Guidebooks hold the promises of many climbs. We rely on them to entice
us, to provide us with the right beta for the chosen route, to give us
a rough timeline for the ascent. In the author's word, we trust.
Surely, it would be a much greater adventure to set out with no
information, but people have spent the time to write a book on an
area, and I like to reward their hard work and support the community
by spending the money and buying the topo.
Most of the time, the money is well spent. As the climb unfolds, I am
grateful for the author's words of guidance. Other times, there is so
little information, that I wonder why I bothered getting the
guidebook. I would have done as good of a job without the guidebook.
Worse though, is when the content is misleading, to a point where you
even wonder if the author actually did do the climb himself. Granted,
I have not written a guidebook myself and I am sure that it can be
difficult to engage in such a task. Yet, if the guidebook is
repeatedly mistaken on the approach, the aspect, the length and the
difficulty of the climb, then why am I carrying it around with me in
the first place, not to mention, why did I buy it?
advertisement
So, I wonder, why call a guidebook, a guidebook, if its content is not
there to help guide you in the mountains or on a climb? I strongly
believe that a guidebook should offer accurate information or not be
at all. So please, authors, make sure you do the climb and take the
right notes before publishing misleading information. Your credibility
is on the line.
Guidebooks used to contain little more then the approximate location of a route, length, grade/seriousness, and the name(s) and date of the FA. To be honest, it was more then enough information and allowed for discovery and adventure, which I always thought was a huge part of why people ventured into the mountains in the first place. Nowadays.. people have come to expect topo's showing every feature on every pitch, location of fixed gear and anchors, along with a list of what gear they should bring along. God forbid if any of this information is incorrect. As ridiculous as it sounds, the way things are heading, I can see the day where lawsuits emerge due to incorrect information on a topo.
As far as expecting a guidebook author to climb every route in order to confirm the information, is absolutely ridiculous. Guidebooks usually cover a specific area, many of my guidebook contain 500+ routes. The majority of guidebook authors, have jobs, and primarily climb on the weekends and holidays like the rest of us. To expect them to spend 10-20 years climbing every route in a given area, not to mention the number of new routes that appear each year, before publishing a guide.. I'm afraid there would be very few guidebooks around for anyone to bitch about.