The first edition of Boston Rocks was published in 1987, after much hard work by Editor Larry LaForge and a cadre of dedicated volunteers. It followed the first region-wide guidebook, Climbing In Eastern Massachusetts by Steve Hendrick and Sam Steibert, 1975. We have drawn from both those works (with permission) and owe these individuals thanks for their past work. The new edition of Boston Rocks took over 80 volunteers and 4 years to complete, and includes information on more than 800 routes at more than 50 different areas.
What's new? Some 50 new crags or boulders are described, including bouldering areas, small toprope cliffs, and a few larger cliffs that can be lead. The bouldering information in the updated Boston Rocks is far advanced from the previous guides, and was up to date as of late 2002. The guide has a clean, new design, about half of the cliff illustrations are new and the rest have been cleaned up and updated, all of the maps are new and up-to-date, route descriptions have been added, as have photographs, GPS locations, and informational icons.
Boston Rocks differs in one very important way from perhaps any guidebook you have. Nobody made any money off this one. Nobody was paid, because they were ALL volunteers. People participate in such an endeavor for a variety of personal reasons. But mostly people just wantedto convey their love of climbing by helping out in this effort to develop the very best guidebook for climbing in their backyard. Boston Rocks might have taken less time, might have had a bit more continuity or been more professionally developed. But we like it because we all gave it the one thing we have so little of - time. Dozens of people took the time to wander around the crags, compare notes and route descriptions, drive the confusing local road network, take photographs, draw or clean up cliff illustrations, lay out pages, get the computer to work, design icons, build the website, consult with the printers, create or review the maps, review the text ... the list goes on and on and the list of volunteers is almost endless, but we will try and recognize all of them here.
Rick Abbot,
Fred Abraham,
Jeremy Adams,
Dave Anderson,
Byron Andrews,
Steve Angelini,
Bill Atkinson,
Rachel Atkinson,
Tsachi Avrahami,
Ian Baker,
Jeff Beyer,
Hector Briceno,
Mike Broderick,
Rick Buirkle,
Dan Cousins,
Peter Cross,
Will Crowther,
Dave Custer,
Alyssa Danigelis,
John Demers,
Richard Doucette,
Eric Engberg,
Jaryn Finch,
Scott Fitzgerald,
Nathan Flowers-Jacobs,
Deb Fraser,
Yuki Fujita,
Greg Galperin,
Blake Gleason,
Dave Goguen,
John Grote,
Derek Hanrahan,
Steve Hendrick,
Alex Holke,
Martha Horn,
Rob Jagnow,
Bob Kinkaid,
Larry Laforge,
Jamie Leef,
Albert Lin,
Steve Linder,
Zach Malchano,
Tom Maguire,
Luca Marinelli,
Joe McLoughlin,
Rob Means,
Dan Melanson,
David Merfeld,
Doug Millen,
New England Bouldering.com,
Paul Niland,
Nathaniel Olken,
Jim Paradis,
Theresa Parks,
Aaron Robinson,
Bob Rogers,
Bob Rogers' daughter,
Al Rubin,
Susan Ruff,
Barry Rugo,
Bernie Savord,
Ian Severance (EMS Boston),
Erin Shea,
Luke Sosnowski,
Al Stebbins,
Herb Stillman,
Sam Striebert,
Dan Sutton,
Leonardo Topa,
Paulina Varshavskaya,
Vertical Rock Gym,
Ed Webster,
Harvey Weener,
Steve Weitzler (Boston Rock Gym),
Jack White (A Streetcar Named Design),
Robert Zeithammer,
Nancy Zizza and all the contributors to
the first edition of Boston Rocks."
