Hiking books & maps

"Kickaha" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Hello everybody!
After the advice received in the other post on Ben Nevis, I thought of
buying a hiking book.
I live in Bristol, therefore I was thinking for something describing local
walks or walks in Wales, to do when the weather is like this weekend, when
climbing outdoor is not possible...

I've been in a specialised Travel Bookstore here in Bristol (can't

remember

Quoted message said:

the name, but it is a franchising bookstore) but I couldn't exactly find
what I had in mind as a guide.

Stanfords is probably the name of the shop you mean. There are several more
bookshops in Bristol which have walking books covering both local and other
areas. Blackwells, and Waterstones up Park Street, another Waterstones in
The Galleries shopping centre in Broadmead and Borders on Queens Road. The
Library on College Green might also have some.

What kind of walks are you looking for? I live in Bristol and whilst it's a
long drive to the major hill areas in the North of the country it is nicely
placed in the middle of several good areas for less strenuous walks, The 3
National Parks of Exmoor, Dartmoor and The Brecon Beacons aren't too far for
a day out and slightly closer there's The Mendips, The Quantocks, The Forest
of Dean and Wye Valley. There are also lots of small areas of greenery for
a quick short stroll within the city, Leigh Woods is nice.

The Mendips area around Cheddar is probably the closest area to Bristol
(half hour drive) where you can do a decent length walk and feel like you're
out in the countryside, Blackdown the highest point in the area gives good
open views over to Wales on a clear day and Cheddar Gorge is quite
impressive. You should be able to find some guidebooks to the area. The
Brecon Beacons are the only place close to have anything you could hills.

Kickaha <[email hidden]> wrote on Sun, 15 Jan 2006 12:33:51 -0000:

Quoted message said:

I live in Bristol, therefore I was thinking for something describing local
walks or walks in Wales

Quoted message said:

The Cicerone's ones, on the other hand, described only 2 days long walks...
they were part of the Backpaker's series: this applies to all the Cicerone
books?

No, not generally. Steve Ashton's Ridges of Snowdonia has mainly day trips,
but since it's mostly northern Snowdonia, it's not exactly local for you.
His writing style is a bit woolly for my taste, but the descriptions have
all you need. There are OS map fragments included, but you will still need
a proper map as they're very tightly cropped.

Quoted message said:

Finally, I've read in the Internet about the Collins Rambler's Guides, but
hey had non of these; are they generally better?

I find Richard Sale's North Wales book in that series excellent. The
descriptions themselves are concise but interspersed with interesting
background narrative sections. That structure is really useful. I've
done most of the walks either as prescribed or based my own route around
them. This has Harvey map bits in it, but again, you'll need a wider map
area.

Nearer to your base, there's Brian Conduit's Brecon Beacons and Glamorgan
from the Pathfinder Guide series published by Jarrold and the OS. The
descriptions are good, but most of the walks aren't really worth travelling
for (rather short easy strolls), but of course you can pick and mix.
The book has OS map sections which are suficient for the walks described in
the book.

Quoted message said:

Concerning Maps, I've seen you have the OS 1:25000 ones that should be
suitable. I've heard about the "Harvey Map Services Ltd" ones, that should
be waterproof (!). Are they good? Do they come in 1:25000 scale?

OS vs. Harvey's is the stuff that holy wars are made of... I personally
get on very well with OS 1:25k and find Harvey's colour scheme rather
distracting. Others find that OS maps have too much clutter, and I can
see their point, too.

Finally, you can google urw for trip reports by searching for subjects
beginning with "TR:" or see what comes up here in future. Some here
have route descriptions on their websites, too.

Have fun!
--
Rudi Winter, Aberystwyth, Wales