Colorado Climbing Guidebooks

Here are some updates for the Books section of Colorado.
mountainproject.com/books/1…

There are lots of books; it might make sense to organize them by region. Let me know if you want more info about any of these books: I've got most of them.

A good place to buy Colorado guidebooks is Chessler books:
chesslerbooks.com/eCart/lis…
chesslerbooks.com/eCart/lis…

Sharp End publishes a lot of Colorado guidebooks:
sharpendbooks.com/prod.php?…

Charlie Fowler has published several guides to western Colorado: charliefowler.com/guidebook…

Boulder

Boulder Canyon Sport & Adventure Climber's Guide, Vol. II: The Upper Canyon, Mark Rolofson, 2005, Free West Rock Guides. Covers sport climbs in the upper half of Boulder Canyon from the Bowling Alley to the Sport Park. Mark is working on Volume I, which will cover lower Boulder Canyon.

May want to add Boulder Canyon Sport & Adventure Climber's Guide, Mark Rolofson, 2000, Free West Rock Climbs, but it's out of print. Covers sport climbs in Boulder Canyon.

Delete Classic Rock Climbs No. 2: Upper Dream Canyon. This information is included in Rossiter's Boulder Canyon guide, which is more up-to-date.

Delete 1995 Boulder Sport Climber's Guide; it's old and out of print.

Add Eldorado Mountain to areas covered by Rock Climbing Eldorado Canyon.

Delete Eldorado Mountain from areas covered by Rock Climbing the Flatirons.

Lyons

Classic Rock Climbs No. 23: Lyons Area, Peter Hubbell, 1999, Falcon Publishing. Covers South St. Vrain Canyon, Golden Gate Canyon State Park, Buttonrock Dam, Zebra Rock and Pinecliffe. Photo and topo format, no written route descriptions. Includes quality ratings.

Estes Park/RMNP

The Park: A Guide To Crags and High Peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, Fred Knapp and Mike Stevens, Sharp End Publishing, 2002. "Best of" guide to Lumpy Ridge and RMNP alpine climbs.

Rocky Mountain National Park: The Climber's Guide, Estes Park Valley, Bernard Gillett, 2001, Earthbound Sports, Inc. Covers Estes Park Valley. The most comprehensive guidebook to the area.

Rocky Mountain National Park: The Climber's Guide, The High Peaks, Bernard Gillett, 2001, Earthbound Sports, Inc. Covers RMNP alpine climbs.

Rock Climbing Rocky Mountain National Park: The Crag Areas, Richard Rossiter, 1996, Chockstone Press. Covers Estes Park Valley, but not as complete as Gillett's guidebook. Does not cover the Monastery or Jurassic Park. Includes Fern Canyon.

Rock Climbing Rocky Mountain National Park: The High Peaks, Richard Rossiter, 1997, Chockstone Press. Covers RMNP alpine climbs.

Shelf Road

May want to delete Rock Climbing Shelf Road by Mark Van Horn; it's out of print.

Add copyright date (2005) and publisher (Sharp End Publishing) to "Shelf Road Rock: A Complete Climbing Reference"

Garden of the Gods

Change info on D'Antonio's book to Classic Rock Climbs No. 4: Garden of the Gods, Colorado, Bob D'Antonio, 2000, Falcon Publishing. Updated and revised edition. Topo photos, written descriptions, and quality ratings for all Garden of the Gods climbs.

San Luis Valley

Rock Climbing the San Luis Valley, Bob D'Antonio, 1999, Falcon Publishing. Covers Penitente Canyon, The Rock Garden, Witches Canyon, Sidewinder Canyon, Penis Rock, La Garita Creek Wall, Shaw Springs, area bouldering. Topo photos and written route descriptions. No quality ratings.

Elevenmile Canyon

Classic Rock Climbs No. 3: Mueller State Park and Elevenmile Canyon, Colorado, Bob D'Antonio, 1996, Chockstone Press. Covers areas in title. Written descriptions, topos, photos. Quality ratings.

Colorado National Monument

Rock Climbing Desert Rock III: Moab To Colorado National Monument, Eric Bjornstad, 1999, Falcon Publishing.

Selected Climbs in the Desert Southwest, Colorado and Utah, Cameron M. Burns, The Mountaineers, 1999

Devil's Head

The Devil Made Me Do It Again, Tod Anderson, StoneFinders, 2004

Red Rock Canyon

Red Rock Canyon Open Space: A Rock Climber's Guide, Stewart M. Green, Sharp End Publishing, 2004

See the Chessler, Sharp End, and Charlie Fowler links for additional books.

Ron - thanks for the comprehensive book list. That will be very good information to add to the database.

Our book capabilities/features are pretty anemic right now. Just the minimal flat list attached to an area... but once we're live we have some items we want to implement to make it more useful.

Thanks again

One comment I would make about the book lists is I don't know if it is essential to have a photo of the what the book looks like. Not everyone has a blazing fast Internet link and on CB.com, putting up the pictures of all the guidebooks on the area page really slows down it's loading.

If you could make the images really small then OK. If not, then I say nuke having a picture of each book and just have a list.

Cheers,

Bruce

Here are more Colorado climbing guidebooks that I've come across.

Stacy Bender has a great guidebook list on his website:
home.att.net/~stacy.bender/…
He's got "where to buy" links for most of the books on his list.

Also see bluecloverpress.com/books and mountainworldmedia.com/guid…

Alpine Areas

Colorado's Fourteeners: From Hikes to Climbs, Gerry Roach, Fulcrum Publishing, 1999

Colorado's Thirteeners: 13,800 to 13,999 Feet, From Hikes to Climbs,
Gerry Roach & Jennifer Roach, Fulcrum Publishing, 2001

Dawson's Guide to Colorado's Fourteeners Volume I: The Northern Peaks,
Louis W. Dawson, Blue Clover Press, 1999

Dawson's Guide to Colorado's Fourteeners Volume II: The Southern Peaks,
Louis W. Dawson, Blue Clover Press, 1999

Indian Peaks

Colorado's Indian Peaks Wilderness Area: Classic Hikes and Climbs,
Gerry Roach, Fulcrum Publishing, 1998

Durango

Durango Sandstone: Guide to Area Freeclimbs, Tim Kuss, 2000

Garden of the Gods

Ric Geiman's Garden Guide, Ric Geiman, Blue Clover Press, 1998

Grand Junction

Grand Junction Rock: Rock Climbs of Unaweep Canyon and Adjacent Areas,
KC Baum, Graphic Press, 1997

Southwest Colorado

The Wild Wild West, Charlie Fowler and Damon Johnston, Mountain World Media, 2004
mountainworldmedia.com/wild…

Telluride and Ophir

Telluride Rocks! 3rd Edition, Damon Johnston and Charlie Fowler, Mountain World Media, December 2005
mountainworldmedia.com/tell…

Turkey Rocks

For Turkeys Only, Steve Cheney and Bob Couchman, Blue Clover Press

We need to include the ice climbing guide books out there. The list above largely neglects this.

Other ice climbing guidebooks:

Colorado Ice, Jack Roberts, Polar Star Communications, 1998.

Ouray Ice Park Climbing Map. Also see the on-line map:
ourayicepark.com/map.php

San Juan ice climbs: Selected hardwater ice routes in southwest Colorado, Charlie Fowler, 1996, out of print.

There are others out there for ice & mixed.

Ben Bruestle's The Ripper (rock & ice), Jack Hunt's Life by the Drop, Bill MacTiernan's Ouray Ice, Jack Roberts' new Volume I & II Colorado Ice, there's been some decent miniguides published through Rock & Ice, and I'm sure I'm forgetting others....

Also, there's a guide to Summit County Rock, A Rock Climbers Guide to Castlewood Canyon State Park Colorado by Thomas Hanson, the guide to Black Canyon by Robbie Williams, Soft Touch III A Climber's Guide to the Garden of the Gods by Mark Rolofson, parts of Classic Desert Climbs & 50 Select Classic Desert Climbs by Fred Knapp.

I'd strongly recommend leaving in the out-of-print guides since most of them are available for check out or reference at the American Alpine Club Library in Golden, CO.

Leo,

The lists I posted include only guidebooks not already on the Colorado Books page; see mountainproject.com/books/1….

The Ripper, the Black Canyon Guide, Soft Touch III, and the Castlewood Canyon guide are already listed.

If you want an exhaustive list of Colorado rock and ice guidebooks on MP.com, I suggest splitting them up by area instead of having one gigantic unordered list on the Colorado Books page.

You may find additional books on the links I posted previously (Chessler, Sharp End, Stacy Bender, etc.).

I think an out-of-print book should be included only if there is no in-print book that covers the same ground, otherwise the list will become too long, filled with books that are not only obsolete but hard to locate.

Thus Van Horn's Rock Climbing Shelf Road should be excluded, since the new Shelf Road guide by Knapp, et. al. supercedes it. The out-of-print 2000 edition of Rolofson's Boulder Canyon Sport and Adventure Climber's Guide should be included, since it covers routes not in any newer book. When Rolofson publishes Boulder Canyon Volume I: The Lower Canyon, then the 2000 edition should be relegated to a separate "out-of-print and obsolete" list.

If you want to include out-of-print books that have been replaced by more recent guides, then where do you draw the line? Do you want to include Erickson's 1980 Rocky Heights? Pat Ament's old Eldorado guidebooks? Kimball's old Lumpy Ridge guidebooks? Rossiter's Boulder Climbs North and Boulder Climbs South? I don't think so.

When the Books capability on MP.com is upgraded to have more than one flat list, obsolete out-of-print guidebooks could be included in a separate section. But for now, I think they add too much information of marginal utility.

There still were significant gaps in the list of guidebooks if you included the list that you referred to via that link. Most notably are the ice climbing & mixed climbing guidebooks.

I disagree that older books (considered by only some to be obsolete) should be excluded. E.g., many folks didn't buy the newer versions of Boulder Climbs North or South because the new guides didn't cover much new to justify buying the old guides. Further, you can find these guidebooks on the used book market.

Also, "old" guides can provide useful information. Newer is not always better. E.g. Kimball's Lumpy guide & Rossiter's Boulder Climbs North, South, & Best of Boulder are still very useful!

Finally, again, virtually all these guidebooks are easily available through the American Alpine Club Library for reference or checkout.

So Leo, where do you draw the line on out-of-print guidebooks?

Should Erickson's 1980 Rocky Heights be included? Ament's 1974 edition of High Over Boulder? DuMais' 1981 High Peaks? How about DuMais' 1987 second edition of High Peaks? Walter Fricke's 1971 Climber's Guide to Rocky Mountain National Park? Rossiter's mid-1980's Boulder Climbs guidebooks? Alec Sharp's Boulder New Climbs '81? Hubbel's 1980 South Platte Brown Book of Lies? Rolofson's 1979 Soft Touch Garden of the Gods guidebook? The list is endless.

I think you've got to establish criteria for including out-of-print guidebooks. Otherwise you're going to wind up with a list of "every guidebook ever printed" and it's not going to be of much use to anyone except climbing history buffs.

My criteria for including an out-of-print book on MP.com:
1. The book is available (AAC library, verified used book source).
2. The book is less than 15 years old (no pre-1990 guidebooks).
3. The book contains information not found in current guidebooks.

Here's a list of out-of-print guidebooks from my personal collection: mountainproject.com/v/color…
Only a few warrant inclusion on MP.com; the rest are obsolete and would just clutter up the book lists with useless information.

Include a carefully selected list of old books if you want, but put them on a separate page from the current books. Otherwise, there's going to be a lot of stuff for people to wade through, and most of it will be difficult to find and of limited utility. Not everyone frequents the AAC library or wants to call used book stores (or Google search) for out-of-print books.

Some of these old books are considered "rare" and command exhorbitant prices: do you really want to pay $55-$68 for a copy of Boulder Climbs South? search.barnesandnoble.com/u…

I'm sure you've got a ton of old guidebooks in your personal library, as do I; but only a few of them are of use to people seeking information in 2006.

I'll go by an average climber (me) with a slightly better than average collection of guidebooks (apparently, less than you in rock but more in ice).

I still reference Mark Rolofson's Soft Touch III for Garden of the Gods climbs, I still reference Charlie Fowler's San Juan Ice guide, I occasionally reference DuMais' High Peaks for obscure stuff. I use Best of Boulder occasionally. I don't use Rocky Heights or High over Boulder for actual climbing but find them fun to add to the historical side of climbing.

Most folks know someone who has guidebooks like Boulder Climbs North or South & could borrow it for free for reference. Many climbers start out with less-than-average incomes.

The AAC library can be accessed easily by the greatest percentage of Colorado residents with a 1h or less drive (30 min for most, even from Boulder) or a phone call & they'll mail you any book if you belong to AAC or CMC.

As the years go by, only small percentages of new routes & new information gets added to most guidebooks where previous comprehensive guides have been published.

I think getting too rigid in criteria, rules, and thinking is unnecessary for somethings as amorphous and disorganized as climbing. Peace.

How about adding a rating system to the guide books list (or even a comments section accessed by clicking on the book title). This might make it a little easier for someone looking for a guide to an area covered by many books.

If one were willing to put in the effort, you could add in the star system (currently in use for routes) to the guidebook section and list the averages & comments. This might be nice for those selecting between guidebooks for an area e.g. RMNP.

I agree; star ratings and comments on guidebooks would be very useful. They would help people decide between competing books and be a way to inform people of errors, omissions, and updates.

For example, Rolofson's new Boulder Canyon guidebook completely omits Solaris, Wizard Rock, and Sleeping Beauty; areas that should have been included.

I'd like to point out my book SAN JUAN ICE CLIMBS is still available and sold at climbing shops in Ouray, Ridgway and Telluride. Although the book was published awhile ago (in 1996), the information about many of the classic climbs in the area remains useful.

My other books, co-authored with Damon Johnston, THE WILD WILD WEST and the recently published TELLURIDE ROCKS (third edition) are mentioned above. Note that there are updates to these two books, corrections and additional information on my website:
charliefowler.com/climbing.…

thanks, Charlie

Hey, I know this is off-topic, slightly, but THANKS! Charlie for your guide! It's a great resource. One thing that you get with it is the feel for consistency that you get when the writer has done all or nearly all the routes. Your efforts have been and are still appreciated.

One more update for the Colorado Books page:

There's a newer edition of Best of Boulder Climbs with a different cover photo:

Best of Boulder Climbs, 4th Edition, Richard Rossiter, Falcon Publishing, 2000.

See boulderclimbs.com/climbing/…

This edition is still in print; the third edition (1996) is not.

Another addition (sorry if it's listed & I just didn't see it):

Colorado Scrambles by Dave Cooper

Castlewood Canyon State Park

A Rock Climbers Guide to Castlewood Canyon State Park Colorado
by Tom Hanson

Available at the Castlewood Canyon Visitors Center or contact:
Tom Hanson
720-220-5736

This may have been asked before, but does anyone know if there is someone who is continuing the work that Jack Roberts had started on the northern part of Colorado?

This post reminded me..

Anyone know where I could find this? I know Jason's book is very comprehensive. I just think this would be badass.