Guide to Climbing and Hiking in Southwestern British Columbia

Rating:
Summary: The classic, exhaustive, Mountaineering Guide to the region
Review: The descriptions in this exhaustive guide are brief, but excellent. It covers the terrain within a long weekend's outing from Vancouver. It assumes that you know what you are doing and do not require trails to walk on. If you can navigate through the bush using a topo map, compass, and altimeter, then this is the best book for you. For more detailed info on hikes with trails, use the book "103 Hikes".

This book is an exhaustive, complete list of pretty much every summit in the region. It covers approaches and routes in a summary-type fashion, e.g. "follow west side of creek to 3000 ft., then follow NE ridge, keeping to the left of conspicuous gendarme. Some parties may wish to rope up for the final 500 ft., which is class 3". It doesn't hold your hand, but the advice is good, and if you are experienced (or corageous!) then this is more than enough info.

There are detailed descriptions for climbing and mountaineering routes. For popular climbing areas and peaks, i.e. the Tantalus Range, Sky Pilot, etc. there are photos with the routes marked on them.