Kevin McLane has done it again. The Squamish-based author of over a dozen climbing, hiking and biking guidebooks is launching his newest endeavour, Canadian Rock: Select Climbs of the West, at Grilled Fromage Thursday (May 13).
The author of The Climbers Guide to Squamish, Squamish Trail Guide, Skaha Rockclimbs, Alpine Select and The Bugaboos, to name a few, McLane first dreamed of compiling a book on Western Canadian climbs in 1978 while climbing in the Bow Valley.
"I spent riveting days on timeless classics like Reprobate, Forbidden Corner, and the Greenwood-Locke," writes McLane in the book's introduction. "I was hooked."
With its completion, McLane acknowledges over 100 people in helping him create its nearly 400 pages. Most significant were Lilla Molnar and Marc Pich茅, Canmore based mountain guides who opened their door to McLane while helping him explore Alberta's crags.
"Many people have helped to help me reach the end of this particular journey," said McLane.
Over 70 different climbing areas are described, with over 800 topos and photos covering sport, trad, long climbs and crags, with 75 boulder problems at Squamish.
He said he feels satisfied now that it's complete.
"I'm very happy with the book. It's as good as it could be."
It was 17 years after his visit to the Bow Valley that McLane began conceiving of the project, which he dreamed would include climbs from the Ghost River Valley in Alberta to Squamish.
"So much great stuff to climb and so few climbers across the west even knew it existed," he writes.
And it took yet another decade to figure out how to do it.
"Then in July 2006 after climbing hallowed CMC Wall with Chris Atkinson, inspiration came, commitment followed, and the journey began."
Over the past three years of intensive work, McLane said the book required many revisions and rethinking to get it to its current standards.
"When I began I knew Western Canada very well and all of the major climbing areas, but it was challenging to get to know them all really well, to visit all the really small places that hardly anyone goes to, and give them the same treatment in the book."
The infamous Grand Wall is presented the same way as places no one's every heard of, said McLane.
But the rigors of the project did nothing to detract McLane from his love for the work.
"In the course of developing the guide I've visited them all with camera and notebook, most of them several times, for early sun, or late sun, or no sun, and hiked hundreds of kilometres of high ground across some of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth."
The final, full-colour product brings together into a single collection 1,300 rockclimbs of Western Canada, from Squamish to Lake Louise to the Ghost River Valley, including world-famous crags, popular classics, alpine crags, and little known jewels.
The book is already being enthusiastically received - its very launch is happening because of an offer from local DJ Sheila Cassels to organize it.
And by all accounts, it will attract a large number of climbing enthusiasts. The party happens from 9 p.m. to midnight at the Grilled Fromage on Cleveland Avenue.
