Pretty nice photospread in July's Climbing mag (It actually made me part with 4.95 to get one for once) Not often one can say they done evey route in a climbing artcle.

Anyway..nice to see some friends in the photos too.

THis has to be the third or fourth time that Climbing magazine has done an article on "Gunks Moderates". And is it my imagination or does every incarnation have a photo of Julie S-L on Bonnie's Roof. Perhaps I'm just imagining it...........

What would be interesting is an article on hard scary routes of the Gunks. Action photo's of people on Talus Food, would be cool.

I think the mags have finally figured out that 80% of climbers are "moderate" climbers and hence more interested in routes they might get to do.

Is true that most of the articles on the Gunks deal with the moderates, and that Julie S is pictured in almost everyone of them (Not that either of the two are bad things) I’m about done reading about some 5.14 clip up after about the 3 or 4th paragraph in most of the articles in Climbing and R&I. I think one of the more appealing aspects of Alpinist is the fact it has a large number of moderate doable routes featured each month. (Albeit it was mostly alpine type stuff, but they are now covering pure rock climbing areas more and more now)

And that is one reason why I no longer subscribe to Climbing or Rock & Ice, the same stories dragged out of the dust bin every 3 or 4 years.

Hey, I liked that I could pull it out and show my mom pics of me in nearly the exact same positions in most of the featured climbs

Did they? I remember two years ago there were a bunch of letters to the ed. and a couple responses to that effect, that they "got it". I don't remember any big shift though.

Remember that Climbing was recently acquired by Urban Climber, so the editorial staff may now have more freedom to do stories they want to do as opposed to what they could under Primedia. If you had a choice, which would you do, talk to T&BC yet again about their latest accomplishment, or climb the gunks and write trip reports about it?

Now they haven't done an article on Gunk's 5.10's in a long time, and IMHO the two grades the Gunks really shines is in the 5.6's and 5.10's, which is within the realm of most climbers.

We all have our preceptions of who is being underserved in the rags, and I see either a lot of bouldering, hard sport a little of hard trad and rarely any alpine, but I see little for the fairly hard trad climbers, those of us in in the 5.11/ 5.12 range. I'd love to see a must do ticklist around the US since at that level its only really word of mouth. See, its all perceptions.

I really don't think that the 5.6's are a grade that shines. High E has one great pitch with some not so great climbing before it. Madame G's is ok, Shockelys is way overrated as a climbing experience. There are many far more interesting 5.8 and 5.9 climbs in the Gunks than 5.6. I think that the 5.6's are so popular and reverred since they are more attainable by more people.