not like getting your kicks from on-demand streaming, there’s not an app to hook you up with a willing local sunrise any time of day or night. They’re too early most of the year, and when they’re not that early they’re freezing cold and hence in direct competition with a warm bed. Putting a thick quilt on a comfy bed is like taking voluntary redundancy from winter sunrise photography. Gotta sleep shivering under a thin sheet with an achingly full bladder really to force yourself to get up. Monumental levels of motivation are often required. Not all heroes wear capes etc.
Pennine Lines w/c 28 August 2023
But moving beyond the nuts and bolts of relaying information to you, guidebooks at their best are passports not only to X, Y or Z problems on the ground; long before you even set foot at the crag they are fuel for the fires of the imagination to burn. Although the pages of any guide are crammed full of words and photos they act as a sort of blank canvas to sketch out any one of thousands of possibilities played out in your mind’s eye. We can all be heroes when reading a guidebook. Every day is perfect weather, every hold feels good, every move made with confidence. Anything is possible.