Guidebook Values

[Checat]

Just posing some questions for all cc.comers alike - grizzled veterans and noobs alike-

 

When your willing to throw coin down on written guidebooks to the area/s your climbing what are the essentials for you?

 

* The bare bones? Driving directs, approach trail directs, climbing season, safety considerations and areas of those likes? A name (any name) and relatively close grade on a decently readable topo or photo topo?

 

* Relevant and FACTUAL First Ascent information, dates, names, relative grades; area/s history, culture; style, ethics, tactics; route development considerations, etc?

 

 

**Bonus Question: If your purchasing a guidebook that has incorrect modern "First Ascent" data including Non-Factual names of routes and problems, inaccurate grades, and little to no acknowledgment of previous developers; does this affect your purchasing decision? Does this affect your impression of its author/s?

 

**Bonus, Bonus Question: If a route goes down in the 1990's and sees repeats every year, or every other year from its inception until 2005/6- What right do new developers have in Re-naming, Re-grading and/or claiming a First Ascent or Modern First Ascent (dis-acknowledging potentially hundreds of ascents between its first and its modern)?

 

 

I know these are odd questions, and of course they have relevance to a particular issue that has significance to me, but should have relevance to climbers all over.

 

No one is right or wrong in these questions, they are subjective and I can only hope to illicit opinions and share and discuss Opinions, so no one needs to go overboard heated with this

 

have fun

 

[stevetimetravlr]

in answer to all your questions, look what happened to poor Jeff Smoot.

Also you can't rename climbs unless you kill the first ascent climber and take all his gear, or they were aid and you freed the climb.

[Drederek]

Factual information is what I look for in a guidebook. History is a definite bonus and controversy is always a fun read.

[tomtom]

Guidebooks are aid.

[ivan]

climbing porn

[Checat]

when I think of climbing porn I think of vids, like what Lowell puts together, and Peter Mortimer, Sender Films, crap you watch at the gym or to get motivated to climb

 

or the mags...Rats and Lice and Criming...

 

thats climbing porn...

[shapp]

I like color naked photos of hot rasta women bouldering.

 

I like an index that includes not only routes but crag names and significant place/feature names.

 

What I do not like are acknowledgements praising jesus for inspiration for writing, what in actuality is in fact a piss poor book.

 

[Dane]

 

my comments in bolt type

 

* The bare bones? Driving directs, approach trail directs, climbing season, safety considerations and areas of those likes? A name (any name) and relatively close grade on a decently readable topo or photo topo?

 

aint a guide book with out some guidance

 

* Relevant and FACTUAL First Ascent information, dates, names, relative grades; area/s history, culture; style, ethics, tactics; route development considerations, etc?

 

Ditto above. No accurate FA info means the author simply did NOT do the homework required. Makes the entire guide suspect and generally usless to me. Guides like that should be condemned and the author castigated IN PUBLIC. Besides it being the ultimate insult to the guys who actually did do the time and make the FAs.

 

 

**Bonus Question: If your purchasing a guidebook that has incorrect modern "First Ascent" data including Non-Factual names of routes and problems, inaccurate grades, and little to no acknowledgment of previous developers; does this affect your purchasing decision? Does this affect your impression of its author/s?

 

btdt, and tells me either the author is an egotistical butt head (likely) or lazy (just as likely) or even more likely, both. Fastest way to judge the quality of a guidebook? If more than a 25% of the FA's listed are the author's and there is not a complete history and complete FA info, the guide is usually a POS.

 

**Bonus, Bonus Question: If a route goes down in the 1990's and sees repeats every year, or every other year from its inception until 2005/6- What right do new developers have in Re-naming, Re-grading and/or claiming a First Ascent or Modern First Ascent (dis-acknowledging potentially hundreds of ascents between its first and its modern)?

 

they don't, your local ass clowns at work

 

 

This kind of stuff happens all the time with small time publications and "new" climbers/authors thinking they are going to be the authority on an area by publishing a new guide without doing the research it takes.

 

So what guide and author is it?

 

 

[Hugh Conway]

why not ask for the author to lead you too?

[Checat]

 

What I do not like are acknowledgements praising jesus for inspiration for writing, what in actuality is in fact a piss poor book.

 

I second that, and i believe shapp is sneaking a shot in at the bolf/ruef Falcon Oregon garbage guide and for that I thank him

[Checat]

The ass clown is a gentleman who moved to my hometown from the state of IOWA in the late 2000's (after 2006 before 2010) with big Christopher Columbus ideas about how he needed to present to Oregonians that their First Ascents and continuous repeats of routes were somehow Void and that anything he touched was a claim at a new FA. His guidebook is still in production but includes at least one area that I've been putting the real info together with the real First Ascentists for at least 5 years before he even came to the area.

 

It has taken me that long (5+ years) because the area holds 100+ boulders and 3+ cliffbands all spread out, and its Original Development team consists of 15+ people, most of whom don't live in the area any more. But that has not stopped me from waiting to attach names and grades to routes and problems without consultation from the Original Gangsters who are still hanging around here. It would have been very easy for myself, and others at certain points in 2001, 2003, 2006 etc... to attach whatever information I wanted to to already organized Guidebook Material...Much like our Hawkeye Jackass has done, which sucks...

 

Its a valid defense to say that one would attach new names and give their subjective grades to routes and boulder problems with no printed material available and very little communication with the initial developers. But if the REAL INFORMATION is being shoved down your throat, the names of the Initial Developers are being given to you and the years of their ascents are being acknowledged, and you still publish misinformation, you are an idiot and you should be condemned and castigated IN PUBLIC! If you are trying to publish a responsible guidebook then you have the responsibility to research the topic to the best of your abilities, and if someone presents to you the real information - you have to make changes.

 

 

I have email forwarded a link to this forum to the person who is doing this. Hopefully he is getting the message without me naming names.

 

In all honestly I believe this person is attempting to utilize this climbing area and his publishing to it as a shameless source of self-promotion in an egotistical drive to keep pace with a very shallow climbing scene that cares little for history and cares a lot about big number sends and ME first climbing attitudes. The areas first official publication does not need to get wrapped up in some bullshit like that. Its not fair to the area or its Initial Developers.

 

Based on this idiots rational I'm going to go claim the First Ascents for Hood, Thielsen and Rainer this summer. They're going to be all me. I'm renaming them, re-grading em, whos in?

[fenderfour]

punch him in the dick.

[Pilchuck71]

punch him in the dick.

 

Where else would you punch an assclown?

[Drederek]

Guidebook wars are so ugly. You oughtta find it in your heart to be a bigger man and work with this guy to put out the best guide possible. If his version is as lame as you infer I doubt you'd be so upset. Oregon needs better guidebooks, Other than for Smith I haven't bought one yet.

[counterfeitfake]

Haven't we castigated summitchaserCJB enough already?

[Checat]

= Oregon needs better guidebooks,=

 

Exactly, which is why bringing this issue to light is valid. If I felt there was any reception on his end for making the proper edits, I obviously wouldn't have gone on CC.com, but he and his crew are pretty set in their stance, so I guess I'm pretty set in mine.

 

If anyone wants to see one of the areas in question: check out the area Garden in the Willamette Valley in both rockclimbing.com and mountainproject.com. I have made notes below all photos and all route info pages that were misinformed. Whats on the web is a small portion of what is out there and I'm not sure what else he's misnamed, misgraded and misFAed but I'm sure he's claiming a lot.

 

[Dane]

It is not the first time and certainly won't be the last.

 

Sadly there are so many new climbers begging for guide books that any info is often seen as good info.

 

Guide books that lack the history, especially easy to gather history, when someone else has or would so easily offer it is a relative new trend and sadly imo a really bad one.

 

I have seen similar guide books praised here on cc.com by climbers that should have know better. I've chatted on email with the guide book author who was totally ignorant of the issue and obviously didn't care. He included some of the activists in the area in the side notes but no real history of the area. So just leave it out, now that is an answer. My take was his real goal was, "me, me, me, me and me and my buddies".

 

If it had only been "me and my buddies" I wouldn't have a problem with that. I wouldn't know the difference. right? But sadly he missed the previous 30 or so years of obvious developement and why a current guide book was needed.

 

Funny that when by just talking with three guys, all easily accessed locally or through a simple google search and email, he could have doubled the routes and info in some areas of his guide book. If he missed just the three guys I know, you have to wonder just how much more was missed but I'd bet there were 3 more, so he missed 6, 12 or 24 who knows?

 

Funny how putting the real FA info together generally leads you to ALL the players in the area and the true scope of the climbing done and the time frames.

 

With the access to people and information we have now, it is so easy to get the history, why wouldn't you make the effort?

 

Not doing so, and then publishing an incomplete guide book is no service to the climbing community.

[johndavidjr]

Beckey vs Potter:

Serious vs. trivial.

McDonald's vs. charcoal-grilled steak.

State-college nit-wit careerist journalism, vs. a clear head.

("Best Route in the Range!" "The choice is yours!" "Sell me! Puke me!")

Still, all guidebooks certainly have value.

 

I like the series published for various BC areas in past few years (ten years). Nicely done. Canadians tend to be a bit less crassly commercial than current generation of U.S. authors/publishers.

 

Still, actually, one can't fail to somewhat like the "coffee table" guidebooks modeled on "50 Classic Climbs," now decades old. But premise is mainly dumb crap.

[HerbalTee]

If there is anything I can do about the rc.com description, please let me know. I have the ability to change the area descriptions. I can't change the pictures however.

[Alex]

Who exactly are you talking about Dane?

 

Most of you have never done the real work to publish a book and so will quite frankly never understand the challenges. And that's ok, it's definitely a thankless task so not recommended. And it's far easier to criticise someone elses work than present one's own.

 

There are basically two options open to someone who wants to make any kind of guidebook situation better - contact the author and work with them in a constuctive way generaly through private channels, or field their own work. Talk - Action = 0.

[Checat]

Ignoring more experienced people who were climbing an area long before this would-be author even came to the state, and choosing to go with your own names grades and FAists' - despite the information being handed top you freely has nothing to do with the "real work" of publishing a book.

 

I don't know what areas and people Dane is referring to but in regard to the Garden - this is simply someone ignoring those around them for the sake of seeing their own name attached to their illegitimate modern "First ascents".

 

If the information is hard to get...its defendable and an honest mistake...but in this scenario the information is out there and mr. cyclone chooses to ignore - thats irresponsible guidebook work

[Dane]

Hey Alex, since you asked, my comments weren't directed at you or your guide specifically.

 

Come on guys, everyone could do better. But I suspect it is just as bad anywhere that the climbing histories were not documented very well in the 60/70/80s.

 

Good guides? The new Smith Rocks, Robert's Colorado Ice, Ice Dance and Jo Jo's Canadian Ice come to mind. All big efforts and it shows.

 

 

 

 

 

[Alex]

Thanks for your response. Washington Ice has its own problems (I welcome any contribution you can add to it - as a parent and Microslave my time is really limited), I was just wondering exactly where youre ire was directed. I havent done anything in N Idaho to speak of so have no opinion on that guide.

 

To your other point, the guidebooks that I think represent the best they can be are:

 

Bjornstads Desert Rock

Watt's Smith guide from early 90s.

I really liked Clint's Index guide from way back - simple and functional.

Don Mellor's Adirondack Rock from the 80s was great

[Checat]

By Clint's guide do you mean the really simple black and white manuscript only available at the Grocery Store in Index?

 

[Dane]

Same one..here:

 

http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/index/index.htm

 

and you can print a copy for yourself.