Those beta spouting gumbies can't even make it past arrow, you think they're gonna bother hiking up to LC?

heh

It's funny, 'cause I was just looking at the 1991 Dick Willams' Nears and Millbrook guidebook. Open it up to the main map and what's there....oh, Lost City Clearly labeled, including the road and the trail to it.

I wouldn't get so worried about it showing up on RC.com. It's a well documented cliff from a lot of other resources. The info they have on RC.com is nothing compared to what Dick Williams has just given me.

Funny stuff.

Guide books increase visits. Publish info in any form and you'll have more climbers, top ropes, bolts, new climbers, erosion, rescues, limited parking, and all the same issues that have befallen the main crags.
Considering the lack of any formal record keeping, any guide to LC or any claims regarding FAs, ratings, or route naming would need a lot of research and input before any guide book could be considered a valid representation of the route offerings.
The curious and adventuresome will continue to go to the outer crags and LC to find what it is they are looking for in their climbing experience, with or without a guide book. RC

Like the increased traffic last year to the far end of the Nears? We spent many weekends last fall down there climbing the new routes. I doubt we saw more than a dozen people beyond the now closed area.

Sure, there will be some increased traffic... but the parking lot is small as it is; unless they're going to pay to park at Peter's Kill or hike in from the West Trapps lot, you're just not going to have that many people climbing there. I doubt the vast majority of climbers are going to make the effort.

Sure, there'd have to be a lot of research to put out a formal guide. I'm not advocating one. But I don't care if people list routes on a website, I don't think it's gonna make that big a difference.

"Like the increased traffic last year to the far end of the Nears? We spent many weekends last fall down there climbing the new routes. I doubt we saw more than a dozen people beyond the now closed area."

Well there you have it quanto. Would you have gone down to the other end of the Nears for those many weekends for those new routes, if there had not been a new guide? To whatever degree, the sharing of information that a guide brings, increases the interest and hence the level of use. I've mixed feelings on the subject and I am not advocating one way or another. I have collected and used many guides and when young and stupid even wrote one. Guidebook or not, it would be a shame if the subject crag began to see more traffic than it already does. RC

I agree Rickster-
One thing it's got going for it is the lack of moderates that the Trapps has. I did some impact mapping for the Preserve up there about 8 years ago, and have seen marked increase since then. Climbing has just become so popular, it's putting more pressure on the available resources, whether it's the Nears, Trapps, Far(out) Trapps, LC or others still in their relative infancy........sigh

Wholeheartedly agree Rick. Did anyone notice people suddenly swarming to a route named Asphodel after Dicks Grey guide came out? That thing lived in obscurity until a guidebook said "it's a great climb!" Now there's always someone on it. Guidebooks have a way of shifting use patterns around.

Also, I know it is just semantics, but there are no new routes out in the Nears. They have always been there. Someone just went out there and climbed it and called it something, and put it in a guidebook.

RR

I like the fact that I don't know a lot about the climbs over at LC. I like the fact that what I have learned about those climbs I had to be shown by someone else, in person, on site.
Guidebooks are a great equalizer.They diminish the hours and days spent by climbers hunting, exploring, learning, failing, and achieving. One can learn the names, ratings, ins, outs, and history of a given route by simply spending twenty bucks and some time reading.
Without a guidebook the uninitiated must rely on a more seasoned climber to find their way. I think the relationship between a teacher and student, young and old, expert and novice is a valuable one.

Excellent point J@son. I would add that the internet (though a valuable resource) removes the student even further from that experience and all of its inherent rewards. RC

It's all been documented, just never published. Tom Scheuer put the kibosh on a pending guidebook back in the '90s.

Nevertheless, everything that has "befallen" the other crags is certainly evident now at LC, especially from the impacts of weekend, party top-roping. Like the Mac and Transcon Walls, the crag has become an outdoor gym.

It's pyrrhic, but the less said the better.