Rock Climbing in Romania: a climbing guide to Brasov crags, is a splendid 240 page tome, centering on the rock climbing around the city of Brasov in central Romania, which itself is located in the central southern ark of the hook-like spine that is the Carpathian mountain range.

For those unfamiliar with the cultural diversities, nuances and logistics of Romania (in which I include myself), the guide’s intro section does a great job; offering as it does a crash course in the geography, history, culture, currency (which is the Ron incidentally), climate and rest day options of this ex-Eastern Block nation.

One initial point to cover is the slightly confusing map at the start of the guide, which at a glance seems to indicate that the book covers four areas along the length of the Carpathians – as it highlights the areas in the same colour shades used to mark the different sections of the guide. However, on reading the paragraph at the top of the page it soon becomes clear that this is merely a coincidence and the guide only covers, as the name suggests, the crags in the vicinity of Brasov.

Once dullards such as myself have overcome this initial confusion one can begin to utilize and enjoy this quality publication. The guide is written by local enthusiast and crag guru, Ciprian Drăghici, who not only has an extensive grasp of the climbing in this area but also, it would seem, a superb grasp of the English language, allowing him to describe all the crags included in the guide in English. In fact the guide is wholly an English language document, opening the area to a far greater depth of possible climbing visitors – we must presume there is a Romanian print version for locals?

Left: Silviu Corciovei on Turn Me On (7c) Poiana Stanii, photo Mircea Struteanu.

In Use
In terms of using the guide at the crag the author manages to get a good balance between text and symbol use; generally offering a good crag/area summary, inclusive of an overview, route quantity and grade breakdown, a chart of symbols highlighting such things as crag steepness, rope length required, amount of sun, child friendliness and likely seasonal conditions etc. The crag photo-topos are all generally clear and taken in good light, making it easy to see where the various lines go. Another feature I really liked was the use of a small silhouetted climber symbol, on the topo, to indicate the scale of the crag, when other reference points were not available. The maps are simple but seemingly effective, incorporating the all the important info you need, including scaling, prominent references, directional information and even GPS referencing data.

On the whole the crags are bolted limestone, with some conglomerate areas too. The guide offers a nice/useful touch by way of explaining the various state of insitu equipment in each region of crags, eg. “New expansion bolts”, “Slightly rusted resin staples” etc. The grading is done in the familiar “French sport” system, in combination with a further simplified mechanism, of three coloured circles – easy, intermediate and hard – helping to get an idea of the severity of an area at a glance.

Right: Matei Capraru on Neuron! (7c+) Belvedere, photo Nicolas Ecoffet.

Summary
Overall, this well put together guide – a modern high quality mat finish cover and internal pages, similar to that of the popular Versante Sud guides – is packed to the gunnels with good information and decent looking routes, situated in a magnificent part of the world, in terms of both culture and surroundings. One thing I am a bit of a stickler for is good action shots, and on this front the guide could have been improved slightly, a few too many belayer-climber arse shots for my liking, but hey you can’t have everything. The icing on the cake for me (and all ‘train spotter climbers’ is the definitive alphabetical routes list at the rear book, which gives grade, crag and page details, as well as a slot for the guide owner to add there own notes, ascent dates etc.

Out for the Count
Finally, if you do visit the Brasov region of Romania be sure to take a rest-day trip to the relatively nearby Bran Castle, allegedly the home of Prince Vlad “The Impailer” Tepes, who inspired Dracula's legend…

Purchase this Guide
Purchase the Rock Climbing in Romania: A climbing guide to Brasov crags guide book here.

Rock Climbing in Romania: Brasov crags - Sample pages