In Part One of our interview with Zach Orenczak, we take a look at his new guidebook which is a departure from the traditional guidebooks to the Gunks. It takes a more visual approach to guiding climbers up the cliff, and contains a selection of what the authors feel are the most popular routes at the Trapps.
The Uberfall: What is the main goal of this new book?
Zach: This is a topo based guidebook. It takes route descriptions beyond just lines on a photograph. This allows our guide to give climbers specific beta about routes that are difficult to convey using traditional formats.
The Uberfall: What kind of beta are we talking about?
Zach: One example is belay and rap anchors. What kind of anchors should the climber expect? We pin it down and let them know if it's a bolt anchor, manky piton anchor, or slung pine tree. We show lengths of the rappels so they know if their rope should make it to the next ledge or down to the base of the route.
We can show where crucial cracks are, horizontals, corners, roofs, loose blocks, you name it. The topos can also show details that are just to the right or left of the route. There may be a rusty bolt or piton that could lure the climber over to another route or a sucker corner that will lead someone into an epic.
There are lots of other benefits to topos. For us they just make sense.
We give climbers a ton of beta, and they can decide how little or how much of it they want to use. If you're the type of climber that doesn't want a lot of beta, we'll get you to the base and the rest is up to you. If you love having your belay slave fire intricate route info up to you, the book gives you that option as well. Likewise, if you just want to sit back on your couch with a beer and visualize what your next day's routes are going to be like, we've got you covered.
The Uberfall: Is there anything else that people will notice with your book.
Zach: We put a lot of thought and effort into getting people to the base of each route without confusion. I think we succeeded in breaking the Trapps down into manageable chunks. Once a climber has an idea of what route they'd like to climb, they quickly are able to find out what section of the cliff to get to. Remember that the Trapps is really extensive. It's easier if it's broken down into sections.
Once they turn to that section in the book, there will be an overview map of the climbs in the area and landmarks for approach trails that climbers can easily locate from the carriage road. For someone who hasn't climbed a lot in the Gunks, finding the base of a climb is sometimes harder than the route itself. This won't be a problem anymore.
The Uberfall: One of the major things you notice when you browse through the book is that some of the grades have been changed. How do you justify changing grades for some of these classic routes.
Zach: Once you get above 5.10 in the Gunks, most of the grades are dead on. Even if they're not, there's very little difference in the difficulty of a 5.10c and a 5.11a. But at the lower grades we find huge differences in the difficulty of routes that are supposed to be the exact same grade. Two climbs graded 5.6 should both feel like they're 5.6. But that's not necessarily the case.
Let me say that I'm all for sandbagging as long as it's done consistently across the board. But it's only really prevalent at the lower grades, and these are the grades that beginners are testing themselves on. Most people aren't aware of just how many accidents and deaths there are at the Gunks every year. It's scary.
I think Art Gran once said something to the effect of "grades should give the climber a sense of what to expect."
Let's just look at Baby. Did you know that Baby has the most number of carry out accidents in all the Gunks? A climber that walks up to the base thinking that Baby is as easy as High E could be in for trouble. They also should know that without a large cam to protect the crux, it's going to be dicey.
For our guide, we put all the climbs on a relativity scale. Just ask yourself, which is harder: Baby or Rhododendron? Baby or Madame G's? Baby or Classic? We compared each of the routes to each other using the logic above. We also took into account the grades of these climbs in relation to other areas of the country.
The Uberfall: Lastly, tell us about the tear-out route cards that come with the book. This is a fairly unique idea to the Gunks, but you've done them before with your guides to the Needles and Devil's Tower.
Zach: Yeah, they just give climbers another option to decide how much beta do they really want up there on the rock. If they want it all, they can tear out the card and bring it with them on the climb. It was hard to choose which routes to make cards for. We of course couldn't make a card for every route, but we picked six of the most popular routes in the Gunks where you just might want a little beta once you're up on the wall.
The Uberfall: Zach, thanks for taking the time to answer our questions and best of luck to you and Rachel with the new guidebook.
This is the end of Part One of our interview with Zach Orenzach. Keep a lookout for Part Two in the near future.
For more info on obtaining a copy, visit the Extreme Angles website.
