Steve Roper's 1964 Red Yosemite Guide- Classic Photos

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Messages 21 - 40 of total 76 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
Steve Grossman

Trad climber
Seattle, WA
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2010 - 11:10am PT
Ultra-classic Bump!
Steve Grossman

Trad climber
Seattle, WA
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2010 - 12:43pm PT
...fer tha weekend!
Mighty Hiker

climber
Vancouver, B.C.
Dec 4, 2010 - 02:12pm PT
Hamie lent me his copy last spring, and I took it to Bridwellfest to get it autographed by the Bird. Jim and Hamie spent quite a lot of time together in the Valley in 1964 - 65, and I believe that Hamie was the first Canadian after Jim Baldwin to spend much time climbing in the Valley. Hamie and Jim may not have seen each other since then, so it was nice for them to have some indirect contact.

Hamie also had a nice photo of Jim coming to the top of one of the Cathedral Spires.
Steve Grossman

Trad climber
Seattle, WA
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2010 - 05:42pm PT
No similarity with respect to climbing photos. Too much content in the later guides to indulge!
TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Dec 4, 2010 - 11:53pm PT
my four-foot shelf of climbing guides still includes my much-battered and annotated red guide kept in a plastic sleeve (with several inaccuracies noted)

also my roper high sierra guide and brown ortenburger tetons guide and tahquitz and gunks guides from the same era, and subsequent versions including the yosemite green guide...

wishing i had more copies of mooglenews, but i think royal has a pretty complete stash
Peter Haan

Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
Dec 5, 2010 - 12:07am PT
Randisi, the Red Book is actually small, only slightly larger and thinner than the later Green Book. The Red Book can still be found online too. They go for more than $140 in perfect shape.
pyro

Big Wall climber
Calabasas
Dec 6, 2010 - 03:41am PT

i paid $400.00.
steelmnkey

climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
Dec 6, 2010 - 08:21am PT
i paid $400.00.

Holy SH*T!!!!
You coulda almost got the Art Gran Gunks guide for that and it'a a whole lot rarer.
pyro

Big Wall climber
Calabasas
Dec 11, 2010 - 12:39pm PT
i love that red book. i'll save as much as i can to get my hands on it. $400.00 from chesslers.
jstan

climber
Dec 11, 2010 - 01:06pm PT
I think I have opened my copy of Roper's guide maybe three times total. My copy of Gran's guide is rather more used. I think it the most readable guide I have ever seen. Belay that. Kelsey's supplement to Gran's guide is better.

I do have a copy of a book titled "Redwoods" with a picture of the Nose seen in profile taken through the trees. Shot in 1943. So much has changed since then.
Fat Dad

Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
Dec 11, 2010 - 04:13pm PT
So classic. Had a copy of the green but the red was considerably before my time.

I look at those photos and think 'those were men.' You really had to want it to do it back then. You knew it was going to be hard, it was hard and you were OK with that. Just awesome.
Peter Haan

Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
Dec 11, 2010 - 05:49pm PT
Here is the red and green Roper guides shown together on my desk. This red is a replacement I bought a few years ago for my extremely worndown original red which is somewhere in my heap. It had to endure being in my back pocket as a teenager climber...god how stupid. The green I bought within a month of its publishing, 1971. You can see the red is taller and wider but is about half as thick.



nutjob

Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
Feb 22, 2011 - 07:23pm PT
I just got my red guide in the mail today, and drove down to a little local bookstore a mile from my house that had the green book.

I've got a work deadline in the next 53 minutes, but I couldn't help myself from ogling the fine drawings. Now I finally know where that damn Ski Jump is! And Pohono Pinnacle! And I'm plotting some unrelated secret adventures for the spring and summer.

Le_bruce, you will learn to rue the day I acquired these guides. Or you will whisper sweet nothings in my ear (during an unplanned bivy of course).

Adventure season is upon us.
Mungeclimber

Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
Feb 22, 2011 - 07:29pm PT
nice rebump


where is "Black Wall" - lower yosemite falls amphitheatre?
Steve Grossman

Trad climber
Seattle, WA
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2011 - 09:15pm PT
Tom Frost recently told me that David Brower was behind the photo content in the red guide. Clearly a part of his larger image driven wilderness education and appreciation mission through the Sierra Club.
JMC

climber
oilfields of Sumatra
Feb 22, 2011 - 10:50pm PT
$400? ouch.

abebooks usually pans out with good selection and prices, just picked up a medly of Jim Perrin's works.

For the 1964 guide - http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=roper&kn=1964&sts=t&tn=yosemite+valley&x=60&y=14
Prezwoodz

climber
Anchorage
Feb 22, 2011 - 11:39pm PT
Bought one...$27 seemed like a good deal. Wonder how it looks?

Yikes on this one : http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/2352210259/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&qid=1298435054&sr=8-25&condition=used
Peter Haan

Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
Feb 22, 2011 - 11:48pm PT
As long as Supertopo and other guide producers continue with their skimpy "selected" theme for Valley guides---whether openly stating so or still editing out many climbs without disclosure---and as long as they remain reluctant to publish the really badly needed comprehensive obviously large guidebook to the most important rockclimbing venue in the world, the Red and the Green are actually much more interesting guides than anything that has come out since. And more, emphasized climbs in these newer books will continue to get overclimbed---in fact to death for god's sake. Amazing isn't it, considering that these wonderful little guides were published 47 and 40 years ago.... I mean jesus christ, can't we do better than this? Since then the guides have been edging ever closer toward seeming like AAA monthly magazines with their little 3-day trip suggestions.

When each of them was published, the Red and the Green were the comprehensive and definitive volumes on the subject; all Valley climbs were contained in them. There weren't "secret handshake" climbs intentionally unlisted like we have now. The weirder and lamer routes still made it into the guide. The juiciest routes did too. Amazing subjective detail of the author came through in print and the outings based on his discursive method of guidebook writing were very very engaging and really in the spirit of our art. The change is not due to the Topo form of guidebooking; it is also the problem of sheer numbers of climbs, the cost, and of course the serious lack of deep vision of the writers of recent years. Eric Sloan has assured me a couple of times that he is trying to do a comprehensive guide to all Valley climbs and we do see developments from him. But it is daunting, requires money, time and total power actually on the part of the writer to be valid, get all that nitty-gritty, and provide some subjective reflection often on the climbs. Huge challenge, certainly.
Mungeclimber

Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
Feb 23, 2011 - 12:11am PT
Steve,

yep, definitely many of those are Tom Frosts. I recognize at least one that is not normally know as Frost photo, but it's one that is now for sale in the Yose mtn shop by Tom.



Mungeclimber

Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
Feb 23, 2011 - 12:14am PT
ah, and the Black Wall is in the amphitheatre.

hrm, need to figure out what it is now with my teal colored reid guide.

Messages 21 - 40 of total 76 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
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