SF, Sierra Club, 1972, 1st edition. 356 pp, maps, diagrams. This may be the most controversial climbing guide in USA history. In 1972, at the height of the backpacking and mountaineering boom, the Sierra Club produced this awful guidebook. And oddly, its not poorly written nor does it have bad directions.
The Sierra Club and the author, Andrew Smatko, felt that with so many new routes being done in the Sierra Nevada of California, that they should divide the book into two halves. But rather than do it geographically like most guidebooks do when they split, they did it by CLIMBING GRADE! This guidebook therefore has all the routes from class one to class four, easy rock climbing. The intention was to bring out another volume with all the Fifth Class routes in it. Which means you would had to buy and carry two guidebooks to do one peak, certainly if you were on a longer trip and didn't know which routes you might do. Or even if you did!
The other problem with the guidebook is that as in many ranges the Sierra has many minor peaks, bumps along a ridge, that are at best are named in the guidebook by their altitude. As there were no unclimbed peaks left in the Sierra in 1972, all the bumps had been climbed as well, but never recorded in guidebooks. Many even had cairns. Nevertheless, Smatko and his friends recorded hundreds of their ascents of these nubbins as a 'First Recorded Ascent'. This is okay for Mount Whitney as Indians climbed it centuries ago, but not for every minor peak!
I was climbing in California at the time, and remember the horrible response to this book when it came out. I guess it foretold the eventual separation of the Sierra Club from climbing altogether, as not long aferwards the Club stopped training climbers and leading technical climbing trips. Softcover, Near Fine.
