In Living Color

Now hear this: three key Southwestern areas see their fi rst full-color photo guides this year. First is Boulder Canyon Rock Climbs ($35, wolverinepublishing.com), by Bob D’Antonio. A prolific first ascentionist in the Colorado canyon, D’Antonio reveals, in 285 pages, its quality granite crags in a photo-topo format, with killer historical essays by John Gill, Pat Ament, Royal Robbins, etc. Right above Boulder, too, are the Flatirons, richly documented in Climbing Boulder’s Flatirons ($32, sharpendbooks.com), by Jason Haas, who for years chased down Beta and climbed almost all the vast area’s gems. And finally, there’s Zion Climbing: Free and Clean ($29.95, supertopo.com), by Bryan Bird. Following the user-friendly SuperTopo format (photo overlays, plus illustrated topos), Bird lays out the free and aid classics in Utah’s desert-big-wall crucible.