In the Craglets guides, Roger was pretty adamant that the guides should always be written left to right. No matter what. No arguments.

Hence in the guides recently added, areas like the Gorge Shady Side, and Hazards Main Wall, read back to front, as you approach them R-L. The Star Factory was like this in Craglets, but is now R-L as Jake wrote it. The Mt Wellington guide is also R-L.

Roger's reasoning is that its much better to keep guidebooks consistent.

However I'm not convinced, and am thinking about re-ordering these two areas.

Thought I would do a little vote to gauge opinion on this. Please cast your vote below (you have to log in to vote).

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7 Comments

  1. Doug Bruce

    In places like the Shady Side of the Gorge it makes sense to read right to left. A note at the beginning of the guide (some guides have a "How to use this guide") section should make it clear to people what's going on and why.

  2. Dave Humphries

    Climbs should be written up the 'natural way' for the crag. The 'natural way' is usually dependant on which end the access path reaches the crag, if the access path reaches the crag at the RH end then it makes sense to list the climbs R-L.

  3. Al Williams

    I see no need to stick to a L-R rule that is not universally aplied in any case. I think it is much more important to have a guide format that clearly communicates the nessessary information specific to the particular crag than to to get hung up on consistency.

  4. Jon Nermut AUTHOR

    Thought I would bump this back to the top of the forum to get a wider response, as 1-7 isn't that conclusive, and Roger is grumpy at me for re-ordering hazards main wall...

    1. Owen Gervasoni

      Im a L to R man. To me you look at the cliff and think, whats that route three or four lines to the right of "xxxxxx"? To have to look in the guide and read to the left in the guide but look to the right on the cliff is a bit counterintuitive.

  5. John Middendorf

    I think left to right is more intuitive per cliff, but I notice in the guides sometimes the listing of the areas are also strict about left to right ordering, which can be confusing.

    For example in the Craglets guide, at Coles Bay, the Flowstone Wall is presented before Hazards Main Wall, but logically it seems you would be approaching from Sleepy Bay and seeing Hazards first (presumably, I haven't actually been there, just trying to figure it all out).

    Similarly, at White Water Wall, where we actually were this weekend, it seems like the order should be the Prow first, then Lego (the farthest from camp) last.

    A small correction/clarification on Rocky Tom: On the illustration with The Neb/Jackson's Nose, on the rar right of the illustration, there is a "L" shown. We mistakenly thought this might refer to the same "L" (Lancelot) shown on the next illustration, and it took us a bit to figure out about the cliff inbetween. Still not sure what the "L" in the first illustration represents, as the Letterbox route seems like it is more on the wall to the right.

    In general, though the painted letters on the rock may help actually find the route "in the field" so to speak, they are confusing when trying to match up illustrations with descriptions in a book.

    Just some thoughts....

  6. Kim Robinson

    Should the same random approach apply to online guides? It seems pretty confusing to me to click the left arrow to move right along the cliffline and visa versa, perhaps I'm just the exception to the rule (wink)