Needles guidebook available, release party at Stronghold.

The cover shows one of many great aerial photo's taken from Dwight Kroll's plane. That ride was quite an experience!

Kevin Daniels Publishing

This guidebook covers every route from the classics to the obscure at the upper Needles, Voodoo Dome, Demon Dome, and the secretive Merlin Dome. Also covered in detail are Dome Rock and Hermit Spire.

The Needles stately neighbor to the south, Dome Rock, is home to a greater number of easily accessible classic climbs than any other crag in the southern Sierra. Hermit Spire, easily seen from The Needles approach, stands alone across the Freeman Creek drainage beckoning to adventurous climbers.

Everything you need to know to get there, camp there, climb there, and enjoy rest days is in this book. You will also find interesting reading, including a carefully researched history of Needles area climbing, rounded out by personal accounts from Needles climbers who led the way.

This book is the complete Needles guide. And coming in at 240 pages (only ten more than the 1992 book) it will not be a burden in your pack.

Well, I would pre-order but the shopping cart doesn't let me add the book and buy it.
Tell us when it is fixed.

K Weber wrote:Well, I would pre-order but the shopping cart doesn't let me add the book and buy it. Tell us when it is fixed.

Same here, added twice, cart shows zero items. Just for the hell of it I clicked on my empty shopping cart button at the top bar of the screen and found two books loaded in the cart. Try it out.

Preordered. I found the same as Faulted Geologist above - the cart icon in the upper right still indicated "empty," but if I clicked through to the cart, the book was there and I was able to complete the order. Looking forward to seeing it in person in September!

Does preordering save me any money?

Kris... Really Really great to finally see this in the flesh.

I hope you will take my cash when I see you.

Very excited for the new guide book. Thanks for all your hard work putting it together.

If you make an account before trying to "add to cart" it works

just placed an order. I'm excited

Kris!!!! Awesome work my friend, but now my old guidebook is worthless and that was a point of pride. :(

Congratulations Kris, I'm excited, pre order completed

From the intro:

This is the third published climbing guide for The Needles. The first, dating from 1983, was the Stonemasher Rockclimbing Guide to the Kern River Canyon and Environs, by E. C. Joe and Richard Leversee. In 1992 Sally Moser, Greg Vernon and Patrick Paul released volume two of Southern Sierra Rock Climbing: The Needles Area. Long out of print, these volumes have gained status as classics, and used copies have changed hands for respectable sums of money. Both of these books include climbing areas throughout the Kern and the Tule River Canyons.
This book has a narrower scope: The Needles, their stately neighbor Dome Rock, and their sister crag to the north, Hermit Spire. Today there are enough climbing areas throughout the Kern and Tule Canyons that one book covering them all would be a large volume indeed, and only the likes of Norman Clyde would toss such a tome into his backpack.

So the old book is not entirely obsolete since it covers a number of areas in the Kern and Tule River Canyons which are not in my book. Trilogy Rock, for example, is home to a Patrick Paul route called Slot Machine, one of the better 5.11c's in the entire area. Parker Bluff, Book Rock, these are all great crags. For info about the areas close to Kernville: New Directions Cliffs and Kern Slabs, Herb Laeger's new guide is what you want. Get it for $15.00 at kernvalleyclimbs.com

"Kris... Really Really great to finally see this in the flesh. I hope you will take my cash when I see you."

Sorry, I'm not going to be selling copies out of the back of my truck. You'll be able to find it at retail stores or place your order through Kevin's site, linked above. It's a deal at $35.00.

Great to hear the guidebook is finally done! I know how hard you worked on this project, it had to be a labor of love, and I'm sure, knowing you for many years, that The Needles Guide will not only be accurate it will be a piece of art. Thanks Kris!
Herb

Nice Kris! Thanks for all the hard work. Looking forward to the book and to crossing paths again soon.

Congratulations Chris! Can't wait to see it!...dwight

My book arrived over the weekend. I am very happy with the overall quality and organization of information. There's also a ton of gorgeous pictures through out. Can't wait to get back out there and try out some new (to me) routes. Fantastic work Kris!

I just checked my email for my receipt of the guide book. I found it, but not tracking info or any other info to let me know when it will be shipped. Should I be expecting a tracking info via email soon?

"Order Date: 06/30/2016 - 02:38:42 PM"

Just got mine today. Looks really nice. Good work. Can't wait to get out there.

I spoke to soon. Wife checked the mail and I already read a good portion of the book. Can't wait to check it out

Mine arrived over the weekend. I've only had time to spend a few minutes with it, but it looks stunning so far. I'm sure it'll be a huge asset for an area where we've only been able to rely on Mountain Project and old bootlegged Xeroxes of the old guide.

I'm sure, as always, some nailbiters out there will worry about easier availability of beta bringing in an influx of new crowds, but I found a pretty long list of moderates in the new book that I hadn't heard of, which I hope will actually help people branch out from the concentrated classics in the notch. I, for one, am looking forward to scoping out Hermit Spire. Thanks a ton for all the hard work, Kris!

Got mine today as well, it's super beautiful!!