Customer Reviews

Climbing California's Fourteeners: 183 Routes to the Fifteen Highest Peaks

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

After moving to CA from CO, and having used Colorado 14er guidebooks by Dawson and Roach, I was disappointed by this book. While there are many fine photographs, wonderful climbing history of the peaks, a slew of routes, and many routes superimposed on photographs, there were many elements that I find essential, that were missing. Topographic maps of the areas in question (with routes drawn on them), round trip distance information, elevation gain, and an estimated (conservative) completion time are essential pieces of information when planning a trip, and are not included here. While the difficulties of the various routes are described well, these other descriptors would make the book twice as good as it is now. Dawson's format, at the beginning of each route description, listing the aforementioned deficiencies (with the exception of the maps) is excellent. From the guidebooks I've looked at though, this is the best available.

Porcella and Burn's book is really the only book about climbing California 14'ers. It's a great starting point for climbing in the state with extensive historical sections and nearly every available route up each of the 14'ers in the state. In other words, it will get you pointed in the right direction and to the trailhead to do the climb.

Unfortunately, the book is sorely lacking in route description details. The authors say to use both the pictures and descriptions of the routes to make your way up the mountain, but there are cases of descriptions without pictures. The book is most dangerous for beginning to intermediate climbers for its lack of approximate times to each location degree of difficulty, and lack of attention to detail on the "lesser" routes.

Take Mt. Tyndall's Northwest Ridge. It takes a strong hiker about 8 hours just to reach the base. The description describes the route as "easy" and up a twisting rocky trail. In fact, the trail doesn't exist and most of the climb up this ridge requires negotiating large, unstable boulders. The authors do admit the summit ridge is exposed, but do not mention there are some class 3 moves at this point. Without approximate times to the summit there is no way of knowing how long or how difficult the climb is. Furthermore, there is only a description of the climb and not a clear picture of the route. I actually told friends that climbing Mt. Illimani (6400 meters), which required some technical ice climbing, and 4 days of climbing was easier than climbing Mt. Tyndall (approximately 18 hours).

Lack of details are also evident in their poor description of the West Face route of Mt. Williamson. There is no mention of good spots to camp after reaching Shepherds pass. Williamson bowl requires fairly strenuous hiking since it is largely boulder field between several moraines. Porcella and co., describe crossing this as "entering the Williamson bowl from the north," which, judging from the topo quad and this description, makes it sound like an easy walk. The description fails to describe the route correctly, with the description sounding like you continue up the mountain when the picture shows a turn to the south. Finally the authors chose to take a picture of the climb from an angle that most climbers would not see from the southern approach.

Porcella and Burn's rating system often seems haphazard. One climb on Mt. Shasta was rated as Class 3-4, but I found this climb to be far easier than the Class 2 climbing on Mt. Tyndall.

There is a lot to cover here, but the easier routes certainly could use more description and approximate times. Yes mountaineering is dangerous, difficult, and strenuous, but lack of detail is not an excuse for the "c'est la vie" attitude Porcella and Burns use for their descriptions. In fact more description would help climbers be more prepared for the routes they choose.

I've climbed three of California's 14,000 foot peaks and this book was very disappointing. There is simply not enough viable information on each of the hikes. There are massive amounts of extraneous material on each peak such as the history of various climbs and minutiae not interesting or relevant to a hiker of today. Every hiker using this book needs to know the difficulty of the hike, the elevation gain, the round-trip distance and details about locating the trailhead. Only the latter point is adequately addressed here.

Take Mt. Whitney, for example. This is the premiere California hike and one of the essential hikes for anyone in North America. The information on Whitney given in this book is extensive but not really useful. I relied on other guide books to direct me to Whitney Portal and give me meaningful information before making the ascent.

The strong area of the book is ample information on altitude acclimazation, the dreadful prospects of developing HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) and methods of preparing your body for the rigors of high altitude climbing. If you're interested in vicarious climbing or just in the history of each peak, this is a fine book. But if you're an active hiker anticipating or training for these peaks, there are much better books for this purpose.

Very disappointing. Far too much detail on the history of climbs and climbers. Good detail on the approaches to the trailheads. BUT, the actual details on the trails themselves, the most important part, are sadly lacking in information Never a mention of the length of the trails nor the elevation gain. Insufficient landmarks noted and very vague on compass bearing or other vital information such as water availabilty, good camping spots, etc. Good points are the trails noted on the photos of the mountains and the mile-by-mile directions to the trailheads. All the more disappointing that no distances noted for the trails themselves or even how long one might expect to be on one.

Compared to the Roach guidebook for the Colorado 14ers, this book is horrible. There are no topo maps, no color, hardly any elevations for trailheads, camping spots, saddles, etc. It's a very disappointing guidebook that leaves out so much of the information that you look for in a guidebook. The authors did extensive research on the historical routes and perhaps the book is more useful as a history book than a climbers' guide. But it's the only book I found for the California 14ers and so I bought it. It's primary use is getting you to the proper trailhead for the climbs and even there it wasn't ideal. When my buddy, currently speed-record holder for the CA 14ers saw I had the book, the first thing he told me was a better way to approach one of the trailheads.

Very good comprehensive guide. As with any climbing guidebook it is difficult to tell exactly the route you are supposed to take just by the description, but it is a good effort with diagrams which do help. Interesting bits of history keep it from being boring.
-Deborah Steinberg

Steve Porcella and Cameron Burns spent at least two summers collecting information from historical figures while putting up new
routes to all fifteen of the >14K foot peaks in California. This book is chockfull of history gathered directly from some of the early
climbers of these Sierra peaks. Many of the approaches to these peaks are arrived at by hiking (which is half the fun when in the
Sierras). As both authors are world class climbers and besides supplying detailed maps and routes traced onto photos of the peaks,
they have included many B&W photos of such points of interest as approach scenery, actual routes, historical contributors, as well
as many photos of themselves climbing the routes. Thoroughly enjoyable, this book is as interesting for the armchair climber as
for individuals wishing to expand their climbing horizons by exploring these magnificent mountains in California.

Porcella and Burns spent two summers climbing 75 routes on California's 14ers, then hundreds of hours interviewing everyone they could find who had climbed on these peaks, including Jules Eichorn, Doug Robinson, Jon Fisher, Dick Beach, David Brower, Chris Vandiver, Warren Harding, Galen Rowell, Kevin Steele, just to name a few. They corrected MANY errors that had been made by previous guidebook authors, about some of California's most important long, alpine routes. This book just received an outstanding review from Doug Robinson in CLIMBING Magazine. Check it out, then buy the book!!!!

Without a doubt this is one of the best guidebooks written - ever! Anyone who collects guidebooks or climbs mountains should have this book. It is soooooo good! Such detail, such photos, such stories - this is how a guidebook should be written. As with any true climbing guidebook the quality is in the details. This book has everything you would want to know about these big mountains, some of which are the highest in the 48 states. No other book contains this information. The authors spent 10 years crafting this work (such dedication!). They climbed nearly half of all of the routes, cicumnavigated nearly all of the peaks, corrected chronic guidebook errors - some of which are still in print in other high Sierra guide books! Incredible photos, many historic and out of print, excruciating route details, historical anecdotes, all the information you could ever want or need in order to get safely up and down these big mountains is in this book. This book is not a trail guide book! It is a CLIMBING GUIDE. It assumes that if you want to climb these mountains that you have the rudementary knowledge of how to hike a trail, read a topo, or at the very least, how to gain information on these basic fundamentals. The book's primary focus is how to get up and down these 14,000 foot high granite monoliths in one piece! A unique feature not seen in the 1000's of guidebooks published is that information is provided in the form of references to books and articles and maps that provide information too volumous to be placed in this single guidebook. You have to see and read this book to believe how good it is. Read first ascents written in gripping, glorious detail by the original climbers themselves, see their historical photos, read about the latest modern day technical routes, learn the details of the easier routes. What a GREAT BOOK!

Simply an incredible book. I will never look at California's fourteeners the same way again. The daring ascents, so beautifully mapped and photographed, make for a rock-climber's delight. The lush mountain photography is only one bettered by the incisive and informative route descriptions. Having lived in California for many years, I thought that I knew these peaks well. Not so in the wake of this small gem. I recommend this book for novice and expert alike.