New Yosemite Free Climbs Select Guidebook Almost Done - Call for Photos!

Erik Sloan wrote:Hi Gang, Thank you so much for the photos. There is still plenty of room to get your pics in the book, so if you have some good stuff please email it to me at erik@yosemitebigwall.com If you are a professional photographer, consider contributing some photos in exchange for ads in the book, as your contribution to your community. Several pros have already signed on, but it would be great to really go big with the photos in this one. If I use one or two photos you will get a free book and and your name in the acknowledgment page. If I use several of your photos I will happily put your name on the cover of the book. Just reading the last several posts quickly, it seems like folks are obsessed with the timeline: I'm hoping to have the App out by Christmas. The edits finished by late Feb/Early March, and the printed book out next June. As always, I"m happy to talk ethics with you guys, on a separate thread. Have an awesome weekend. Go Climbing! Woot Woot! Erik Yosemitebigwall.com

An actual answer on publication.

I don't think there is an obsession with publications but a reaction to no info/answer to questions.

How long have ED, Clint and the gang been talking about an updated comprehensive guide? Long enough to have to restart for sure cause 10 years is a lot on new info can happen in a decade.

Since a few want to say publishing is hard or long and projects don't have deadlines, how about a nice friendly elementary style question.

Wow, I have heard that a cool all encompassing guide for Yosemite Valley might happen. So much climbing and history would be awesome but lots of work. Only long time Valley locals could pull this off.

Hey AUTHORS of New Guide, when would you like to have a lovely Tome of Yosemite Climbing in the hands of the wee masses?????

K Weber wrote:Wow, I have heard that a cool all encompassing guide for Yosemite Valley might happen. So much climbing and history would be awesome but lots of work. Only long time Valley locals could pull this off. Hey AUTHORS of New Guide, when would you like to have a lovely Tome of Yosemite Climbing in the hands of the wee masses?????

You're not worthy, you must join the Chongonation first.

Hey AUTHORS of New Guide, when would you like to have a lovely Tome of Yosemite Climbing in the hands of the wee masses?????

as soon as possible

K Weber what routes have you done in the Valley?
just a simple question...

Ed Hartouni wrote:Hey AUTHORS of New Guide, when would you like to have a lovely Tome of Yosemite Climbing in the hands of the wee masses????? as soon as possible K Weber what routes have you done in the Valley? just a simple question...

UGG, can't get a straight answer ever.

K Weber-- I think what Ed is asking-- how many routes have you done that are described in Supertopo/mountainproject/don reid's guide book/the roper guide books/clint cummin's website/etc...

That should keep you busy until the guidebook comes out...

mpech wrote:K Weber-- I think what Ed is asking-- how many routes have you done that are described in Supertopo/mountainproject/don reid's guide book/the roper guide books/clint cummin's website/etc... That should keep you busy until the guidebook comes out...

That's not the point and you know it. There is certainly more climbing than can be done in a lifetime.

K Weber already finished aiding first 40ft of Book of Revelations , and now he is facing huge question -what to do next.
New online Sloan's guide will solve his problem forever.

And god, pity the deprived sprawling masses who can't find climbs or figure out what to climb without a guidebook. How on earth did anyone manage to climb before guides - oh, right, we walked around until we eyeballed something interesting and just got on it. Ok, true enough, we might have been wandering about under the influence of various psychoactive substances, had late starts and endless epics, but such was the life. I can assure you, however, that after years of intensive hindsight, I've concluded unequivocally that drugs and self-delusion are not absolutely necessary per se for climbing without a guidebook. But to be honest, if it comes down to losing the drugs or the guidebook, I know which one is getting ditched first (unless of course the pages are thin enough to roll with).

Hey Gang,

Hope you had a great weekend. I've been super busy....but the good news is the guide is really coming along. Again, thank you everyone who has contributed - this is truly going to be an awesome community collaboration.

Healje - re: the ethics thread. I apologize I haven't seen that yet. I'm busy for the next few weeks, but will hopefully have some time around the holidays to catch up with the discussion.

I was visiting a friend this weekend, so had some time to reflect on this thread. It definitely seems unusual to me that Ed Hartouni, who I offered to work with on this new Yosemite Select Book, is on this thread saying that it is inappropriate for me to put out this guide, while offering no timeline for when his book will actually be done. Ed and crew have said that they don't have any plans right now to release a Select book, and they don't even have a timeline for when they're comprehensive book will be done. All my work has come about because climbers in the Yosemite community have been anxious to get information about climbs, both bigwalls and free climbs(my bigwall book released topos to tons of climbs that had previously never been published).

But it doesn't even feel fair to put Ed and his crew on the spot. I wonder why the current Free Climbing guidebook authors haven't posted anything on any of these threads(there is also a 'New Yosemite Guidebook' thread on Supertopo). What do Chris Mac, Greg Barnes, Todd Snyder, and Stever Roper think about their Select book? Why have they never updated it? What does Don Reid have to say about all of this?

It might be easy to dismiss the responsibility of these authors with a simple, economical point: they're not involved because they're not making money off their guides anymore. But is that the only reason why people do things in a community? Would the greatest cities have the parks, monuments, open spaces, performing centers, etc. if all anyone did in those cities was think about the bottom line?

Historically it seems that the early climbers had a more generous approach to evolving guidebooks: When George Meyers was ready to move on from Yosemite he passed his work on to Don Reid. For Free! He didn't sell his rights to Don, or go around and tell people that Donny shouldn't make a guidebook because he wasn't qualified(Chris Mac was famously hazed by many old Valley climbers when his Yosemite books first came out). George worked with the next motivated local to keep the spirit of route reportage vibrant in Yosemite. New routes are still going up all the time, so really nothing has changed.

So why did Don Reid move to Joshua Tree in the early 90s and refuse to work with the next generation of guidebook authors? He wasn't even interested in selling the rights to his work? HOw did we as a community get this far off course?

Climbing guides are true labors of love. The person who questioned me offering only free, full page ads in my book to photographers in exchange for use of some photos, is evidently unaware how many, and how much, we've worked to create guidebooks in our community. Chris Mac stayed with me for two months, at my place in Curry Village, when he wrote his Yosemite Free Climbs Select book. I endlessly ended his bigwall books, for free.

Let's come back together around creating space for FA ist to share their route info(and hopefully create policy that requires it), and celebrate that we will soon have more resources to spread out and therefore reduce our climber impacts in Yosemite. Let's get excited to go all these amazing climbs that have been out of print or never before shared!

Woot Woot!
Erik@yosemitebigwall.com

ps. There is a big new free climbing route going up on El Cap right now, a couple American fellas.......so let's hear it for the Home Team!!!!!

Erik
Plenty of time for a long self promoting post.
No time to answer questions on ethics.

Ummm... Yeah. That was pretty lame. Acting like he has no time to respond to any ethic threads while writing a long post about his guide. Kind of a slap in the face really.

Erik Sloan wrote: I wonder why the current Free Climbing guidebook authors haven't posted anything on any of these threads(there is also a 'New Yosemite Guidebook' thread on Supertopo). What do Chris Mac, Greg Barnes, Todd Snyder, and Stever Roper think about their Select book? Why have they never updated it? What does Don Reid have to say about all of this?

Maybe they'll answer all of that in another thread, Erik, Master of Irony.
But perhaps they just don't have time right now, like you do, to post diatribes about how they don't have time right now.

Two quotes:

"For the record I do hiking guiding in Yosemite. I'm not, and will never be a climbing guide."

"I've never guided a climb in Yosemite except on a 'by donation' basis."

Jim Turner wrote:Two quotes: "For the record I do hiking guiding in Yosemite. I'm not, and will never be a climbing guide." "I've never guided a climb in Yosemite except on a 'by donation' basis."

That's just 2 senses of "guide". He does professional hike guiding, he's also taken people up on the wall (haven't most of us?) who then wanted to repay (but not quid pro quo) for his time.

Seriously, this level of witch hunting isn't helping anybody. His actions are instigation a bolting war, which is not in the interest of any climbers. But like the last bolting war, neither side was right & neither side won, only a sometimes tenuous truce.

From ST:

"I talked to the climbing guides here...before adding the belay. The consensus...is that BOR is not that classic, so it is not that big of a deal that there is a midway anchor on the first pitch. Most agree that the benefit of having two practice aid pitches, easily accessible, is great."

I wonder if the consensus only applied to the fact that it isn't a classic climb, and the OP extended the sentence with his own opinion to imply that there was consensus that a mid pitch anchor was no big deal. It's hard to tell based on the way it's punctuated.

Hi Gang,

(the idea that the current guidebook authors haven't posted on this thread because there busy doesn't work, the 'new Yosemite Guidebook' thread on Supertopo has been going for years, and no of them have ever posted on it). Let's get their input on the process, and what they see as/for the future!

Does anyone have a photo of Mental Block at Sentinel Creek?

Can still use more photos of moderates, 5.9 and under, if you have them taken from above.

Woot Woot!
Erik
erik@Yosemitebigwall.com

Why would you just take photos whatever you need from MP free? [Mental Block or any other]
Like you took for you Selected guide [ which is definitely not a "LABOR of Love" but rather "Labor of compilation"] routes which have wrong names, description and gear recommendations. Routes that you never climb and even never been around.

Ok, come on now, surely even you can see how ridiculous it is for you to be calling people out for not responding to threads. In contrast, here you are, proving you have time to type and submit comments, yet still refusing to respond to the topic that 90% of the posts are about. To claim you are too busy, and then to declare that if others claim they are too busy for the discussion YOU would prefer to have, that it must be a BS excuse?

I mean, come on.

Seriously.

Alexey wrote:Why would you just take photos whatever you need from MP free? [Mental Block or any other] Like you took for you Selected guide [ which is definitely not a "LABOR of Love" but rather "Labor of compilation"] routes which have wrong names, description and gear recommendations. Routes that you never climb and even never been around.

You think Ed and his coauthors will climb every routes in the comprehensive guidebook? You think the comprehensive guide will be perfect without any possibility of error?

You can bash his retrobolting, but suggest his guidebook sucks without seeing it is BS.