Since the publication of the 2008 guidebook, there has been a bit of a boom of activity in Lofoten. The locals were used to having the place almost to themselves but an influx of international visitors has resulted in a small part of the vast potential of this amazing granite landscape being realised. Many major new routes have been added and these have now been documented by Chris and Thorbjørn in a free update.

The Update has 24 pages detailing new routes, changes and corrections to the 2008 guidebook. It is available in the two different booklet formats.

The Update has been supported by the Nord Norsk Klatreskole (NNKS).

Download the update here

The pre-easter rush got even busier today with the delivery of North Wales Classics - almost two weeks ahead of schedule. We got a lucky break with the binders and the book went through early making it a turn around from last key stroke to finished product of 16 days - a new Rockfax record!

The finished product looks great and really is a compact little book that will fit in your pocket. We hope to get all the online orders out by early next week and the shops should receive their stock by the middle of Easter week.

Now its on to West Country Climbs. At 400+ pages and back to A5 size, we will have our work cut out to get that one out by the summer but we are still on track for a July publication date at the moment.

North Wales Classics is now at the printers and will be published early in April. This brings to an end a frantic three weeks  of activity from the author Jack Geldard, new Rockfax employee Stephen Horne and myself. The work was made even more frantic due to Jack’s idea in January - “why don’t we add a Welsh Winter section”. After initial scepticism on my part (at this stage of a book’s production life cycle, the last thing you need is a complete new sector) it eventually dawned on us what a great idea this would be. We have after all just had the best winter for years, and Jack and others had managed to get a superb set of crag shots of the major crags in perfect conditions. So even more frantic work has resulted in a full new winter section including Craig y Rhaeadr, the Trinity Face, Cwm Idwal and the Black Ladders.

The finished book looks great. It is in the smaller Pokketz size (A6 and a thin 208 pages) so that it fits neatly into your pocket making it easy to carry with you on the longer mountain routes. We have also focussed on the lower grades and included a few crags that have never properly been described elsewhere before, despite having hundreds of logged ascents in UKC Logbooks!

You can pre-order a copy here at a special offer price of £14.95, including delivery in the UK (RRP £16.95). The books will be sent out in the week beginning 12 April and this will be the fastest way of getting hold of a copy. Outdoor retailers should have their stock by the weekend of 17 April.

So far this winter has proved to be one of the best in recent years for winter climbing with many of the best crags being in great condition. To coincide with this Rockfax are pleased to announce a new performance book dedicated to winter climbing.

Written by Neil Gresham and Ian Parnell, the book follows on from the very successful Trad Climbing + and Sport Climbing +. Once again the book main aim is to give advice and show you the techniques required to push your climbing to the next level.

The book is currently at the printers and is due to be published towards the end of January. We are expecting to get stock in the week beginning 26 January and will hold the special offer price of £17.95 until the end of January (RRP £19.95). Specialist retailers should have their stock by the weekend beginning 31 January.

• Order now
• Check out the sample Ice Chapter

For the second year running a Rockfax guidebook has won the prestigious Mountain Exposition Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. Last year it was Deep Water, and this year it is Lofoten Rock.

John Harlin, a judge at Banff and renowned mountain author described the book as “perfect”. You can read his full report here.

Chris Craggs was unable to attend the ceremony but sent over  a speech which was read out in which he especially thanked co-author Thorbjørn Enevold:

“…And most importantly to Thorbjørn Enevold the climbing guide who lives and works in Lofoten, where he runs the NNKS (North Norway Climbing School), and who was instrumental in getting Ed Webster to write the classic 1994 guidebook “Climbing in the Magic Islands”. Our incidental meeting when we first arrived in Lofoten, was a fortuitous one (Sherri hired me guide of the first time ever to do the scary Svolvaer Goat). When he discovered I worked for RockFax he was wary, but I sent him a copy of our most recent guide and he later admitted – he realised straight away that “I wanted to be on that train”. His local knowledge and network of contacts ensured that the guide was up-to-date and accurate. He knew from the start what kind of a guide he wanted and subtly shunted me in the ‘right’ direction.
Thanks for giving me the chance to write a guide to this fantastic part of the world – your part of the world – and for making us welcome there.”

This is also the third year on the trot that this award has been won by a British guidebook since the BMC won with Burbage, Millstone and Beyond in 2006. which just goes to show once again what a great state UK guidebooks are in. Here are some more thoughts on this.

We are pleased to announce three new publications, one of which is available immediately, and two books for later in the year.

Firstly we have Daimon Beail’s latest addition to the deep water solo information covering Mallorca. Daimon wrote a MiniGuide called Mallorca Psicobloc in 2006 which covered the three big cliffs of Porto Cristo (Cova del Diablo), Cala Marcel and Cala Barques, plus a few smaller venues. This information was then adpated and updated by Daimon, working together with Mike Robertson, in the award-winning book Deep Water. Since then Daimon has been hard at work documenting many more areas which are now fully covered in this new MiniGuide - Mallorca Deep Water Soloing. This makes a great companion to the book Deep Water and is essential reading for anyone going to the island with a view to tackling some DWS action.

The next print publication will be a full guide to El Chorro. This great area last appeared in a print Rockfax in 2001. Despite rumours to the contrary climbing in the area remains as vibrant and active as ever, and there is also a wealth of new crags in the vicinity which are gain coverage for the first time in a Rockfax. For those looking for a ahcnage from the Costa Blanca or Mallorca, El Chorro should be on the hit list for this winter. Expected publication date is late November but we’ll say early December to be safe.

The final publication of the year is the third in the series of ‘plus’ books - Winter CLIMBING +. This time we will be focussing on all aspects of winter climbing, from ice to mixed, mountain safety to waterfall climbing. The book is being written by two of the Country’s leading winter climbers - Neil Gresham and Ian Parnell.

Such is the pace of things these days that one book has only just flown the nest (Northern England) and we are already well progressed with the next. Lofoten Rock as a project has actually been bubbling under for several years now, ever since Chris Craggs started visiting there waving his trusted weather wand. His statistics are: four consecutive summers since 2004, 18 weeks in total, less than 12 wet days, only 2 wash out days (I’ve had more rain during that time in France!)

All the while Chris has been beavering away getting the information together to produce the next guidebook to this wonderful climbing destination. Working together with the locals, especially Thorbjørn Enevold, he has managed to get a virtually complete set of photos and descriptions for all the major routes on the Islands. There are massive unrepeated five-day mixed aid and free routes on places like Storpillaren; major World classics like Vestpillaren (N6 about E1) on Presten; beautiful sustained slab climbs like Bare blåbær (N5- about VS 4c) and Solens sønner (N6 about E2 5c) in Djupfjord; plus remote peaks in the West, sport crags dotted around, bouldering, walking and beautiful beaches to relax on.

Putting it together into the finished book is my job and, not only been pretty easy this time, but it has been about the most enjoyable book I have ever worked on. The photographs of these huge granite walls are just so inspiring. Virtually every route line that weaves up them has me eagerly climbing it from my desk chair, dreaming about that holiday that we want to take up there (just as soon as I can steal Chris’s weather wand!)

The book is due for publication in May and we are well on schedule. It is looking really good so far and (as ever) I reckon this is going to be the best looking guidebook we have ever produced. For these big cliffs we needed big coverage so we developed a new ‘full page bleed’ style to cope with the extra large crag photos. The results are spectacular as you can see in the free Djupfjord download.

After a frustrating delay of a couple of weeks we now have copies of Northern England. The books arrived at Rockfax HQ this afternoon - online orders will be getting processed early next week, Cordee will have their stock now also. Most shops who pre-ordered will get their stock by next weekend.

The book looks great and the printers have done an excellent job as usual, despite the difficult circumstances with the binders.

So we did make February after all, only they had to add a day on to the month for us to make it!

For the first time in the last ten years we have encountered a slight hitch in the final printing process for one of our publications and by a curious twist of fate we have also been quite lucky.

Printing often involves work with two independent contractors - the printers and the binders. Binders tend to be large operations that run round the clock and have very full order books, printers are more flexible. This means that the crucial stage when promising the delivery of a book is making sure that the binders slot is booked well in advance. If you do this then the publication date tends to be fairly predictable.

Everything was on schedule for a publication date of around 18 February when we sent the finished book to the printers on 21 January. Then there was a delay in the paper delivery from Spain but this only slowed down the printing process, we were still on schedule for the binding slot. Then, on Monday 4 February, the binders we were booked into went bust (this seems to happen with binders more frequently than other businesses).

The upshot of this is that we have had to find another binders which has delayed the publication of the book for a week or two since they are all booked up at this stage. Apologies to those who pre-ordered the book - you will still get your copies before anyone else.

The lucky break was the fact that the paper didn’t arrive on time since, if it had, then our printed unbound copy would have been in the binders when they went bust. This would probably have meant that it would have been impounded until the receivers had finished doing their thing which could have delayed the book for a lot longer than a couple of weeks.

2008 is set to be another big year for Rockfax. We have six books that may get published although it is quite likely that at least one of these gets nudged on into 2009.

Northern England
This fantastic new book is at the printers as of this week and will be available in mid-February. Pre-order now at a special offer price. It is a great looking book which fits beautifully into the Rockfax format and compliments the others in the series well. At 360 pages and nearly 2500 routes it is no lightweight either.
The publication is really a hanger-on from 2007. We had originally intend on publishing it in the summer of last year but other projects, and the size of the book, caused it to be delayed for six months. It is actually the first one of our books since Northern Limestone in 2004 that has slipped more than a month.

Have a look at some page samples here - sample 1, sample 2, sample 3

Download the free Wainstones sample chapter.

Lofoten
The next book is to Lofoten in Norway. This is a very exciting project and, rather like Northern England, the culmination of several years of effort by Chris Craggs. We are working with local climber, mountain guide and businessman Thorbjørn Enevold who has supplied us with loads of information and generally helped with the text and descriptions for many of the more obscure routes. Chris has had four summer’s worth of great weather to get a stunning set photographs. I fully expect the book to be our best ever production from a photography point of view.
We are starting now with the final stages of production and the book should be published by May in time for the season.

El Chorro
The other nailed-on publication for next year is a fully updated guide to El Chorro. Mark Glaister is putting together a full new guide to this great area, with new crag shots, new routes and updated route information. We aren’t adding many new areas but the areas that we have covered in the past will be getting the full treatment. This is due for publication just before Christmas.

Winter Climbing +
The third in the ‘Plus’ series this time focusing on Winter climbing. The book is being written by Neil Gresham and Ian Parnell and we are aiming for publication late in the year but, with such a full schedule, it may get nudged on into 2009.

2009

We are already thinking about 2009. Top priority will be a new edition of Western Grit, but we will also be working on several other exciting publications:

North Wales Classics – Pokketz
Following on from the well-received Pokketz books to the Peak last year, we are producing this ‘best of’ guide to the North Wales routes. This will be roughly the same size as the Peak Pokketz books at 192 pages, but will contain full descriptions and photo-topos for all the best routes in North Wales. Areas include Tremadog, Cwm Silyn, Llanberis Pass, Cloggy, Ogwen, Idwal and the Carneddau.
The book is being written by North Wales local Jack Geldard. We are aiming for publication early in 2009.

Pembroke
This book is based on the original Pembroke Rockfax by Alan James and being added to, and brought up-to-date, by Mike Robertson (who won the Banff Award last year with his book Deep Water). We will be working hard on this project during the summer and intend to publish sometime in 2009. It will be a full A5 book with masses of colour.