Boston Rocks
About Boston Rocks
Boston Rocks is a rock climbing and bouldering guidebook for eastern Massachusetts edited by Susan Ruff and Richard Doucette and published by MITOC. More information including sample pages, changes, updates, and resources is located at the main website for Boston Rocks at www.bostonrocksonline.com
History
The first edition of Boston Rocks was published in 1987, after much hard work by Editor Larry LaForge and a cadre of dedicated volunteers. It followed the first region-wide guidebook, Climbing In Eastern Massachusetts by Steve Hendrick and Sam Steibert, 1975. We have drawn from both those works (with permission) and owe these individuals thanks for their past work. The new edition of Boston Rocks took over 80 volunteers and 4 years to complete, and includes information on more than 800 routes at more than 50 different areas.
What’s Different?
Boston Rocks differs in one very important way from perhaps any guidebook you have. Nobody made any money off this one. Nobody was paid, because they were ALL volunteers. People participate in such an endeavor for a variety of personal reasons. But mostly people just wanted to convey their love of climbing by helping out in this effort to develop the very best guidebook for climbing in their backyard. Boston Rocks might have taken less time, might have had a bit more continuity or been more professionally developed. But we like it because we all gave it the one thing we have so little of: time. Dozens of people took the time to wander around the crags, compare notes and route descriptions, drive the confusing local road network, take photographs, draw or clean up cliff illustrations, lay out pages, get the computer to work, design icons, build the website, consult with the printers, create or review the maps, review the text…the list goes on and on and the list of volunteers is almost endless, but we will try and recognize all of them here.
Acknowledgments
Boston Rocks would not have been possible without the help from the following volunteers:
Rick Abbot, Fred Abraham, Jeremy Adams, Dave Anderson, Byron Andrews, Steve Angelini, Bill Atkinson, Rachel Atkinson, Tsachi Avrahami, Ian Baker, Jeff Beyer, Hector Briceno, Mike Broderick, Rick Buirkle, Dan Cousins, Peter Cross, Will Crowther, Dave Custer, Alyssa Danigelis, John Demers, Richard Doucette, Eric Engberg, Jaryn Finch, Scott Fitzgerald, Nathan Flowers-Jacobs, Deb Fraser, Yuki Fujita, Greg Galperin, Blake Gleason, Dave Goguen, John Grote, Derek Hanrahan, Steve Hendrick, Alex Holke, Martha Horn, Rob Jagnow, Bob Kinkaid, Larry Laforge, Jamie Leef, Albert Lin, Steve Linder, Zach Malchano, Tom Maguire, Luca Marinelli, Joe McLoughlin, Rob Means, Dan Melanson, David Merfeld, Doug Millen, New England Bouldering.com, Paul Niland, Nathaniel Olken, Jim Paradis, Theresa Parks, Aaron Robinson, Bob Rogers, Bob Rogers’ daughter, Al Rubin, Susan Ruff, Barry Rugo, Bernie Savord, Ian Severance (EMS Boston), Erin Shea, Luke Sosnowski, Al Stebbins, Herb Stillman, Sam Striebert, Dan Sutton, Leonardo Topa, Paulina Varshavskaya, Vertical Rock Gym, Ed Webster, Harvey Weener, Steve Weitzler (Boston Rock Gym), Jack White (A Streetcar Named Design), Robert Zeithammer, Nancy Zizza and all the contributors to the first edition of Boston Rocks