We’ll start with the one that is in season. If you saw our issue 199, on stands until a month ago, you might remember the gorgeous photos and varied, spicy history of ice and mixed climbing in Maple Canyon, Utah.

Considering that the last guide to this area was 11 years out of print, “long-awaited” is almost inadequate to herald Wasatch Mixed: A Guide to Northern Utah’s Mixed and Select Ice Routes. The book is written by Nathan Smith, primo photographer and author of the above article, and the prolific Doug Heinrich, who has been climbing in the region since age 12 and who with Chis Harmston was responsible for an outsize number of major milestones, essentially (also with Seth Shaw, Tim Wagner and Robbie Colbert) opening winter climbing in Maple.

A “selects” guide, comprising 200 mixed  ice routes throughout the greater Wasatch Front region, this edition is the most comprehensive guide to mixed climbing in Utah. It covers a range from short hard drytooling caves to multipitch trad lines connecting hanging daggers. Over 70 ice routes, comprising the majority of lines

climbed in the Wasatch on a given winter weekend,  are described, many for the first time in a guidebook. Various of those, which range from the Great White Icicle (WI 3) in Little Cottonwood to the usually four-pitch Stairway to Heaven (WI 5/6) are said to have come in fat this year.

Tips and specifics include what ice and rock gear to bring, best belays,  descent info,  avalanche-threat info, and generally useful lines such as, “Great movement on the rock and a solid ice finish to weed out the drytoolers … if [the pillar] is thin there is additional drytooling required, raising the grade.”

Other info: many color photos, FA history, 94 pages. Available at www.pullphotography.com (also at rockandice.com), $23.95.

Several other recently published guidebooks are:

The Obed, a Climber’s Guide to the Wild and Scenic, by Kelly Brown (that’s “Mr. Obed,” as noted in the foreword, to you). This is the first complete guidebook to this beautiful sandstone area of big roofs (with big holds!), clean faces and arêtes, which boasts routes of the whole range of grades, and it is the first guide of any sort to the well-known Lilly Boulders. A very personal book, it contains essays and perspectives by eight members of the Tribe that holds this place dear and is now sharing it. Developed over the last 30 years, the place was formerly trad and is now considered one of the best sport crags in the country.

The guide contains route and boulder problem info on six major crags and the Lilly Boulders. According to the publisher, the book covers every legal route in the Obed, leaving out only perhaps 15 routes, which are located in restricted areas: The area is under NPS management for a Wild and Scenic River. Climber-ranger relations are described by visitors as excellent, with climbing considered a valid use of the area, and a centrally located climbers’ camp costing a mere $5 a night is said to add to the relaxed atmosphere.

Other: FA info, 216 pages, action and cliff photos, maps. Humorous and nicely subjective route descriptions with such helpful tidbits as, “Move up the face staying right. Prepare for a shocking finish on the upper headwall.” GreenerGrassPublishing.com, $29.95.

Yosemite Big Walls, Third Edition, by Chris McNamara and Chris Van Leuven. This third edition has been increased to 64 select routes, 14 of them new classics,  and features much big wall free-climbing info. New additions include free routes such as  El Cap's West Face, Freerider, and Golden Gate, the Regular NW Face of Half Dome and the South Face of Watkins, with new beta provided on now-free pitches on many more routes. All routes contain updated gear info: “Chris Mac” personally went through all route-beta posts on his site SuperTopo for it.

This edition contains expanded FA history for about half of the routes, with much detail and many key quotes from written and spoken word; also: clean-aid info, updated info on racks needed for every pitch, strategic info for all routes, GPS coordinates for some approaches, and detailed and useful (especially in case of storm) retreat and descent beta.

Other: 208 pages. Photos by many standouts including new images from Tom Frost and Tom Evans. Mini bios of many historic and current players, and a timeline of key events.

See www.supertopo.com, $29.95 for print book, $26.95 for ebook, and specials for combos. Varying prices for overseas orders.

Sublime Climbs, by Kevin Lindorff, Josef Gooding and Jarrod Hodgson. Four years (“of blood, sweat and tears,” in the words of one author)  in the making, this is a selects guidebook to the Australian state of Victoria, which contains three of the most popular areas in the country: Mount Arapiles (but of course), the Grampians and Mount Buffalo. The last select guide to the Grampians national park area came out in 2001, and the area has seen tremendous development since. Additionally, info is now available on some areas formerly closed due to access issues. This book covers a grand 700 routes.

Every area described is shown in images, maps or both, with aerial photos and jazzy action images from many photographers.

Other: FA info; 380 pages, 123 action shots, 32 locator shots, 158 photo-topos. Sold at www.wolverinepublishing.com, $49.95, and www.rockmaster.com.au; within Australia $65 USD; $85 USD for an overseas order.

Finally, out on March 20 is Joshua Tree Bouldering, by Robert Miramontes, 414 pages, $37.50, www.wolverinepublishing.com.