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Rating: 
Summary: Valuable Contribution to the Library of Climbing Literature
Review: Pat Ament obviously did a prodigious amount of research for Wizards of Rock, as it is a veritable encyclopedia of who climbed what, where, and when in America. It is eminently readable and entertaining, as well, although (as a reviewer in Climbing magazine noted) it isn't the sort of book you can sit down and read cover-to-cover. Furthermore, as is the case with Ament's biographies of Royal Robbins and John Gill, this book contains a treasure trove of interesting and rare photographs; two examples are (a) a photo of Warren Harding, Jerry Gallwas, Royal Robbins, and Don Wilson after their aborted attempt on Half Dome in 1955, and (b) a shot of Jim McCarthy leading a face climb in the Gunks that makes a gumby like me wonder how the heck he stayed on without sticky-rubber shoes.Ament isn't shy about his own free-climbing accomplishments, which naturally makes one wonder if his motivation in writing this work wasn't partly to help secure for himself a place in the pantheon of 1960s-era rock "wizards." However, the fact remains that he was a cutting-edge free climber at the time, doing routes like Supremacy Crack and the Normal Route on the Slack in Yosemite when 5.11 was still a baseless rumor for most climbers. As the saying goes, when you can walk the walk, you can afford to talk the talk! Nonetheless, Ament gives out plenty of credit where it is due, and, being from Colorado, he isn't completely fixated on climbs done in California, which truly makes Wizards of Rock a climbing history of the entire country.
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