A Climber’s Guide to the High Sierra, edited by Hervey H. Voge. Second edition. San Francisco, Sierra Club. 298 pages, 16 glossy prints, 33 sketches. Price $4.75.

The second edition of this Climber’s Guide is a basic necessity in the library of all who travel in the High Sierra. It is compact in format to fit the knapsack. Hervey Voge needs our thanks for the work he has done in the past ten years on this new version. Those of us who know and love the High Sierra will realize the tremendous task of describing the approaches to the summits in this great land of peaks, talus, lakes and meadows, which is divided and re-divided by barriers between its watersheds, and is criss-crossed by box canyons. The section on Yosemite has been withdrawn since it is now described in a separate guide book (A.A.J., 1965, p. 501).

The second edition contains about 30% of added new material, including eight new sketch maps showing knapsack routes that enable travelers to avoid the circuitous and heavily-populated trails. The photographs are splendid and, for the most part, scenic rather than close-up. They are supplemented by the sketches. The text describes routes and records for California peaks over an expanse of more than 200 miles from Bond Pass to Army Pass, and for rock climbs in Kings Canyon. The sections include an introduction on camping and climbing, nomenclature and classification, and descriptive accounts of the various geographical areas of the High Sierra, grouped into five regions. Routes on 785 peaks and summits are described, and in many cases there are three or four routes on each, so that probably 2000 or 3000 routes arc described. The book is for climbers, hikers, and scramblers since it discusses not only climbing and peaks, but also trails, passes and cross-country travel. The book is also for anyone who may some day go to the Sierra Nevada.

Thomas H. Jukes