Climbing Books, Quotes, & Words

Read a guide book review of "Best Climbs Joshua Tree National Park" by Bob Gaines, a select rock climbing guide to over 250 of the best routes at Joshua Tree published by FalconGuides. This excellent climbing guide leads you to lots of great crack climbs and bolted sport routes on J-Tree's granite outcrops, domes, and cliffs.

Do you have a favorite or best climbing route that you’ll always remember? A route that comes back to you when you’re sitting at work or daydreaming about climbing? A route that is so good that you want to climb it again and again? Now’s your chance to share your climbing adventures and photos of your favorite routes. Tell us about your favorite route and share photographs of yourself or a …

Basic Rockcraft by Royal Robbins, originally published in 1971, was once the best how-to-rock-climb book available. While some sections of the book are now dramatically out-dated, this classic book by an American master climber, offers lots of insights into the development of the Yosemite-style of climbing as well as Robbins' thoughts on...

Here’s a wonderful quote from Doug Robinson about the deeper reasons we climb and the transcendental experience climbing offers.

Ed Webster, one of the America's great mountaineers, just about died after making the first ascent of Mt. Everest's Kangshung Face. Here he relates what it's like climbing at high altitudes without extra oxygen.

Italian climber Walter Bonatti is one of the great mountaineers of the 20th century. Here's a quote from him about the value of climbing.

Royal Robbins, one of America's pioneering big wall climbers in the late 1950s and 1960s, offers a great quote about his first ascent of the West Face of El Capitan in Yosemite.

Book review of "The Dark Summit — The True Story of Everest’s Most Controversial Season" by Nick Heil about Mount Everest and death and disaster on its north flank in 2006.

Read this great quote about why we climb from famed Italian climber and mountaineer Giusto Gervasutti, who was simply one of the best alpinists in the 1930s and 1940s.

Here's a quote from Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, about the transcendental experience of climbing the first ascent of the Muir Wall in 1965.

Here's a sardonic quote from The Art of Climbing Down Gracefully by the great Scottish climber Tom Patey.

Here's a quote from writer and climber Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, about his attempt to solo climb a fearsome wall on Devil Thumb in Alaska.

Check out this quote about climbing El Capitan in Yosemite Valley by novelist and writer Daniel Duane.

Here's a great quote about John Gill, the father of American bouldering, from Pueblo boulderer Curt Shannon.

Here's a great climbing quote from Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner, one of the greatest alpinists of the 20th century and the first to climb all the 8,000-meter peaks.

Here's a quote about extreme alpinism by the 1980s master mountaineer Mark Twight, one of the best American alpinists.

A quote about rock climbing by Chuck Pratt, one of the greatest Yosemite climbers in the 1960s.

Check out this climbing quote from famed British mountaineer Joe Simpson's book This Game of Ghosts.

Here's a quote about rock climbing from Lynn Hill, one of the best all-around climbers in the world.

Review of a book series on outdoor skills for backpackers, hikers, and climbers, published by FalconGuides and Backpacker Magazine, that are great pocket-sized books full of useful, practical, and portable information about a wide variety of outdoor topics, including using GPS, travel in bear country, outdoor survival, outdoor hazards,...

Climbing is one of the most photogenic sports. Find out about climbing photography and how to make better photos of your climbing and mountaineering experiences from climbing guide Stewart Green, a long-time professional adventure photographer.

If you want to take better climbing photographs then you need to learn more about photography and start thinking like a photographer. Follow my 5 beginner photo tips to come home with great images: Get in the habit of taking lots of photos; climb regularly to have competent rock skills; look at lots of photographs and paintings to become...

John Bachar (1957-2009) was an iconic American climber who died in a fall free-soloing in California. Bachar, from southern California, was perhaps the best climber of his generation with numerous landmark ascents in Yosemite Valley, Joshua Tree, Colorado and other climbing areas. Read more about John Bachar and a timeline of his life and times.

Bear Grylls, a controversial British television adventurer, starred in a rock climbing video on Tombstone Butter near Moab, Utah. Read my guide review of Bear Grylls Climbing Video "Master of Movement" and learn why this is one of the worst climbing videos and films every made.