Cochise, Lemmon and Southern AZ Guidebook

Hey y’all, we are driving cross country and have a spare two weeks to spend in the southern az / Tuscan area. Just curious what guidebooks you prefer for the area. Squeezing the Lemmon looks awesome but I was curious if there were any guides that cover a weeks worth of climbing in both areas, likely with the supplement of mountain project or if it’s best to get two area specific books. Thanks! By the way we plan on climbing longer 3+ pitch moderate sport and trad routes (5.10a and below) as well as having a few days for single pitch trad / sport in a similar range of grades. Thanks!

There are two books for Cochise by Tanya Bok (east and west side) that are good but a rip off ($35 each, they could easily be combined into one and still be half the size of the Mt Lemmon book). Apparently the new one by Geir of Too Fast Topos is really good and much more affordable.

That’s good to know, do you think it would be best to grab a copy of squeezing the Lemmon and the toofast Topo one of Cochise? Or would it be possible to be alright with just one or the other. It seems like a lot of mt Lemmon info is available on Mtn project

If you're tight on money I'd recommend getting the TooFast book and sticking with Mtn Project for Mt Lemmon. I think there's quite a bit of good stuff to keep you busy for a while on Mtn Project for Mt Lemmon, but Cochise is a bit lacking online. 

Don't get the too fast book. It's an ant-ibolting paper with a few routes listed. The east and west guides are a bit pricey but well worth it. Just good solid route information, great topos and no opinions.

The toofast guide has good info on a lot of the bolder trad routes at cochise. Definitely a bit evangelist about ground-up etc. Funny thing is, apparently the occasional bolt is ok as soon as it's hard enough to some subjective measure.

You'll want to climb on both the east and west sides of Cochise so it is probably not worth you spending $70 on Cochise guidebooks alone.  The TooFast book is the way to go.

I appreciate what you guys are saying, I snagged the online version of the toofast for $18 which in my opinion was just more affordable than $70 + tax for both east and west of the other one. It is definitely a ground up / anti bolting mentality but I don’t mind folks having their own ideals. I figured for approach information alone and highlights of some of the classics, along with mtn project will give me plenty of ways to kill a week. About what you said about mt Lemmon, does anybody else second that mountain project is sufficient or would squeezing the Lemmon be worthwhile to grab? Another question is while the toofast book is awesome for Topos and multipitch lines, I’d like to find an area or areas that has generally moderate single or maybe 2 pitch trad routes just to get used to the climbing over at Cochise, any suggestion?

for some free adventure:
http://www.climbaz.com/Backcountry/backcountry.html

Jared, that's terrible advice you sandbagger!!

I actually used the old Backcountry guide quite a bit before the new Cochise guides came out. Basically, for anything other than Lemmon it was a combo of the Backcountry guide and mountainproject (including the free topos that Geir would post) and occasionally word of mouth. Seemed to work okay--mountainproject would usually note if there was an error in the Backcounty description. Some areas, such as Sheepshead, are much more out of date than others in the Backcountry guide, though.

Also, Jake, for good single-pitch climbing to get used to the area, check out the Isle of You and Sweet Rock on the west side of Cochise, or Zappa Dome on the east side. Tanya's book has all these areas, and they are also well-covered on mountainproject. The Backcountry guide has the Isle of You, but not the other areas. 

The Tanya Bok books have more routes in them, but Geir repeated the routes he included in the Toofast book.  He has very thorough, if not excessive, gear and movement beta - it'll ruin your onsight, if that's your style, but the topos are top-notch, and it includes top-down satellite images for the formations and approaches.

The single pitch cragging in Cochise pretty terrible in my opinion.  Stick to the multipitch.  There are plenty of moderate multipitches to start on.

Sheepshead is a good place to get started that's a bit less rugged than some of the other areas