Climbing from Gym to Crag: Building Skills for Real Rock

The only training guide for making the move from indoor to outdoor climbing.

The first book in our new Mountaineers Outdoor Expert Series, which will provide in-depth instruction on a variety of climbing topics.

Surpasses other training guides with a new level of instruction, clarity, and safety. Complements any indoor or outdoor climbing course.

Climbing: From Gym to Crag helps indoor climbers safely make the transition from a controlled climbing environment, which requires few technical skills and presents no objective dangers, to the outdoor environment, where the risks and rewards require a well-honed set of basic skills and awareness.

Each of the four sections-Indoor Climbing, Sport Climbing, Traditional Climbing, and Retreat Techniques-contains instructional chapters on safety, belaying, technique, leading, and anchors. Transitional skills are taught in a logical progression so climbers can begin at the point in the text that their skills dictate. Key Transition Exercises walk climbers through steps on the ground so they can safely master techniques that are not found indoors or are done differently outdoors.

S. PETER LEWIS has been a rock climber since 1976, an ice climber since 1979, and a professional mountain guide since 1983. He has climbed in almost every major climbing area in the Northeast and is an expert on the area's climbing history. From 1994 to 1999, Lewis was the executive director of the American Mountain Guides Association. Lewis also has been a freelance writer and photographer specializing in adventure sports since 1983. He has written dozens of articles, published hundreds of photographs, and been featured in two profiles, in Outdoor Photographer and New Hampshire Profiles. Lewis also has worked as a newspaper reporter and has won journalism and photography awards. He has authored or co-authored six books on climbing, including Climbing: From Gym to Crag, published by The Mountaineers Books in 2000. He researched, edited, designed, and marketed with Rick Wilcox a self-published book, the second edition of An Ice Climber's Guide to Northern New England in 1992, and has just finished the third edition of the guide to be released early next year. He currently works as the publishing director for Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities in Conway, New Hampshire. He lives in Bridgton, Maine, with his wife and two children.