Red Rocks Climbing: Supertopos [Paperback]

Greg Barnes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2004

This book offers one hundred of the best routes in Red Rocks from 15-pitch trad climbs to single pitch sport routes. While this guidebook focuses on the most classic multi-pitch routes such as Crimson Chrysalis and Epinepherine, cragging routes are also included. Includes formerly obscure and unpublished climbs to provide more options for avoiding crowds. As in all SuperTopo books, the authors personally climbed and documented each route with meticulous care to create the most detailed and accurate topos ever published.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"SuperTopo is the authority when it comes to delivering super accurate, super detailed topos." -- Duane Raleigh, editor, Rock & Ice Magazine

"SuperTopo offers a clear and concise format and sets the stage for your own adventure." -- Conrad Anker, world renowned climber and mountaineer

"SuperTopo sets the standard for guidebooks. This book matches the majesty of the area, and that’s a wonderful thing." -- John Long, author and Red Rocks First Ascentionist

About the Author

Greg has been climbing since 1994, and he can tell you every move on every route he’s done, draw a topo from memory, give you his opinion on the rating of any pitch, repeat anything written in any guidebook, and tell you about the weather that day. He is Director of the American Safe Climbing Association. Between March 2001 and November 2002, Greg spearheaded the replacement of 482 bolts in Red Rocks canyons, including most of the long routes in this guidebook. He and other ASCA volunteers work long and hard to restore deteriorating bolts. Greg lives in Bishop, Yosemite, Tuolumne, Joshua Tree, and Red Rocks and develops SuperTopos for these areas.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Supertopo (January 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967239168
• ISBN-13: 978-0967239163
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,078,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Nevada

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great collection of Red Rocks climbs, February 7, 2007

By 

George Bell (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red Rocks Climbing: Supertopos (Paperback)

I've got every Red Rocks guide ever published, which is about 10 books, including a really old one published in Rock and Ice around 1982. This guide is not comprehensive but contains a good selection of classic long routes. One thing I enjoyed was the historical information on each route. For example, Triassic Sands has a section on the history of this climb that can't be found anywhere else.

However, if you just want to get up these routes you may think all this history is unnecessary. Red Rocks is a difficult area for one guide book as there are such a wide variety of climbs, from single pitch sport routes to multi-pitch sport routes to full day trad affairs. This book does seem to emphasize the latter and if you are more into sport climbing you are probably better off buying one of the comprehensive guides.

The photos in this book are superb. The online version, in particular, has some really good shots. I guess they reproduce better on a monitor than on paper.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very dissapinting Guidebook, December 4, 2006

By 

Conrad "rock_alpine" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Rocks Climbing: Supertopos (Paperback)

This the most useless climbing guide I have ever seen.

There are 3 guidebooks available for Red Rocks. The best one one is the new eddition of Mountaineers guide edited by Roxanne Brock, which is a very comrehensive, and gives good route descriptions pitch by pitch. It is similar to 'Falcon' guide; in fact it is a copy of it with much improved topos and graphics. It is also somewhat better organized then 'Falcon' guide and provides stellar guide for each route; very helpful. I definitely recommend it.

The only good thing about supertopo guide are actually topos but unfortunately the number of routes described in this book is very limited. I can only guess that the author included only routes he has done, otherwise I cannot understandthe reason of producing the guidebook to a fenomenal climbing area including only 10% routes or so.

Second problem with the book is a lack of detailed route descriptions; instead the author decided to suggest strategy of doing the route consisting of a statement such as that the route is very popular and you should start early to be first in line to avoid waiting in the que; I guess this is really difficult to figure out yourself.

Third problem with the book is the lack of directions on how to get to the route. OK after few days and after talking to other climbers, who have climbed there for few days, you can get a good orientation but if you don't have anyone to ask for directions, you cannot work-out from this book.

The book looks impressive if you never climbed in Red Rocks, but if you did, it is absolutely useless, unless you really want to limit yourself to a small number of routes described in the book.

So do yourself a favor and don't waste your money for this particular book; go for Mountaineers guide, it is very good and useful. Besides it is cheaper. I bought this book because it was offered in the electronic form and I could print it out and reap easily pages with topos for the route.

And go climbing in Red Rocks, it is really a stellar climbing area.

2.0 out of 5 stars Too Selective, August 29, 2011

By 

Snell Press - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Rocks Climbing: Supertopos (Paperback)

While the appearence of this guide is attractive and the information accurate it fails by being too selective in the routes it describes.

If you're headed to Red Rocks, check out Red Rocks: A Climber's Guide by Jerry Handren and Southern Nevada Bouldering Southern Nevada Bouldering by Tom Moulin. Both have high artistic values and are comprehensive.