The web version of the bouldering guide has very few photo topos ie. photos of cliff or boulders with the lines of problems superimposed on them. There were a few reasons for that firstly if the guide was printed in low definition black and white on an ordinary printed most topos would be unreadable, secondly they take up a lot of space and the guide would be huge if they where used extensively, thirdly they tend to be more suited to steep cliff band type climbing rather than rounded boulders (ie. it could take 4 or 5 photos to show all aspects of one boulder) and we don’t have much of that kind of thing and fourthly I don’t really like them.

Having said all that I think there might be some in the new guide. Here’s one of the Second boulder on Three Rock, I think it looks smart enough and shows the lines pretty well. What do people think? Please comment.