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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Apr 23, 2014 - 01:05am PT
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LOL Like it or not, it is a business. I liked it when I started climbing. Topos were easy to follow and climbs are usually what you would expect. Now the Reid guide is my guidebook of choice for Yosemite since it has many more climbs in it and allows for some adventure haha. For a select, I think ST could be a lot better. Many more high quality moderates could be included. And list more than two grade IV 5.11s. All the Euros are done with the hardest two climbs in the book after only two days of climbing!
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The Larry
climber
Moab, UT
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Apr 23, 2014 - 01:24am PT
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Classic. Mr Braun.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 23, 2014 - 01:29am PT
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an interesting discussion, but a cranky OP title sort of started it off in a negative direction.
Probably any guide book is better than no guidebook, and select guides have their place... a guidebook has to be so much to so many that it can't hope to succeed, necessarily, in all ways.
From Bridwell's Forward in the Meyers "Yellow guide": "...I was pleased when I heard that George was working on a much needed new guide because I was confident that he would do a thorough and concise edition. His first guide of 350 selected best rock climbs in Yosemite was very likely the most understandable guide book ever written. The newest guide follows the same clear format but is updated as well as being more complete..."
The first guide is referred to as Meyers "Green guide" and was published by Royal out of Merced, loose leaf pages in a binder. The Preface of that guide states: "These (350) climbs were chosen for inclusion on the basis of their beauty, quality, difficulty and popularity."
54 climbs 1940 Leonard and Brower
75 climbs 1954 Voge
273 climbs 1964 Roper
479 climbs 1971 Roper
91 climbs 1974 Nichol
350 climbs 1976 Meyers (Green)
808 climbs 1982 Meyers (Yellow)
51 climbs 1987 Harlin
1183 climbs 1987 Meyers-Reid (the one Werner gave away)
118 climbs 1992 Falkenstein (Sport Climbs)
1538 climbs 1994 Reid (Free climbs)
157 climbs 1996 Reid (Aid climbs)
41 climbs 2000 SuperTopo
205 climbs 2003 SuperTopo
current projection for the comprehensive Valley guide is greater than 3400 climbs.
I agree that things get unwieldy, and hard to update. Modern technology will help in updating, but I don't know what the "business model" is for updates, subscription? ebook? etc...
digital media most certainly complicates things, in terms of copyright, etc.
Mountain Project like sites might work... or even more elaborate web presentations (like a YosemiteClimbs.kml file for Google Earth?)
And no guide will capture everything that is going on at the moment, and the hiatus of the new guide (now going on 20 years!) will have climbs lost.
Not thinking of a guide as definitive is an important step for the community to take.
Realizing that Yosemite Valley climbing is done by people making a trip of a lifetime who will never return as well as people who hang out there year-round for decades puts a lot of demand on a guide book.
There are no answers to this, but at least we can try to make a good go at it.
as an aside, the guide book size (in number of routes) is like a power law, doubling every 11.6 years since 1940. If that is a way of estimating numbers of routes, then we should be looking at about 5000 routes in the new guide... it will be interesting to see if there has actually been a drop off in route production or if 1600 routes are out there completely unreported...
this sets a scale in what future comprehensive guides have to do... the 2025 guide would be 10,000 routes. Hard to imagine...
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Todd Townsend
Social climber
Bishop, CA
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Apr 23, 2014 - 02:35am PT
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Personally, I prefer the comprehensive guides. But, working in the shop, I do feel the pain of the visiting climber who wants to do a little bit of everything on the eastside and can't just buy one book for the week that they'll be here. Usually, they just end up not buying anything at all.
Currently you need the following books for climbing here: Bishop Bouldering, Mammoth Bouldering, Owens River Gorge Guide, Bishop Area Rock Climbs, Mammoth Area Rock Climbs, High Sierra Supertopo, The Good, The Great, and the Awesome, High Sierra Falcon Guide (Fiddler & Moynier), and Peaks, Passes, and Trails (Secor).
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Degaine
climber
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Apr 23, 2014 - 03:29am PT
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donini wrote:
With weekend lines at the base of a half dozen routes in a climbing mecca like the Valley, one wonders why so much great climbing lies fallow. This problem, by the way, is in no way unique to Yosemite.
This has at least as much to do with one's approach to climbing as the way the information is presented. Just go to Lover's Leap on any given weekend during the summer, and witness a line on The Line. It's easy to have a high-quality plan B or C using any of the guidebooks in existence (or info on the Internet), yet people choose to stick with plan A. Ditto for West Crack on Daff Dome.
There's so much information on the Internet that I'll do a fair amount of research before I go to an area (for a day, weekend, week), and then try to ask locals once there if what I planned on climbing is worthwhile. However, I can see the use of some sort of "select" or "recommendation" system worthwhile if on a road trip. Adventure is great, and I don't disagree, but if it may be the only time one has the chance to visit an area, it might be nice to be able to climb at least one or two super-classics.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Apr 23, 2014 - 03:37am PT
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I've had classics in mind before when visiting an area & not been able to get on them for whatever reason & ended up climbing the random thing next door or around the corner. Many of these next door climbs are the best climbs i've ever done. The ones around the corner are usually out of this world.
I agree that some selects are pretty welly though including most of the ST ones.
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John Ely
Trad climber
DC
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Apr 23, 2014 - 09:51am PT
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The herd instinct is a real drag, but it is hard to know what to do about it. Comprehensive guides are expensive, and I plead guilty on plans to head to Italy in search of the famous routes of Preuss and Cassin. Who wouldn't want to touch these? It's just the same with Harding and Robbins, Porter and Bacher, isn't it? And the easiest way still to avoid herds is to just wake up early, or pick a longer approach.
Just as much of a drag are extremely well-informed locals who know everything but are unwelcoming to outsiders, and who damage the inherently attractive cosmopolitan aspect of the sport. (See e.g. Canjon Tajo debates.) I think the way to preserve what we have is to get as many people as possible to share it with us, find more places to adventure, and let others learn to care themselves.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Apr 23, 2014 - 11:02am PT
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The herd instinct is a real drag, but it is hard to know what to do about it
Climb harder.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Apr 23, 2014 - 11:21am PT
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I like new guidebooks because they help me remember which routes I have/have not done, and the obligatory grade inflation of old classics reminds me of how badass I used to be,
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Apr 23, 2014 - 11:30am PT
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Just as much of a drag are extremely well-informed locals who know everything but are unwelcoming to outsiders, and who damage the inherently attractive cosmopolitan aspect of the sport. (See e.g. Canjon Tajo debates.) I think the way to preserve what we have is to get as many people as possible to share it with us, find more places to adventure, and let others learn to care themselves.
John... so true. The tight lip "secret spot locals" are a drag.
I don't like select guides for this reason. You have your "select" guide, you show up at one of the mega classics only to find about 14 parties on it. You see a fine line just a few yards to the side with zero climbers, go to look it up in the book and you get nothing.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Apr 23, 2014 - 12:39pm PT
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Few climbers want to do climbs that nobody else does - they prefer to do routes everyone else does - an approach which is contrary to the spirit of climbing, as I know it, anyway.
And in that spirit we should all be thankful for "Select" guidebooks. They keep the climbers who prefer to do routes everyone else does in a few well-known places, and leave the remaining 90% of the climbs in the area empty of traffic.
Even in comprehensive guides, the stupid star system does the same thing (so I guess I shouldn't call it stupid). It's amazing to be the only party on an incredibly good climb while something just around the corner has a conga line of people going up and down it all day.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Apr 23, 2014 - 12:49pm PT
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Depends Jim, does that guide you mention the Enema?
You'll sing a different tune when I publish my Select guide to Wyde Climbs of the West!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Apr 23, 2014 - 12:56pm PT
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Weren't all guidebooks 'select' BITD?
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Darryl Cramer
Social climber
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Apr 23, 2014 - 01:05pm PT
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Select guides represent an opportunity for climbers in a specific area to raise $$$ for area support. (Ie gravel in a parking area, Porta potty placement). About 15-20 years ago several friends and I created a very simple select guide to the crags around Puget Sound. It was designed for folks just passing thru the area - those with a day or two to climb. At first we wanted each guidebook writer in the region to write-up the section for the area covered by their guidebook but that didn't seem to be easily managed. In the end we wrote it and had it reviewed by "locals."
The guide was successful from a fundraising perspective.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Apr 23, 2014 - 01:24pm PT
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In recent years I would scan or compile my own topo info into an electronic file and have a print-out of that with me if it was a personally demanding unknown adventure. But that was as much a way to savor the overall experience and make it last longer than anything else. It's a way of blending past adventures, stuff I've gleaned from different guides, photos I've taken or found, and dreams I've concocted, into the creation of the next new dream. We don't always have the time to do this. Guidebooks are pre-made dream templates for those who don't have time or direct experience to create their own. So many dreams out there, so different, how can one guide satisfy them all?
Maybe the most geeky/techie answer to the problem is a database of layered images and text that can be selectively triggered to meet the hopes and dreams of the user. Answer a few questions about the style you like, and different layers are turned on/off and you get what you want. Print as needed prior to the adventure.
As MrE points out, there is still a magic of printed word that is lost. The unplanned perusal of the guide when the moment captures you and you grab it off the shelf, and spend an afternoon dreaming about future adventures when you had planned to do something else that day. The web-surfing/online version of this random wander is definitely a more threatening time-sinker, but I'm not sure it leaves me with the same sense of satisfaction.
As an aside, the most memorable epics, maybe best adventures I've had, were on days we had no topos or info with us. That said, there is no point in targeting a guidebook to these sort of adventures. They either happen for people who won't buy your guidebook, or they happen incidentally as an offshoot adventure when another thing was planned using your goodbook. Maybe a few cryptic words in a guidebook pointing in that unknown direction are a good idea though. Sort of like the '87 Meyers/Reid has some overview pictures with named lines, but the lines don't show up in descriptions. That just creates instant obscurity classics, enough words to facilitate whispered questions among like-minded souls.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Apr 23, 2014 - 01:33pm PT
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This select guide is of great importance.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Apr 23, 2014 - 02:41pm PT
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I don't much care for the "select" guides either.
Even if I'm only on a quick visit and will only do 2 or 3 routes. I like to know what's around me. Up on the third pitch, looking to the right across a nearly vertical wall. Two different bolt lines. I want to find out about those climbs even though they're likely above my pay grade. How far up do they go? When/who put them up? Perhaps I really could get up that near one?
Give me the whole guide, I'll read as much as I can in advance. Work out in advance what areas I'm interested in. Which climbs look worthwhile. Get suggestions from friends or from researching SuperTopo etc.
A couple of quick examples:
Current SuperTopo guide (not called a "Select" by the way). No mention of Slab Happy Pinnacle (Roper, Meyers & Reed blue)
Good place to get high on a cool crowded day.
SuperTopo has nothing between 5 Crowded Books and Sunnyside Bench. Not even the excellent Lena's Lieback.
Several fine climbs up to the left of the Lower Falls for a hot day with the falls mist cooling the air.
SuperTopo Sentinel has only the Steak Salad. Chouinard-Herbert? West Face?
SuperTopo Middle Cathedral long routes? Only 4 - East Butt, Kor-Beck, Central Pillar of Frenzy, DNB.
I'd rather look at the entire menu before I check out the specials.
In advance I usually scan the pages I'm most interested in and print them. When I get to the destination, if I'm interested in one I haven't scanned I sketch my copy from the guide.
'87 Meyers/Reid has some overview pictures with named lines, but the lines don't show up in descriptions. That just creates instant obscurity classics, enough words to facilitate whispered questions among like-minded souls. well said
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Apr 23, 2014 - 02:47pm PT
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I'm SLOWLY working on a guide that will have every climb in the area and no star ratings.
People will probably not like it, they can make their own guide :)
The plan is to publish PDFs of each area as I finish them on my website for free download. Then I can get feedback before it goes into print and I will successfully avoid making any money since it will all be online for free, but at least it will be accurate!
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Apr 23, 2014 - 03:33pm PT
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They are fatally flawed and promote crowding. Most will agree that the rating system is rife with subjectivity. Quality ratings are far more subjective than ratings and that is the fatal flaw of "select" books.
I, too, find the "quality" ratings too subjective to be taken as anything but one person's suggestions, but I don't see that as a fatal flaw. They're just one more bit of idiosyncratic information. If anything, I'm with those who like "select" guidebooks -- at least for areas I know well -- because they tend to confine crowding to a small percentage of the climbs in an area.
However, as someone who grew up with the 1964 Roper Guide to the Valley,the Voge Guides to the High Sierra, and the Ortenburger Teton Range guide, I really miss guides that include FA info and other history and commentary as part of the descriptions. It's perhaps for that reason that I particularly admire Secor's guides to the High Sierra. His guides remain comprehensive, have history and commentary, and retain enough route-finding uncertainty to keep adventure high (so to speak).
John
Edit: Labrat makes a good point about the ST guides. I love the commentary about the history, strategy, etc. almost as much as the topos themselves. Well done, ST!
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labrat
Trad climber
Auburn, CA
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Apr 23, 2014 - 03:42pm PT
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donini and nopantsben,
When are you going to publish the the good comprehensive guide to Yosemite?
Stop whining and complaining. Go climbing more so you don't have the energy.
I think it's bad form to complain on a forum provided by people who do a great job had vision to publish some great guide books.
Erik
PS Thanks CMac and company!
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