Climbing and Hiking in the Wind River Mountains, 2nd

The Wind River mountain range offers spectacular climbing. Back in 1959 I packed into the region around the Cirque of the Towers for a week in August and participated in a few first ascents. Joe Kelsey got my name right in his first edition of this book. Sadly, he confused me with someone else, "Carlos" Plummer, in this second edition. It was "Bill" Plummer, not "Carlos" Plummer, who climbed with the late Bill Buckingham that week, and who made the first ascent of the East Ridge of Wolf's Head, recognized by Roper and Steck as one of the "Fifty Classic Climbs of North America" Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. At least Roper and Steck got my name right! I have corresponded with Joe Kelsey, who tells me that the East Ridge is his own favorite climb in the range, one that he has repeated 11 or more times! Joe acknowledged the error and had planned to correct my name in his "third edition". But that never happened because of financial problems at his original publisher. The error has since been repeated by Steve Bechtel and others, and now may never get fixed! Doggone it, maybe I could have been famous now for something really special that I did 50 years ago!

In its 1980 Sierra Club Press version, now out of print, it is a virtual work of poetry. This version has lots of additions. And is as a result VERY much bigger. I memorized the relevant chapter of my 1980 copy on my 1996 trip to this Wyoming range so as not to need to carry the book. But it was more a Light Gesture than anything else. (And there was little information in that chapter of any kind - the thing that attracted me to that specific area more than anything else, I think.) There is no way I'd carry the book now. The additions were important, don't get me wrong; much climbing has been done in the range since 1980. (Although that chapter has hardly changed at all. And it's mob-level national-park-quality scenery, if anyplace in the Winds is.) But not only is the 1994 book HYOOOGE by comparison to its predecessor; some of the poetry suffered as well. Kelsey might have thought it too above a broad audience, although his general bent wouldn't make me think he'd do something like that for that reason. (His refusal to "talk down" to beginners may intimidate some; it was downright thrilling to me.) Still and all, it's such a wonderful read that I had to force myself to put it down early this morning in an effort to get at least some sleep, something which has never given me a problem with any other guidebook I've seen. It helped me imagine the Winds before I went better than any other guide has done that job; it takes me back there now whenever I pick it up. I frequently pick up Kelsey, in fact, just to read him, apropos of nothing. OK, maybe not apropos of nothing. It does help if you have been there. Especially for a week, as I did in '96, and most especially if, as I did last week, you follow that up by spending more than 100 miles on the road with the range forming the dramatic wall-to-wall backdrop the entire way. You can't miss the Winds, which makes it amazing how so many do. The only high point I actually ascended on my `96 trip saw its first recorded ascent, by the route I took, right around the time some of the middle-aged folk reading this started hiking. Can't find that too many places outside of caving, can you? Kelsey treats the Winds the right way. He's a fitting - and better, if you just ask me - successor to Finis Mitchell. No matter what you are doing in the backcountry of the Wind Rivers, this book will help you get there, and not intrude once you are there. Do it just like he says: read the chapter while you're looking at the face, or the couloir, or the maps at home. Then put the book down, and climb the mountain.

I bought this book back in 1998 or so when I lived in Utah and it has led me on many an adventure in the Wind River Mountains. The writing is excellent, the descriptions are accurate, and the organization of the book is outstanding. The author has routes in here to please the entire outdoor crowd from the backpacker to the ice climber to the big wall trad climber. This is the best written and best organized climbing guide I have ever read. I wish all guide books were as good as this one.

I bought this book to plan a week-long backpacking trip. It is very similar in concept to Secor's "High Sierra" guide for CA's Sierra Nevada: Adequate description of the trails and off-trail passes, and comprehensive information for climbers on about everything climbable. I am not a technical climber and cannot judge the book's usefulness as a real "climbing guide", but I like to take off-trail excursions, shortcuts, and scrambles. Together with the "Earthwalk" topos (which are excellent) this book was just the right thing for planning a backpacking trip with "side adventures". If you stay strictly on the trail, you might find a pure trail guide more useful, as trail descriptions only make up 10 or 20% of the text. Off-trail travel turned out to be easy in the Wind Rivers, though. The book has a short and very interesting account of the history of Wind River exploration.

Joe Kelsey has taken the old trail book of Finis Mitchell's and turned it into a Trail and Mountain Guide that leads you to every nook and crany, you would want to go. Many years before Joe's book, I would hike the Winds with Mitchells book in hand as if I was following an old adventurers pencil notebook. Today, Joe Kelsey's "Wind River Hiking/Climbing Guide" is as necessary as the matches.