Exploring Jasper National Park鈥檚 backcountry just got a little bit easier thanks to a new guide book that is as aesthetically pleasing as it is practical for those who want to bag a few peaks.
If you鈥檙e unfamiliar with the term it鈥檚 probably because you鈥檙e not part of the mountaineering community, which loosely defines 鈥減eakbagging鈥� as collecting summits, similar to someone who might collect stamps or hockey cards.
In that context it only makes sense then that Ben Nearingburg and Eric Coulthard would name their new guidebook A Peakbagger鈥檚 Guide to the Canadian Rockies: North.
鈥淪ome people collect stamps or hockey cards, others collect memories from peaks,鈥� said Nearingburg, who lives in Jasper. 鈥淚t seemed like a good description for our book because it involves routes that are hikes, routes that are scrambles and some that are little more technical.鈥�
With nearly 100 trips to choose from, the guidebook provides well described routes to get up and down each summit, including important details such as difficulty, hazards, distance, elevation gain and the time it takes to complete a round-trip. There are also colour photos to make it easier to visualize where you are going.
The book is the culmination of years of work, which started as far back as 2007.
鈥淲hen we were both starting out we quite enjoyed the Jasper region, but there was decidedly little information if you actually tried to go off trail so we thought that we would give back to the community and make places a little more accessible,鈥� said Nearingburg, who got involved in the project in 2012.
鈥淭hankfully both Eric and I and our other friends who were involved in the project, Steven Song and Vern Dewit, take pretty detailed notes and write trip reports so it became a little easier to convert it into a guide book because we already had some of the legwork already done.鈥�
All four men originally met online through their own individual websites, which included trip reports, pictures and stories of their mountaineering adventures.
鈥淲e sort of knew each other and then realized that we were into the same sort of trips and we thought we might as well team up and it grew from there,鈥� said Nearingburg.
To support the local community some of the proceeds of the book will be given to the Jasper Trail Alliance (JTA) to help the non-profit group maintain some of Jasper鈥檚 trails.
鈥淧art of the motivation of the book was actually trying to keep access to some of the areas in good shape,鈥� said Nearingburg. 鈥淎s the JTA starts to transition towards being able to do backcountry trail maintenance we thought it would be a great area for us to help out with.鈥�
A Peakbagger鈥檚 Guide to the Canadian Rockies: North is available online and at several stores in Edmonton and Jasper, including the Friends store at the Information Centre.
