Climber’s Guide to Tahoe Rock. Mike Carville. Chockstone Press, Evergreen, CO, 1991. 294 pages, photos, maps and topos. Soft cover. $18.00.

This is a welcome and much-needed addition to the rapidly-expanding California (and Nevada) guidebook repertoire. The guide covers an area that is rich in climbing tradition while also on the cutting edge of sport climbing of the 1990s. Consider the names of some of the first-ascenders of popular climbs at Lover’s Leap, Sugarloaf and Donner Summit: Warren Harding, Royal Robbins, Steve Roper, Jeff Lowe, TM Herbert, Jim Orey, Bob Kamps, Mike Covington and Gordon Webster. And, of course, Tony Yaniro, author of Grand Illusion at Sugarloaf in the late ’70s, recorded as the world’s first 5.13. And lately, Jay Smith, Paul Crawford, Dan Osman and others at Cave Rock.

This also is a region of amazing diversity in climbing, from the fine hard granite of Donner Summit and Sugarloaf to the amazing dikes at the Leap—making possible such classics as Traveler Buttress and Robbins’ Fantasia—the rhyolite of Cave Rock, and the limestone-like rock of the Emeralds on the South Yuba River. You can climb almost literally in the middle of a major highway (at Cave Rock) or in the wilderness (Eagle Lake Buttress). In all, there are routes on 13 distinct climbing areas as well as good sections on bouldering and ice climbing.

Bill Stall