Thanks for sharing Mud. I don't mean to be negative or take anything away from the man. No guidebook is perfect and I have a pretty good idea of the amount of work it takes to put something together and make it accurate. While I was reading and in particular looking at his ratings I wondered if this might have been your first book.
I was also recalling that there was a time when 5.7 and 5.9 were the top of the scale. I mainly like having all the books so I can look up routes I haven't done yet (or ones I have) and see what the differences are. I noticed that Gagner has specific recommendations for iron that the other older books do not list. It's hard to say how many of the old routes were climbed with pins that were then removed - and let's face it - the scars left from those placements in mud are not as clean or apparent as they typically are in harder rock.
There were a few surprises that really caught my eye. For instance, he mentions climbing past several lead bolts on p1 of the Salathe (on The Hand) when there is only one. He also sometimes combines routes with other routes - for example - Japanese Water Torture and Nodal Line, Toog's Terror and Toog's Alligator, Alias Bandit Bench and True Grit. It would be cool to have a document that has every shared route description in one place and in chronological order.
As for the older books (I don't include Brad's book since it is the current guide), I like the Chuck Richards Guide the best. It is the best looking, made the best (cover, binding, photos) and his sense of humor and writing style really appeal to me.
