The cliffs at Interstate State Park (aka Taylors Falls) have been used by rock climbers for decades. One of the most popular routes is Piece of Cake (POC), a 5.7 on the Minnesota Strip. Unfortunately, it is the scene of most of the poor anchor setups I’ve seen while climbing here for 35+ years. My goal in this post is …
Some Thoughts on Difficulty Ratings
The ideas below are in the Introduction chapter of Rock Climbing: Minnesota and Wisconsin, presented here with more detail. Difficulty ratings should be: an estimate of the difficulty of the climb for an ‘average person’ on an ‘average’ day consistent within a particular climbing area, and consistent among different areas. There are many reasons why these goals are difficult to …
My Guidebook History
Here’s a brief look back at my history with climbing guidebooks. It’s long– maybe too long! Minnesota Rock: Selected Climbs (1995) 220+ routes at Blue Mounds, Red Wing, Taylors Falls, Palisade Head, and Shovel Point. I got into the guidebook game indirectly. I was frustrated that the local guidebooks were out of print, I was frustrated that my job wasn’t …
Guidebook out of stock/no sales 7/25/18 to 8/30/18
I’m out of climbing guidebooks to sell. Other retailers have them available. I will be in northern India 7/25/18 to 8/30/18 and will not fulfill any orders for The Altitude Experience during that period.
No book sales June 3-July 4, 2017
I’ll be traveling in India so I cannot fulfill any orders during this time. Sorry.
Taylors Falls: new route and a couple of comments
A previously undescribed route in the Keyhole Area: Mongoosed (5.8**) If Cobra is too much for you, get Mongoosed. Shorter climbers may find this harder than 5.8. Start at the bottom of the gully between Cobra and the Double Cracks block (exactly where Julie is standing in the 2nd edition guidebook photo, p. 105 and below). Climb up a bit, …
When all else fails…
One of my climbing partners told me that he recently read the Introduction in the first edition. Finally. Ten years after buying the book. Most of us head straight for the ratings and skip over all of that unnecessary text that authors insist on including. We just want a number and a dotted line. And a gear list. And the …
Why I won’t take guide information from another web site
Writing a climbing guidebook is serious business. Deadly serious. While there are opportunities for humor, I constantly remind myself that the lives of the users could be endangered if I make a mistake. The rise of electronic social media has changed the way many people interact and how they think that others should interact with them. I was in on …
Guidebook update
This post is just to start off the new guidebook and revision category on the blog. It’s amazing that I finally got going!