Seems pretty simple. Plagiarism is not the issue. And if the info is not already available in the guidebook, post it up, there's plenty of unpublished, existing routes to be found out there.

However, of the few areas I have looked into it seems that 90% of the listed routes have been published in guidebooks previously. ("point chasers") Yes, there are a few routes posted by first ascentionists and, far fewer, routes that are not in guidebooks that have been posted by adventurous climbers out exploring forgotton, obscure stuff (and that is great), but those are not in the majority.

If, and it looks like it could if this trend continues unabatted, guidebook authors no longer are able to put out a financially viable guidebook due to established info available online; Where is all the NEW info and historical documentation going to originate from? Once all the available, published, material is posted the "new" info will slow to a trickle and the historical record will certainly not be maintained.

And.....what exactly is the purpose of posting info readidly available in an in print guidebook anyway? Easy answer: To allow climbers to access the information for free without contributing to the, expensive, costs of producing a guidebook.

Guidebook authors do not need guidebooks to the areas they are documenting. They certainly are not interested in the few cents it might make(lucky to break even).

Guidebook authors write guidebooks because they have a long term interest in documenting the climbing history of an area and they want to share that knowledge with others. It would be a lose-lose situation if that tradition ends. Just consider the long term consequences, like the story I related in one of the above posts about a potential author having info on some great new climbing, but the feasability of getting that info out, in a guidebook anyhow, is now not viable for his area due to too much info, (originally made available from guidebooks) now available on MP.

"Free" comes with a price....... It's up to the next generation of climbers to figure out. There's still time to decide if they want guidebooks to stick around.

All right...I'm off to go interview an "oldtimer" about some routes he did bitd in support of the new guidebook for Northeast California by Paul Bernard. Or maybe I'll just keep those for myself......

Cheers, carry on now. This is all good discussion. :)

what about guidebook authors that publish first ascent routes with grades that they haven't climbed; rather they truly "onsighted" them?

"If a few obscure, BITD routes get lost to history, you know, I just don't care that much."

700 of the 1,300 routes in the guide I recently published were not available in published form or on the internet and I am pretty certain that those first ascentionists had no intention, what so ever, of ever posting that information or the stories behind the routes on the internet. Those people had to be tracked down and convinced, sometimes requiring traveling long distances, to give up that information. That is not "a few obscure bitd routes"

My concern about this topic is recent, having had "my eyes opened" by the recent experience I had. The prospective guidebook author I spoke with is now not going to write the guidebook that he has collected (some very good new stuff) info for. This is due to the local retailers stating that "guidebook sales for our area are drastically down due to information being avaiable on Mountain Project and we do not believe that we could sell many copies of an updated guidebook for the region because of this". So, it has already happened in at least one locale.

There is so much climbing history out there that needs to get out that I hope this does not happen in Northern California or other regions. Guidebooks are still the best medium for getting, quality, historical information out. And, unfornuate as it may be, a minimum number of copies must be sold to cover the expensive production/publishing costs of a color guidebook. (no one will purchase black and white anymore). If that is not possible, then there will be no more guidebooks.

"Free", or stolen...........has a cost.



Colonel Mustard:

I have no worries about the route posts you have made about Tahoe area routes. In fact I was glad to see some interest in the PCT Crack and get an update about the (dirty but now clean) current conditions of the route. I'm not outraged by any of this, certainly not you, just trying to contribute to a topic that I believe may have a negative long term consequence for the climbing community.

Posting about a couple of routes that stoked you or adding needed updated info is one thing, wholesale "catologing" of a regions routes (based on previous sources) has quite a different consequence.

I am not personally irritated by people posting info that I dug up. I only joined this discussion because I enjoy well researched guidebooks and the interesting stories that come to light. Hope the next generation shares this interest in continueing to want to have them published as well. And hoping that the next guidebook I publish is always better than the last! (if there is to be future guidebooks)

...gaffes....!

I am totally opposed to plagiarism of guidebook route descriptions.

But John Jackson's argument that Mountain Project is killing guidebook sales does not hold water.

I just counted; I have at least 36 guidebooks. It was somewhat difficult to count, and I may have missed some, because I have guidebooks in every room of my house. These guidebooks range in price from around $20 to around $35. So I have spent somewhere in the $600 to $1000 range on guidebooks. Some of those guidebooks were well worth the money I spent on them (Bret and Stuart Ruckman!), others are totally crap (I only have a couple of those). Many of these guidebooks are to areas I would not have known about were it not for Mountain Project.

I also have notebooks full of notes and topos on routes that I have stumbled across. And I have notes and topos from guidebook authors who have given them to me before they published them in their guides (which I subsequently purchased).

I have been using Mountain Project since 2001 (back in the days of climbingboulder.com, climbingtucson.com, saltlakeclimbing.com, etc.). Somehow, the "stolen" information on Mountain Project hasn't saved me any money.

I also don't buy into the claim that REI has killed the mom and pop climbing shops.

I have been climbing for 21 years.

I saw two climbing shops in Tucson come and go. Both died in the 1990's, before internet retail came into vogue, and without any "big box" outdoor retailer. On the other hand, the original climbing shop in Tucson, The Summit Hut, is thriving (how many stores do they have now?). The Summit Hut is a "mom and pop" store, and always had knowledgeable staff.

I lived in Salt Lake for 11 years. The "mom and pop" store there, International Mountain Equipment, has survived REI moving in, literally, right next door. The Black Diamond retail store is about a mile and a half away also. All three businesses are doing fine.

I now live in Spokane. We have Mountain Gear, Mountain Goat, and REI. The REI here carries virtually no climbing gear. My guess is that they cannot compete with Mountain Gear and Mountain Goat in that department.

As far as I know, Neptune Mountaineering is still open in Boulder, CO, and IME is still open in North Conway, NH. The climbing store in Mazama, WA, is open, as is the store in Winthrop. There is a shop in Squamish, and one in Leavenworth. There are several in Seattle, including Feathered Friends, across the street from REI. Desert Rock Sports in Las Vegas is still in business and down the street from REI.

Stop whining that technology and the damn kids are ruining the sport. Climbing continues to increase in popularity. Mountain Project, SuperTopo, et. al., fuel that.