GearLoopTopo better than SuperTopo?

If you are looking for Yosemite topos, or climbing topos for Tuolumne, Squamish, USA Desert Towers, Red Rocks, The Wasatch, the guys at GearLoopTopos have you covered.

I met GearLoopTopo co-founder and Salt Lake resident Alexandre Lemieux in Maple Canyon last year and climbed with him again in Spain. Great guy who's come up with a great concept for carrying the topo with you while you climb.

In Yosemite, SuperTopo is the gold standard. Back in 2002 when I was in the Valley the SuperTopo book was a revelation because the quality of the diagrams and topos were so clear and of such quality. Chances are though if you're doing a trip you are interested in hitting up the classics. If it's a short trip, perhaps you don't really need to buy the entire guidebook. You really just want to get the topos you need for the classics you want to do.

Not very detailed to say the least :)

Then there is the issue of how to carry the topo on your long, windy multipitch route. If it's in a guidebook you have to try to find a way of photocopying it, writing it down (pointless, you lose all the details), or tearing it out of the guide (sacrilegious). Then on the fifth pitch you pull the tatty piece of paper out of your chalk bag and WHOOF a gust of wind tears it from your grasp. Enter GearLoopTopo with their individually laminated topos for single classic routes complete with keeper cord. You clip the topo to your harness and blast off.

It's not simply a rip-job of SuperTopo either. Alex who made these topos climbed every route himself, photo-documenting and taking notes and drawing as he climbed. The result is highly detailed topos which contain approach and descent info, full route description, topo diagram including variations and tips, gear advice, and heaps more. Basically everything you need to get to your route, climb it, and get down safely. All this for a couple of bucks each. Absolute bargain!

You can buy them online before your trip and he'll post them out to you pronto. Super cheap, super good. You'll want to see what routes he has topos for. Check out this page and browse around. There's also more free info and free topo samples available on the website. There's particularly a lot of free goodies for Red Rocks.

At the moment, the website doesn't seem to display all the Yosemite topos they have, but I assure you, they have heaps including Snake Dike, Serenity Crack & Sons of Yesterday,  Nutcracker, Northeast Buttress of Higher Cathedral Rock, Freeblast, East Buttress of El Cap, Braille Book, After Six & After Seven and Central Pillar of Frenzy. I expect the site will be updated with these soon but otherwise just shoot him an email.

A typical GearLoopTopo. You get a lot of value in a small space.

GearLoopTopo created Alexandre loves his multipitches!
This is Fiesta De Los Biceps in Riglos, Spain. I am visible in green one pitch below.

Full disclosure: GearLoopTopos provided us with some free topos for the purposes of this review.