Customer Reviews

Colorado's Fourteeners: From Hikes to Climbs

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I own shelves of hiking guides, but this one tops the list. Not only is it informative, instructive and accurate, Gerry Roach writes well and gives the hiker all the essential information needed to make the trek. I live outside of Colorado and only visit for a few weeks each year, specifically to climb 14-ers. Being unfamiliar with the Colorado roads and most of their trailheads, I necessarily rely on this guide to get me to the trailhead with no hassle and accurate driving directions. Roach has never disappointed me. He gives exhaustive directions and includes a map for each trek. If you need a four-wheel drive vehicle to get to your destination, he will let you know. If you have a drive on a dirt road for 6 miles to reach the trailhead, that information will be included.

He also describes the trail conditions, whether it's rocky, has scree, is exposed and has a ranking system for how difficult the hike is. If there is scrambling involved or permanent snow fields, he lets you know. If it's a class 3 hike but listed in other guides as class 4, Roach makes the correction and explains why he feels this way.

There are separate chapters on the unique and often volatile weather in the Colorado peaks. This is imperative for out-of-state hikers who aren't familiar with the frequent, violent afternoon thunderstorms in the Rockies. When I did Pike's Peak for the first time, I photocopied Roach's chapter on this mountain and took it with me in my pack, and was glad I did. When the thunderstorms began, I descended ASAP, following his advice. This is an outstanding hiking guide. I wouldn't hike in the 14-ers in Colorado without it and neither should you. Enjoy!

I own every guide book written about the Colorado 14ers and Roach's is the best. The new second edition is worth buying for it's color photographs and topo maps. The routes are now well described in both text and illustrations.

Gerry Roach's works are set apart from other authors for two reasons. First, Roach gives you the personal perspective of one man. He has climbed all of the peaks in his books and gives consistent, first hand accounts. After climbing a few of the routes in one book, I know what to expect from others. Second, Roach has made a career out of climbing in Colorado. His love of the mountains is evident and he is considered my many to the be authority on mountain climbing in the Boulder area.

I own all of his books.

When his first edition of Fourteeners From Hikes to Climbs hit the shelves in 1992, I was at the height on my fourteener madness. At the time I was extremely impressed with the detail, quantity, and quality of the information. As far as I'm concerned, it blew away the competition of the day. Well Gerry has done it again! His second edition again surpasses all the competition! He's added dozens of new and exciting routes, including lots of new technical ones! The color maps are of the highest quality (mimicking USGS quads), with color coded lines showing each of the routes. A companion map package includes full-color removable topographic maps, descriptions for climbing the standard route on all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks, photographic overlays of each peak, trailhead directions, and a climbing log. What a deal! All the topo maps you need to climb ALL the fourteeners for the price of about two USGS quads!

I've lived in Colorado all my life and two years ago, I started my experience with Colorado 14ers. I may not be the most avid climber, but I do plan on climbing these amazing mountains for many years to come. After my second mountain, I realized that I was going to need a way to keep track and better plan my future climbs and, being that I worked at a bookstore, I had a pretty good opportunity to look through many books on the subject. I found this book to be by far the best guide of its type. It gives all the information that a climber will need to climb every last fourteener and does so in a way that is enjoyable and easy to understand without giving away any of the thrills and experiences of the climb itself. I highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to climb even just one of these amazing mountains.

This book ranks as the single indispensable guide to hiking and/or climbing Colorado's highest mountains. Not only does Mr. Roach supply the reader with thorough and accurate route information, but he includes occasional wry observations on both mountains and mountaineers. We can only hope that the publisher will soon see the wisdom in printing another edition of this classic. Even for the person who makes but a single ascent per year this book ranks as a "must have."

The only criticism I have of the book is that the mileages listed (in the edition I have) tend to run shorter than the actual mileages of the routes. My brother and I jokingly refer to "Roach miles" and then make the necessary 10-15% addition to the miles listed for each route when planning our trips. My suspicion regarding the origin of this "discrepancy" is that the mileages given in the book may be based solely on horizontal distance and might not take the vertical dimension into account.

An excellent guide. Gerry is very detailed in the areas that are most important such as routes, difficulties, approaches. In addition the maps included are very useful and detailed enough in many cases. Moreover Gerry tosses in a bit of humor, albeit subtle, which makes the guide a good read. Add some great color photography and you've got a great guide. For more of the same, minus the color photos, check out his guides to the indian peaks & rocky mtn. ntl. park....

So why only 4 stars? Well I do my climbing in all four seasons. No doubt for summer this guide is tops. However for snow climbs and off-season ventures, you won't get any information from this guide. That's why I reach for Louis Dawson's guides to the 14ers. Now I won't say Dawson's guides are more detailed as they aren't but the 4 season information is invaluable to me.

If Gerry added off-season climbing infromation to this guide then it would top all....

Roach's book is the definitive guide to climbing the 14,000' peaks in Colorado. His descriptions are more uniform than Borneman and Lampert, and with the release of the new edition in 1999, Roach's book also has the most helpful, detailed maps of all the main routes up the peaks.

The new edition of Colorado's Fourteeners has updated information on routes and now has colored maps. It is still the best guide to the fourteeners. Its major advantage lies in the classification of the routes according to required effort and technical difficulty. Once you have done a few, you know just what to expect on the next one. (I have completed 39 of Roach's 55 fourteeners.)

In his previous edition, Roach discussed at length the criteria for including a peak on the official list. Much of this discussion has been deleted. However, the question remains. For instance, why is North Maroon Peak on the generally accepted list of 54 fourteeners? It does not meet the criteria. Why, when we look towards Mt. Elbert, do we make believe that we do not see the prominent peak on the left, Mt. Elbert-South? Look again, next time you are a few miles south of Leadville.

Roach solves the problem by suggesting that the reader go for all the peaks, not just the official 54. This and the inclusion of Challenger Point on a par with the other 54 is a not-so-subtle challenge to the orthodox point of view - if it is not on a t-shirt it does not count. Who knows, maybe someday by popular demand, the Colorado Mountain Club will add a few more to the list of 54. In the meantime, I will write-in Challenger on my fourteeners t-shirt.

Just paging through this book makes you long for the mountains. I bought it a few months before a planned climbing trip in Colorado and found it most helpful in getting a feel for which peaks I wanted to climb. Being unfamiliar with Colorado geography is a bit of a hindrance, as the directions to the peaks are written for a local, but with this and a good map, planning a trip is a cinch. Don't make the mistake of assuming this will replace a USGS survey map though. The topos in here are far too small to serve as your only trail map, as I found out over the summer. Still, the trail descriptions are good, the pictures are alluring, and I can't wait to use this valuable reference again.

If you are into skiing Colorado fourteeners, you might want to check out the Dawson guides, but personally, this book by Gerry Roach is my favorite guide for climbing Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks. Gerry Roach's guidebook provides very good information about the relative difficulty of different hiking and climbing routes, good route maps, photographs of the peaks, and detailed route descriptions. His guidebook provides alternative routes for most of the peaks, and I like the way he lists his favorite routes as "classics." Gerry Roach's guidebook is also more economical than the Dawson guides.