This new edition has changed in look and organization while maintaining its original, well received characteristics. Just two years after publication of the first edition it was already time for a second.
The availability of substantial new material and the desire to integrate the inevitable corrections, some purely editorial, others (thankfully few) involving clarifications and modifications to the route descriptions, led to the decision not to run a simple reprint. Bearing in mind that many "old" readers only recently purchased the first edition, it was decided to sub-divide the new edition into two volumes, "Western Dolomites (Volume 1)" and "Western Dolomites (Volume 2)", the first being a corrected reprint of the previous edition, and this second volume including all the new descriptions which, thanks also to the help of our generous collaborators, had been collected in the period from publication of the first edition (2009) to the present. This means that our established "mid-grade" readers can acquire all the new material without having to buy both books. Obviously, new readers (and virtually all readers of the English editions) are unaffected in this way. The only resulting "oddity" is that both volumes cover exactly the same geographic area.
Furthermore, a small number of descriptions from the original edition were, for various reasons, significantly changed and consequently these have been "moved" to the present Volume 2 of the new edition where they completely replace the original descriptions. Again this is irrelevant for the English editions.
Without going into unnecessary details, it is noted that the characteristics of the guide, which most readers appear to like, remain the same. Many thanks to all the friends who collaborated in the realization of this second volume, resulting in the addition of a few slightly more difficult routes, and in a few new areas, suitable for "mid-graders" who occasionally enjoy something a bit more demanding. As usual, there is a lot of additional material at the website www.quartogrado.com, where any corrections (hopefully few) will also be published.
All possible care was taken so that this second edition is useful both to those already in possession of the first edition and new readers. All the routes described were climbed in person by the author or our various collaborators.
Wishing you all a good read and good climbing.
Emiliano Zorzi
