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Teewinot from Jackson Hole, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
"At both ends of the social spectrum
there lies a leisure class."
-- heard at Camp 4
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More climbers are actively using the Web for swapping stories and info, and there are a growing number of good websites having to do with climbing. So here's a catalog some of the best or most interesting sites that I've run across, in a form that I hope is reasonably usable. It's not intended to be exhaustive.
This list emphasizes North America, most specifically the Pacific Northwest, and traditional rather than sport climbing. (Although any trad' climbing bum will have done his share of sport climbing, likely belaying off the back bumper with a cold one close at hand.)
A lot gets little direct mention here--Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah--and only a couple of clubs and no associations, as worthy as they are (like the Access Fund). They're amply listed on other sites.
This page was last edited in November 2009.
Each external link opens in a new window, so to get back here either close it or use your task bar.
worldwide personal pages:
- Tuan
provides a huge gallery of photographs from around the world at terragalleria.com.
His mountaineering page at terragalleria.com/mountain/mountain.html might still be the best climbing site on the Web, with rock and ice climbs in Yosemite, Colorado, Alaska, Canada, and the Alps.
- Like Tuan, Guillaume Dargaud gets around, and at gdargaud.net/Climbing has the stories and pictures to prove it.
- At jimdockery.com/climbaround/Articles.html Jim Dockery
has articles and photos of climbs in Europe, Canada, and the U.S.
-
home.comcast.net/~gibell: based in Colorado, George Bell has climbs from western North America, plus other good stuff, notably his comprehensive guide to The Cirque of the Unclimbables, where the overview photo is stunning.
- bigwalls.net:
John Middendorf's Big Wall Home Page has good info and stories, but, sadly, few photos.
-
lamountaineers.org/NAC/Welcome.htm:North American Classic Climbs, now hosted by the Los Alamos Mountaineers, has limited info on a few dozen classics.
web portals and indexes:
- The large and growing summitpost.org seems to have become the main online guide to many areas. It might have what you're looking for anywhere in the world. I find that the easiest way to navigate it is its site map.
- myoan.net/climbing/resources.html has dozens of links to check....
- ...while dmoz.org/Recreation/Climbing might still be the best
catalog of Web sites around...
- ...and dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Outdoors/Climbing
may be right behind.
- The excellent
wiki.tradgirl.com is "rec.climbing's Home on the Net," and more.
- climbing-up.com has links you may find nowhere else.
-
mountainzone.com/climbing is a fine world-wide on-line magazine/portal.
- peakware.com:
the World Mountain Encyclopedia is mostly by submission so the quality
varies.
- gorp.away.com/gorp/activity/climb.htm seems to be mostly for tyros, but has some nice climbing stories, etc.
-
rockclimbing.com has route info by submission, with over 95,000 now.
- camp4.com offers "Climbing news, literature, photography, and trip reports."
-
alpinistas.org at the UCSD has a nice
archive of stories.
print magazines online:
- Two from the USA: climbing.com
is Climbing Online, and rockandice.com which is the fine Rock & Ice.
- One from Canada: gripped.com is Gripped.
- Two from Britain: climbmagazine.com is Climb, and
climber.co.uk which is Climber.
- And
outside.away.com/index.html is Outside Online
Pacific Northwest:
The Washington Climbers Coalition, at washingtonclimbers.org is focused on access. It also just happens
to provide some great descriptions of the climbing areas in the state.
portals:
- mountaineers.org/nwmj is the beautiful and definitive North West Mountaineering Journal.
-
CascadeClimbers.com is "the Pacific NW climbers' resource." It has the usual trip reports, weather info, etc., but also very active forums with over 17 thousand members and 900 thousand posts. It also hosts the separate uw.cascadeclimbers.com/forum UW Climbing Club Forum, another source for up-to-date info.
- pbase.com/nolock hosts John Scurlock's extraordinary galleries of North Cascades aerial photographs. See any good lines?
- Lowell Skoog's site is at alpenglow.org
with info for climbing and skiing -- topos, forcasts, pics, and more -- but you might have to hunt for it. For example, see "The Ptarmigan Traverse - Then and Now".
-
mountaineers.org: Well, I have a bias against large organizations in
the mountains, but it is nice to know what they're up to, if only to avoid them. Plus, they've got some useful stuff on their redone site,
including a good links list.
guides to Washington:
- climbingwashington.com
is the absolutely first-rate site brought to you by Jeff Smoot, with feature articles, trip reports,
news, descriptions and photos of classic climbs, links to other climbing websites and resources,
and notably climbingwashington.com/routeinfo.
- And summitpost.org (again) does a good job for Washington, including some fine overviews. For example, see the first-rate and very thorough entry for the Picket Range.
- seanet.com/~mattp/Darr: Darrington rock climbing.
- Clint Cummins has scanned and html-ified his guide book Index Town Wall Rock Climbs. And we thank you.
- people.whitman.edu/~pogue/climbing tells us where to climb near Walla Walla, Wash.
- The Northwest Peakbaggers Asylum provides the Master List of Peaks in Washington and a 100 Peaks list for Oregon, too.
- And for the North Face of the North Peak of Mount Index, a personal
favorite, take a look at what Jeff Smoot and
Mike Stanton have to say.
guides to Oregon:
- smithrock.com wants to be a "a complete Smith Rock climbing resource" and although it's not there yet, it is a nice site with a lot of good stuff.
- Again, browse summitpost.org, this time at summitpost.org/state/Oregon.html. Here's the main entry for Smith Rock.
guides to Idaho:
- As usual, all the folks submitting to summitpost.org have done a good job for Idaho. For a state listing, see summitpost.org/state/Idaho.html. And here are its overviews for the Sawtooth Range and the City of Rocks.
home pages, with trip reports, pics, and more:
Backcountry skiers climb, too, and some of their climbs can be interesting in themselves. So see my
skiing links page.
- If you scroll down a bit, you'll see that Michael Stanton's mountainwerks.org/cma still has a ton of well-illustrated trip reports on fine alpine
climbs in the Cascades of Washington.
- Ade Miller's climbing site at ademiller.com/blogs/climbing has great pics of climbs in the North Cascades, western Canada, and Alaska.
- theronwelch.com gives us
trip reports of climbs from around the world, but mostly the Pacific NW.
- alpinedave.com, aka Dave Burdick, provides climbs and some ski descents from around the West, mostly Washington. Great pics.
- schryer.tripod.com has Cascade trip reports and a guide to the Marymoor Park rock.
- rhinoclimbs.com: stories from John Roper's 40 years of climbing in the Cascades.
Western Canada:
- elaho.ca is the publisher of climbing guides for British Columbia.
- summitpost.org/country/Canada.html, as usual, is very good.
- gravsports.com: Will Gadd is based in the Canadian Rockies. If you're going there, check his links page
- The Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia at bivouac.com touts itself as "generally accepted to be the most complete website for mountaineering in Canada. It also has good coverage of the USA." Well, it does have loads of info, but some might require joining, for a fee.
- A short but good list of links from the Calgary Mountain Club, "An eclectic climbers organization steeped in history (among other things)."
- And more links from climbers.org, The Alpine Club of Canada, Toronto Section.
The Bugaboos:
In addition to these three links, a few of the sites under Squamish
also have info on the Bugaboos.
- SummitPost.org lists the Bugaboos under the Selkirk Range. But in a Bugaboo Spire report, you'll find all the others listed on its left. There are reports for Bugaboo, Howser, Pigeon, Snowpatch, the Crescents, and more. The Snowpatch entry offers a very nice introduction.
- B.C. Parks
provides thorough info on Bugaboo Provincial Park.
-
bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/index.htm: B.C. government archives; and their Visual Records where a search for "bugaboo" yields
nice results.
- bugaboorock.8m.com covers half-a-dozen peaks.
Squamish:
- Matt's Climbing Page covers Squamish and more.
- squamishrockguides.com/info.htm provides info on the basics--where to stay, eat, and drink.
- tradgirl.com/areas/nonus/canada is the Squamish and Skaha Rock Climbing Index.
- You could also look at squamishclimbing.com, if their google maps work for you.
- Summitpost's overview is at summitpost.org/mountain/rock/151469/stawamus-chief.html
California -- Yosemite and Tuolumne:
Many sites on this page talk about Yosemite--it's hard to avoid. And a couple might mostly deal with climbing there, so I'll just add one more....
-
supertopo.com says it's "the future of rock climbing guide info" and it may be, 'tho you have to pay for most of it. In addition to Yosemite, Tuolumne, Tahoe, the High Sierra, and bouldering in California, it now covers Nevada's Red Rocks, Zion and the desert towers of Utah, and an introduction to Alaska. Check here for good introductory info for these areas, too.
Wyoming -- The Teton and Wind River Ranges:
Why have I found so few sites for Wyoming? Are they too busy actually climbing?
- A very good intro to the Wind River Range, including Gannett Peak and Cirque of the Towers, all from the Sublette County Tourism Board. Honest!
- Summitpost.org does its usual very good job. Start with overviews of the Teton Range, the Wind River Range, and the Cirque of the Towers.
- Guillaume Dargaud (see above) did the Exum Ridge: gdargaud.net/Climbing/GrandTeton.html
- alpinistas.org/archives/1994/winds/winds.html:
A Week in Wyoming's Wind River Range, just backpacking, but nice.
British Isles and Europe:
-
ukclimbing.com has all the info, and a huge collection of member
photos.
- Michael Stanton's site is up above for his Cascade climbs, but for the Alps see mountainwerks.org/cma.
-
climbing.ie/exped/eiger/eiger.html is a great page on an ascent of
the North Face of the Eiger brought to you by Irish Climbing On-line.
miscellaneous info:
- A multilingual climbing dictionary
- Wikipedia's guide to international rating systems: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(climbing)
- Peter's Climbing Page provides interesting graphs of Accidents in North American Mountaineering,
and an index to Jim Nelson & Peter Potterfield's book Selected Climbs in the Cascades.
- outdoorfunstore.com/climbing.asp: mostly for kids, providing miscellaneous climbing info. But see their fine page of Climbing Quotes
lost in (cyber)space:
Websites may come and go, but the mountains remain.