Earlier this month, Gavin Feek had an article on Outside, Inc’s Climbing dot com: “Can Climbing Guidebooks Survive the Digital Age–and Do They Need To?” It considered the threat crowdsourced online guides and the future of printed guidebooks through the example of KAYA owner David Gurman offering to buy the rights to the content of the Wind River Range guidebook from author David Lloyd.

Authoring a climbing guidebook is a special task. It’s not generally profitable. Takes years to gather the content. Lloyd said things that I have heard from other guidebook authors, particularly from the Adirondack and New England guidebook authors: The crowdsourcing of information, including on Mountain Project dot com, can be wrong. The work of some guidebook authors is also an act of service, which is a love language and thereby an act of love, to the community of climbers. Wiki-type guides are susceptible to poor fact checking, or a lack of fact checking, and don’t convey a broader history or embrace for the local area and its flora and fauna, like commentary of some guidebooks through the opining of the author.

I mostly climb in a gym these days, so I don’t use climbing beta apps, but I use apps for bicycling and hiking trails. I enjoy them for all the reasons Feek says: Fits in my pocket and it’s easy to find via the geolocation feature.

The dilemma of whether a climbing guidebook author should willingly sell the rights to their guide to a Wiki guide provider, like KAYA, is the authors alone, but I agree with Gurman that the print guidebook won’t go away.

Guidebooks have already noticeably changed from guidebooks before fifteen or so years ago, because of self-publishing service advances and the information online in Mountain Project and connecting with frequent climbers of a guidebook area that don’t reside at the epicenter. Falcon Guides should have been interviewed as part of this article, in my opinion. They have unified their model, published more local guidebooks, sometimes hyper-local guidebooks including for various audiences, and there are more color maps and photos than ever. Look at my review of this Adirondack region trail guide by Jonathan Zaharek. Even Wolverine Publishing has followed the same path. One of my favorite recent guidebooks is by Tim Kemple and is original home climbing region, New England Bouldering (2018). It’s just fun to page through and day dream.

When you go to a book shop, outfitter, or show up at your destination, there are often several guidebooks, and sometimes climbing guides. There always were guides available in the Adirondack and New England destinations I frequented since my youth and there still are to this day. I recently bought a copy of Jon Sykes Secrets of the Notch (2001) from Huntington Graphics about Franconia Notch in New Hampshire in a local cafe with some select local books including guidebooks. People like exploring and “briefing” themselves on an area from these books; the writer is their guide, regardless of the publishing method.

While I do not believe guidebooks at large are under threat as Feek’s article gives seed to, guidebooks are changing. They are increasingly like coffee table books. In a way they are technical coffee table books, that could fit in your backpack. But they’re also books I sit down with when I am looking for an escape. And the photos and highlight boxes of the newer guides are informative and, heck, entertaining.

But there is a difference in a self-published labor of love and when Falcon Guides or Wolverine Publishing comes to a knowledgeable climber in the region about writing one of their new books. Feek is telling a story about the heartache and the dilemma from Gurman’s offer. The guidebook business is much more, and a little more complicated than this example. Falcon has their books available as ebooks, but not on an app. Wolverine Publishing guidebook content is available via the Rakkup app. There is some synergy between the print guidebook and a digital

In the end, like a lot of things from Outside dot com’s products and headlines, there’s more too. Click bait, even. Guidebooks are here to stay, even as they face new challenges.