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Pictorial Guides to The Mountains of Snowdonia
by John Gillham

A Pictorial Guide to the Mountains of Snowdonia,
Volume 1 The Northern Peaks. ISBN: 978074229730,
and A Pictorial Guide to the Mountains of Snowdonia,
Volume 2 The Western Peaks. ISBN 978074230620.
Published by Frances Lincoln Limited.
RRP £12.99 per book (£10.39 to Society Members).

John Gillham has produced the first two books in a series of four, which are intended to form a comprehensive guide to the mountains of Snowdonia. Each of these first volumes, covering the northern and western peaks of the region, include around 100 mountain walks of varying duration.

The author was influenced in his early years by the books of Poucher and Wainwright and this clearly shows in his work. His black and white sketches of the mountain landscapes are very reminiscent of AW’s drawings of fell ascents in his Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells; he has also included ridge routes between the various summits as Wainwright did. At the end of each chapter, for the group of mountains in question, there are two or three expeditions entitled ‘Days Out’ of five or more hours’ duration, several of which are horseshoe walks. The books are also well illustrated with colour photographs on nearly every page.

This set of four books (Volume 3 covering eastern Snowdonia and Volume 4 covering southern Snowdonia are due to be published in March 2011) means that those of us who over the last thirty-five years have had to walk through Snowdonia with only the OS maps as our guide, will have available a comprehensive set of books to assist us on our travels.

I think these first two books are spectacular and I look forward to reading and using the remainder of the series in due course.

John Burland - Member No. 2