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[sneoh]

So, Ward, does sand take a star away from routes?  If it does, then many routes at Farley cannot be 3/3 stars some number of days after a rain.  Don't get me wrong, I have climbed some very good routes there this year but sand is often an annoyance, like pine needles and vegetation. 
Just busting your chops, by the way.  Farley is a lot of fun.  Last year, I was amazed how much the Tropicana ledge @ Rumney has cleaned up compared to when I first did the route, weeks after the FFA. 

[eyebolter]

I agree, the beach was a total sand dune 20 years ago but I think is three stars now. 

[pappy]

Seems like a lack of imagination if not downright wimpishness to rate a climb based on something ephemeral like sand, or dirt (assuming the route was decently cleaned to begin with, although I was always accused of not cleaning my routes sufficiently, so what do I know). I suppose you could hire a guide to climb ahead of you and remove the offending debris in order to ensure the optimum experience.
Cleaning story: I can still see Sporty hanging off .11 jams and pulling dead poison ivy vines as thick as your wrist out of an overhanging hand crack at Lost Wall. After we bagged the bastard we just cut to the chase and named it '5 Star Sex'. The rating has held up. climb gets a little slick, tho'...

[JHandren]

As for serious routes,
I would say that John's wrong to say that serious routes don't get star recognition in the book. Free Finale, Seventh Sojourn, Highway 61, The Arete, Stage Fright, Clean Sweep, Toothless Grin, South Buttress Direct, London Calling... to name a few serious routes that get 3 stars...there are lots more...if anything I probably tend to be a little biased towards those routes because they left such a big impression.

As for easier routes,
its probably true to say that the real strength of North Conway climbing lies in the upper grades, but its useful to users of the book to differentiate between routes at a given grade to a certain extent. So, there are probably a few ok-but-not-great easier routes which get a star or two that aren't really comparable quality-wise to harder routes with similar star ratings.

As for dirty routes,
in an area like North Conway with a lot of small obscure cliffs spread out over the region, I think its worthwhile to give great routes a lot of stars even if they're grubby because of few ascents. At least that lets people know that its worth the effort to walk out there, even if they have to clean something up. I can think of loads of examples of this, including quite a few of the routes at Owls which were starting to get a little grubby when I was last there. Its just a fact of life of climbing up here for those interested in repeating 5.11 and up routes.

Obviously, its not an exact science, and for every route you try and weigh a bunch of different factors...with the most important being JH on the FA line...thats always worth at least a few extra stars!

[strandman]

Just a hard time J    A fine book.. thanks

i need to know how much Andy paid to get so many stars though ?

[Whitey]

As for classic Adirondack routes being overgrown, I can attest to that. I attempted several times to vacation there in the fall. Down time due to rain has proved this to be futile, and fall is the better weather there. Too many classics, not enough climbers. http://www.adirondackrock.com/newroutes.htm#Shelving_Rock:_Big_Wall


This link lists climbs done AFTER the publication of Jim Lawyer's guidebook. eventually, the dacs will get more climbers as the sport phase becomes less interesting to some climbers. The climbing in the dacs is way better than the whites, if only the weather was better. Let's not forget the folks everywhere who cleaned  routes for the FA allowing the rest of us to hit them for an enjoyable experience, we can't expect they will return to reclean them.