Olympic Mountains: A Climbing Guide

If you already know that you want to climb in the Olympics and want a some decent beta on the climbs, then this is not only the only guide out there for you, but it's really quite good. The route and approach descriptions are generally well detailed and accurate. The book includes scrambles, alpine routes, rock climbs, old school alpenstock und lederhosen ridge treks and even some bouldering areas. If you don't already know that you want to climb in the Olympics and are thinking of buying this book to come up with some climbing ideas, look elsewhere. The Olympics are the last place you want to go for a few recreational climbs. There are indeed a few classic safe routes, mostly scrambles, on good rock. And there are a few decent alpine routes in these mountains. Mostly though, you've got a range of very poor quality basalt that is heavily weathered and breaks off readily. The book is full or routes with warnings about bad rock and the dangers of party inflicted rockfall. So yes it's a great guide, but for the small percentage of climbers that want to tackle something a little wilder and less tracked out.

This is the fourth edition of what is, as far as I know, the only climbing guide to the Olympic Mountains. Most of the content of the book seems to be barely revised. In particular, many of the routes in the book are very simple sketches -- things like "follow the rocky ridge for 0.5 miles, class 3". However, what do you expect from a book which covers pretty much every summit on the peninsula? What's new in this edition is two sections which try to bridge the gap between traditional guidebooks (like Beckey) and the modern crag climbing style of guidebook. The first section is called "Alpine Rock Climbs" and gives more detail about some of the class five routes (including a few route topos). The second new section is "Crags And Sport Routes", which is pretty much self-explanitory. As before, the book also has sections on High Alpine Traverses and Winter Climbing. Also as before, the main part of the guidebook is organized by geography, with the mountains separated into seven "groups", separated by major river drainages. Note: like Beckey, this is not a hiking or camping guide. It is assumed that if you want information on the approach trails, you will get that elsewhere.