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So much rock, so many areas, so many climbs, so many altitudes and differences in climate. The American climbing experience is a manifestly large and varied one. On the same day, one can be freezing his/her backside off at the base of the ‘Diamond’ or fighting heat exhaustion at Joshua Tree.
Steve Roper and Allen Steck lead the way by providing a list of the best climbs in North America with their now definitive and timeless Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. There is now a new contender that has entered the field that views and describes the many facets of climbs and the climbing experience from a newer and different perspective. Climbing Rock: Vertical Explorations across North America by Francois Lebeau and Jesse Lynch is just such a book. It is essentially a road trip dictated by season and perhaps altitude to many of the outstanding climbing areas of Mexico, the USA, and Canada. The amazing photos of Francois accompany the descriptions of the climbs while Jesse provides some of the most poetic writing I have seen in this type of book. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter: the climbs roll by like the spinning tires of a trip that you hope has no end. So many areas; Moab, Yosemite in Spring; High Sierra, Squamish in Summer; Gunks , New River Gorge in the Fall and Joshua Tree, Smith Rock in the Winter to name a few in this year long sojourn. |
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The wheels just keep on turning -- and so does the mind as this collection of photographs and prose assails the senses with its boldness, steepness, beauty and pure professionalism.
This work boldly encapsulates the sheer love of climbing, of the vertical world, of the mountains and of the people who “journey upward“ on them. Jesse Lynch assures us that the “book is not a comprehensive guide to the best climbing areas … the power of it is in its uncompromised aesthetic … a deeply beautiful survey of climbing.”
I am in complete agreement with his summation. It is a book that would grace any coffee table or bookshelf.
Peter Croft’s Foreword is also a wonderful read as he deftly delineates climbing as a ‘sport’ or a lifestyle. For mine, like him, I prefer the latter. His one commandment is “Respect the environment”. While the photos featured are stunning, many feature climbers with ‘white gloves’ and probably some climbs that are excessively bolted. With impending bans in my home country of Australia (as well as many locations around the world – like Thailand) maybe it is time that our respect of our surroundings is reflected in more than words.
But Peter nails it when he likens the journey “to a dirtbag’s version of Star Trek’s mission to explore strange new worlds and to boldly just go”.
The writer and the photographer have done this and the result is to our advantage. The culture and the many environments and modes of climbing are comprehensively illustrated in images and prose in a North American background with a seasonal temporal setting. This is an incredibly innovative work and it deserves to be widely read.
This work boldly encapsulates the sheer love of climbing, of the vertical world, of the mountains and of the people who “journey upward“ on them. Jesse Lynch assures us that the “book is not a comprehensive guide to the best climbing areas … the power of it is in its uncompromised aesthetic … a deeply beautiful survey of climbing.”
I am in complete agreement with his summation. It is a book that would grace any coffee table or bookshelf.
Peter Croft’s Foreword is also a wonderful read as he deftly delineates climbing as a ‘sport’ or a lifestyle. For mine, like him, I prefer the latter. His one commandment is “Respect the environment”. While the photos featured are stunning, many feature climbers with ‘white gloves’ and probably some climbs that are excessively bolted. With impending bans in my home country of Australia (as well as many locations around the world – like Thailand) maybe it is time that our respect of our surroundings is reflected in more than words.
But Peter nails it when he likens the journey “to a dirtbag’s version of Star Trek’s mission to explore strange new worlds and to boldly just go”.
The writer and the photographer have done this and the result is to our advantage. The culture and the many environments and modes of climbing are comprehensively illustrated in images and prose in a North American background with a seasonal temporal setting. This is an incredibly innovative work and it deserves to be widely read.
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