Colorados High Thirteeners: A Climbing and Hiking Guide [Paperback]

Mike Garratt (Author), Bob Martin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1992

"Colorado’s High Thirteeners" features route descriptions for the state’s 169 highest 13,000-foot peaks, along with 40 photographs and a complete 50-page listing of the 740 highest summits in the state—the accepted listing of the highest thirteeners for those climbing Colorado’s Centennial (highest 100) or Bicentennial (highest 200) peaks.

As Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks become more and more popular, many climbers are turning to the thirteeners for the quiet and solitude that attracted them to mountain climbing in the first place. As authors Mike Garratt and Bob Martin clearly demonstrate, the thirteeners offer every bit as much variety and challenge, from fairly easy day hikes to difficult backpack climbs.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mike Garratt and Bob Martin both include among their accomplishments having climbed all of the 13,000-foot mountains in Colorado. Martin, in addition, is the author of several books about climbing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Cordillera Press; 3rd edition (March 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0917895398
• ISBN-13: 978-0917895395
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #955,934 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A practical but Spartan guide to Colorado's high peaks, November 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Colorados High Thirteeners: A Climbing and Hiking Guide (Paperback)

This is a useful guidebook for anyone interested in climbing Colorado's Centennial (100 highest) or Bicentennial (200 highest) peaks. (I've hiked half of the Bicentennials.) For those who aren't hardened peak-baggers, "Colorado's High Thirteeners" is still a useful source of information about the state's less-visited high summits.

Garratt and Martin's route descriptions are generally adequate, if somewhat lacking in detail. The authors largely ignore the scenic highlights of their hikes, such as the spectacular Zapata Falls along the way to Twin Peaks and Unnamed 13,660.

Although I have made great use of this book, as the weathered, note-filled copy in my backpack could attest, I find it somewhat inferior to the fourteener guidebooks written by Gerry Roach, Louis Dawson, and Walter Borneman & Lyndon Lampert. I would love to see an updated and improved version of this guide with more information.

Here are some of the revisions I'd like to see:

1) More photographs of the peaks, indicating what month they were taken in.

2) Topographical maps of the routes.

3) More detailed descriptions of the hikes, both to aid in route-finding and to point out some of the highlights of the hikes.

4) Yosemite Decimal ratings of the difficulty of each route.

5) A "classic hike" rating ala Gerry Roach to indicate which hikes the authors like best.

6) More alternate routes to some of the peaks.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a pretty good guide, August 24, 2005

By 

John Curtiss (denver colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Colorados High Thirteeners: A Climbing and Hiking Guide (Paperback)

I have been using this guide for a bit now and it really is pretty good but you still need to do some homework and look at the maps before you do the trip. Now I have not done that for most of the climbs i have done and have on occasion been a bit confused, but overall i do like the book and i have done all but 15 peaks in the book

3.0 out of 5 stars Get Roach's colorado thirteeners instead, April 21, 2011

By 

Mike C. (tulsa, ok United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Colorados High Thirteeners: A Climbing and Hiking Guide (Paperback)

I got this book because it has a few summits that aren't even mentioned in Roach's Colorado Thirteeners book. This book doesn't have a single map in it. I would have much preferred maps over black and white pictures of some of the mountains. Also, there is no ranking system for difficulty. It just says things like "a long scenic trek" or "varied terrain" or "an off trail climb" or "stiff rocky climb" or "steep climb." Is a stiff rocky climb more difficult than a steep climb? Is varied terrain more difficult than an off trail climb? Who knows.

If you want more info on te thirteeners that aren't mentioned in "Colorado Thirteeners" just go to 13ers.com and read trip reports.