What else if there left to say about the alpine bouldering found in places like Rocky Mountain National Park and Mt. Evans? The scenery is stunning, the boulders are massive, the problems are great and the experience is really full value. Basically all good things, right? Well, with the lack of a proper guidebook to these areas one negative thing that could be said about the experience over the years was how difficult the areas could be to navigate if you didn’t know the right people*. Given the approaches and the elevation the visiting climber can only search for problems for so long before passing out, right?
The situation has improved somewhat in recent years with the Horan book and the gradual posting of information about RMNP and Mt. Evans to Mountainproject. However, the Horan book got decidedly mixed reviews and MountainProject is only so useful out in the field**. Enter a new guidebook to select areas of RMNP and Mt. Evans by The Sherriff himself, B3Bouldering’s Jamie Emerson.
Published by Sharp End, Bouldering Rocky Mountain National Park & Mt. Evans gives you all the information you need to climb at places like Area A and Area B at Mt. Evans (NOT Lincoln Lake however) and the well-known areas of RMNP. Emerson may take flack for his fascination with where boulder problems start, but this attention to detail is an asset throughout the book which contains clear directions to problems and helpful beta for where each one starts. In addition, there is a nice geology review from Hayden Miller and essays from the likes of Dave Graham, Tommy Caldwell, and Angie Payne.
You can get more information on the book and pre-order a copy for around $30 straight from the B3Bouldering website. Act quickly enough and you can get a free electronic version of the book as a bonus. Don’t expect to share that electronic copy with your friends though as it comes in a locked down PDF format. For a more thorough look at the book check out this excellent review by Peter Beal at his website Mountains & Water.
*Some would argue this is a good thing but that’s for a separate post…
**Although that could change soon. Stay tuned…
This is very exciting, and it’s great that Jamie’s hard work is finally coming to fruition!
Maybe I’m just being nostalgic — and I do understand that the technology is ever-evolving — but this version of e-book security puts me off a bit. When I buy a hardcopy guidebook, I’m always psyched to lend it to my friends. Or in some cases, copy a page if that’s all I want/need for a day. The list of ‘features’ on the LockLizard site is kind of ominous and suggests that neither of these is possible with the e-version. Why should any author need to know how many times I’ve viewed the item I bought?
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I’m also against DRM, especially in this situation. I’ve always been under the impression that integrity is an important part of climbing as it pertains to personal responsibility and honesty. In this case, a book written by a climber for climbers has labeled everyone who purchases it potentially guilty of copyright infringement by including DRM.
I’m sure there are many people, most of whom were no doubt raised in a climbing gym who couldn’t begin to understand the climbing ethics of old. (see video below of Chris Schulte….)
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The book looks nice after a cursory viewing of the pdf but until I receive my hard copy I don’t see myself down to examine it in detail.
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I’m almost certain you can print out the PDF as many times as you want, you just can’t email the file to anyone or make it available on a website, etc.
I could be wrong though. Jamie explains it on his site.
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