The Product
Finally, the research has been conducted and sifted, replete with history, trip-planning info, and accurate documentation of the climbing. Next, the manuscript goes to the publishers, who typically handle layout and formatting. Not every book has a separate publisher, such as Huey’s guide, and in these cases the author’s work continues up until the printing is done. Either way, once the writer’s work is done, the book is entirely in the hands of public approval or condemnation.

What does the author get for their hardwork? Very little. Green said that if he were to total up the hours spent working and compared it with the money he makes from a book, it would amount to less than minimum wage. However, according to Green, “The rewards of writing guides are huge—I go to great climbing areas, I make new friends…great rewards beyond the monetary.“

Once a guidebook is out in the public, the problem arises as to how all the information will affect human impact on the areas covered. MacNamara expressed concern over this, saying that “If you come up with an area you want to keep it to yourself, but to a certain extent you want other people to climb there and tell you how good it is.”

Green has come up with several solutions to this problem. “I don’t do any kind of quality ratings for climbs,” he says. “I tend to feel that climbing areas that have quality ratings for climbs get all the traffic on the five-star routes when there are just as many three-star routes worth doing. I think we need to make up our own minds when we go to a climbing area.” Green also includes sections on local ethics to avert impact problems. He feels that if guidebooks can promote environmental ethics, they can actually help avoid the imposition of rules dictated by land managers.

In a recent letter sent to Climbing [No. 272] illustrates how a guide mindful of access can help the community. Glenn McDonald described how he and his brother, Evan, used a guide to help reverse the closure of their local crag (Blue Lake, Ontario): “Having a well-written climbing guide describing the routes, anchors, and marked trails helped officials understand our desire for a clean and well-maintained crag.“ On the flip side, a haphazard guidebook with poor research will often be poorly received by the local community.

Horan’s Bouldering Colorado was admirable in its scope, but got caught up in the difficulty of documenting an entire state‘s bouldering. The controversey ensuing from its publication shows pitfalls of guidebook authordom. Jamie Emerson, a Colorado climber active in protest of the guide (both on his blog, B3bouldering.com, and Falcon’s website), has cited both numerous errors — incorrect boulder names, for example, and inclusion of boulders on private land without any mention of access issues. Such a problematic guidebook, argues Emerson and others, like Cameron Cross, of the Northern Colorado Climbers Coalition, can lead users into conflict with land owners and jeopardize climber access.

“It’s up to the author to give [the publisher] a manuscript that has been approved by local land-management agencies and has been properly researched and the local climbing community,” says Green. According to him, the burden rests squarely on the shoulders of the writer.

The Debate
Perhaps there is too much weight placed on an individual author for any one book. If a guidebook is sloppy, the writer is maligned and condemned until the book is exiled or becomes outdated. Maybe, though, it was just the first attempt at a longer process. Says Horan, “I always say that if you think you can do a better book, then that’s what you should do. Anybody can do a book.”

With the advent of the online “wiki“-style encyclopedia, anyone who has something to say can say it. Sites like mountainproject.com or summitpost.org allow users to post whatever information they have on their local crags. According to Green, there is a danger with online route/area info. “Anyone can write about any route and say anything, so it becomes a reader’s burden to to ask, ’Is this accurate?‘“

Perhaps online guides weren’t intended to replace the written guide, but only to supplement it. Green says that “info on a website is not a guidebook, rather it should be viewed as an addendum of up-dated routes and info.“ Certain Boulder climbers disagree, however. Some climbing areas, like Boulder Canyon, have accurate, updated information posted online (such as where to cross the creek, what gear to bring, difficulty ratings) to the point where no guidebook is needed.

The future of guidebooks in a digital world is unsure, but in it Green sees harmony. “Many people like to hold the actual book and carry it to the crags, he says. “Still, there is a future in Internet publishing. I see a future where information, which is vetted by an author, is going to be published and sold in other ways besides traditional books.“ Digital avenues are becoming more and more popular with guidebook authors, such as sites like drtopo.com that offers free, downloadable pdf guides. Recently, guidebooks have been made available for download onto iPods and other devices.

In the end, perhaps we shouldn’t take the idea behind a guidebook too seriously. Huey, regarding the atmosphere surrounding the creation of his “spiritual handbooks“ says, “We partied every summer, and since it was the thing that bonded us, we put pictures in the guide…sometimes the route descriptions can be a little cryptic but that’s the fun of Tensleep. To see someone pile all their ego into such an abstract thing as climbing is sad. Life is big. Bigger than climbing.”

Maybe we can all learn a lesson in levity from Huey, and accept the good and the bad in the guidebook world as merely different attempts to give the gift of knowledge. We can take our collective knowledge of the rocks and to it append the knowledge passed on in guidebooks and create a more educated result. After all, a guidebook is just the written immortalization of our love for the cliffs. Says Horan: “It’s a wonderland. The guidebook will get you there, but once you’re there, put it down and go check it out.“