Climbing the Cascade Volcanoes

This book is great if your new to climbing in the Cascades. It has many of the popular routes, and gives good descriptions of what all to watch out for and how to go about doing it.

Very biased, guidebook. Most of the geologic information is completed fabricated bullshit. An example, under the Mount Bachelor Chapter north slope fumaroles... ...give clue that the mountain is still active. Mount Bachelor is extinct, every second grader in Bend knows this, Jeff Smoot does not. I suppose geologic information is not essential in a climbing guide, but why did Smoot choose to include it he wasn't willing to put forth the effort to provide accurate information?

The book uses its own made up numerical rating system, explained on the first few pages. This description also includes a disclaimer that states They (these rating) are not intended as an indication of actual difficulty. The question that comes to my mind is why reduce all the complexities of these routes to a single number if these numbers have no actual meaning?

For most of the more technical routes on the Oregon volcanoes it simply tells you to go look in Jeff Tomas's Oregon High. For Washington the book references the respective Becky books, or The Mount Rainier Climbers Guide. This book is basically just a set of cliff notes for these other, superior publications. If you want more in depth information on these mountains go directly to the source (Oregon High, The Fred Becky books, Mount Rainier Climbers Guide, The Mount Shasta Book). If you only want a general overview summitpost does just fine. Either way don't waste your money.