The Mountaineering Handbook

This is the fully up-to-date guide to climbing practices and equipment.

Other mountaineering guides are built around fifth-class climbing - the most advanced and technical climbing, involving belays and intermediate anchors.

Yet the world's great peaks - the Rockies, Sierras, Cascades, even Everest - can be summited without fifth-class routes. "Mountaineering Handbook" is the first instructional guide to focus on the third- and fourth-class climbing practiced and aspired to by most climbers, presenting the best modern practices in a single, user-friendly source.

Craig Connally shows beginning to intermediate climbers how to: select rope, boots, crampons, protection hardware, shelter, ice axes, etc.; navigate the approach hike (including river and crevasse crossings); avoid avalanches, rockfalls, altitude sickness, and other hazards; belay, set up anchors, and place appropriate protection; and, climb rock and ice and traverse glaciers.