Climbing Books

This guide to the Alabama Hills is a climbing guide as good as can be.
First, it includes a lot of routes in the area. Second, the drawings indicating route locations are clear and abundant, and the route beta is accurate (e.g. number of bolts). There was just one route we could not find in our first weekend at the A. Hills (Magic Pig, Cattle Pocket). Third, the guide not only rates the difficulty of the routes (i.e. 5.xx), it also rates the quality of the rock, using a 3-star rating system. Last but not least, like many CA climbing guides, the guide provides some history of the development of the area.
Concluding, this guide provided an excellent means to enjoy one of the few bolted climbing areas in Southern California.

As a frequent visitor to Rocky Mountain National Park I'm always looking for the best in solid, compact field guides. Gerry Roach's little gem is an good example. The text and tone of the book benefits from Roach's personal familiarity with the trails and summmits described.

This is an excellent guide to summit approaches for those interested in bagging the major peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park. Roach provides his readers with concise information on distance, elevation, grade, class and snow steepness with a modest amount of editorial. For nearly every peak Roach provides alternate roots suitable for both the casual or technical climber. The book is punctuated with black and white photographs of a number of the better known mountains in the park and their key landmarks.

Those intimately familiar with RMNP will most benefit from this book. Descriptions are generally terse and primiarly dedicated on how to get from Point "A" to Point "B". The book suffers from lack of either topographical or overview maps. For the reader more interested in hiking or backpacking, as opposed to bagging summits, Dannen's "Hiking Rocky Mountain National Park" (8th Ed.) is the best I've found and a much more thorough and enjoyable read in a pocket format.

This extremely useful and informative book was originally published in Italy in October, 1987 by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. Even though it's now year 2000, this book is not at all out- of- date. The color photos for each entry are of excellent quality, the plant descriptions are easy to read, and not only that, the book is compact enough to fit into your purse when visiting the nursery ! Additional book features are : easy to read symbols for each plant entry describing flowering period, water requirements, sun/shade requirements, etc. Each entry also contains plant family information, place of origin, other species, and generally excellent descriptions. It is truly a wonderful guide for the Sunday gardener as well as the professional landscaper.

This guide is extremely comprehensive and has excellent information, decent maps and topos. However, new bouldering developments in the last several years have rendered the book a bit dated. A must to own if you plan a visit.

What happens when a confused young women tries to do her part for England in WW II ? She realizes that the romance of the miltary and warfare are trite ideas,so she deserts to a Bohemian lifestyle and discovers herself in rock climbing and writing. Moffat quickly discovers her talent for rock climbing with a group of poets, artist,vegetarians and other non-conformists - this leads her to become the FIRST certified Women climbing guide in Great Britian.
By abandoning the conventional life of a British woman in post-war England, she finds her strengths and weaknesses thru; hard climbs, leading inept and strong clients, providing for her child -with deprivation to herself and comes out on top. She'll be invited to Himilayan expeditions - something unheard of in 1950's society, even for climbers. Thru all this muck of society, she even finds her ability to write and communicate her struggles and successes!!

A good guide for beginners to the exciting sport of sport climbing. Edward Voeller explores the basics for first time sport climbers with this well illustrated book. Advanced climbers will also benefit from some of the tips offered. The book is well balanced, taking you through "starting and kitting out" to climbing techniques.

Like most books in the 'How to Rock Climb' series the strength of this book lies in the fact that it covers a specific topic, thereby offering more relevant information.

Unlike 'Clip and Go' this book is not aimed at a specific level of difficulty, however it will be most worthwhile to advanced beginners and intermediates.

The best thing about this book is that it focuses on sportclimbing specific information. There is nothing about belaying, anchors etc. here, nor about crack climbing and placing protection.

The book deals extensively with different types of sport climbs, including slabs and walls, grouping together technique, tactics and tricks for one style of climbing in one chapter. I found this to be very helpfull.

There are also lots of little sport specific rope tricks throughout the book as well as information on just about every other subject of interest to the sport climber.

I have read lot of climbing books and this one definitely has content no other book has.

If you are a sportclimber who allready owns books about belaying and training, this book will complete your library, much better than 'Clip and Go'....

Lyrically written, the author, Gaston Rebuffat, one of the world's climbing greats, expresses such joy for mountaineering that it is infectious. No climbing enthusiast's library should be without this book. The photograph of Rebuffat which graces the cover of this book is alone worth the price of the book.

Rebuffat is positively poetic in his description of various climbs. The reader almost feels as if one were one with the mountain. A purist, the author climbed not for the glory of it, but for the sheer joy of the brotherhood of the rope. In these days, where climbing is often just a reason for a media event, the author's approach is refreshing, indeed.

This is an amazing tale of courage, fortitude, and a desire to live, despite dire circumstances. The author, Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, ascend a perilous section of the Peruvian Andes. Near the summit, tragedy strikes when Joe, up over 19,000 feet, falls and hits a slope at the base of a cliff, breaking his right leg, rupturing his right knee, and shattering his right heel. Beneath him is a seemingly endless fall to the bottom. Simon reaches him but knows that the chances for Joe to get off the mountain are virtually non-existent. Yet, they fashion a daring plan to to do just that.

For the next few hours, through a snow storm, they work in tandem, and manage a risky, yet effective way of trying to lower Joe down the mountain. About three thousand feet down, Joe, who is still roped to Simon, drops off an edge, and finds himself now free hanging in space six feet away from an ice wall, unable to reach it with his axe. The edge is over hung about fifteen feet above him. The dark outline of a crevasse lies about a hundred feet directly below him.

Joe couldn't get up, and Simon couldn't get down. In fact, Joe's weight began to pull Simon off the mountain. So, Simon was finally forced to do the only thing he could do under the circumstances. He cut the rope, believing that he was consigning his friend to certain death. Therein lies the tale. What happens next is sure to make one believe in miracles.

The author, who is totally blind, gives the reader his life story. Told with humor, he regales the reader with insights into his early life, when he could still see, and describes how his gradual loss of sight impacted on how the world perceived him. Fighting all his life against stereotypic notions that the sighted population has about those who are blind, the author has proven that those who are blind can do just about anything a sighted person can do. They just go about doing it in a slightly different way.

It is truly amazing that the author climbs mountains, because in order for him to do so, he must climb with others in whom he can place his complete and absolute trust. To some extent, he must rely upon them for precise descriptions of the terrain which lies before him. He also sometimes requires them to direct him accurately. Often, accurate directions and descriptions of the terrain are all that lies between the author and a precipitous drop of several thousand feet. I marvel that anyone would dare to venture up a mountain they cannot see in the traditional sense. The author has nerves of steel and is blessed with a very supportive and loving family.

Yet, he climbs, not for the visual beauty of the mountains, but for the sense of freedom that it gives. For him, the mountains he climbs are a reassurance that he is just like everyone else. They are also trophies. He is working on climbing the seven summits, the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents. At present, he has reached the summit of four of them. I hope that he will reach his goal.

The author is a very handsome, athletic and driven young man, and I give him a lot of credit for that drive and athleticism. When one reads his book, the reader realizes just how much it took for him to be able to do what he has done. What he has accomplished has flown into the face of conventional wisdom and traditional expectations of one who is blind. His story is unique in that he alone has made it so. He is a shining example of a person who will not let others dictate the parameters of his life. Yet, at the same time, he occasionally comes across as somewhat unfeeling of others and a bit shallow. Those who read the book will, undoubtedly, know what I mean. Nonetheless, he is certainly to be credited for expanding common perceptions of what the blind are capable of achieving.

Good luck, Erik, on all your future endeavors!