Valhalla Publishing & Books

The flagship or inaugural project is to produce and sell The Notches: A Guide to Rock Climbing to the Central and Western White Mountains, by Jon Sykes and Jamie Cunningham.  This book will be a sequel to Jon Sykes’ previous, successful, and sold out guide book: Secrets of the Notch: A Guide to Rock & Ice Climbing on Cannon Cliff and the Crags of Franconia Notch.  This book was published by Huntington Graphics in 2001.  The new book will greatly expand on the old book’s route offerings and will be self published by Jon Sykes and Jamie Cunningham.  The new book will include route descriptions, maps, photos, and history of climbs in Crawford, Zealand, Franconia, Kinsman, and Olvarian Notches.

What We Do

Rock climbing continues to be a growing and diverse sport.   Many of the established climbing areas are currently experiencing over crowding.  This guide book will greatly expand the choices of areas to climb in the White Mountains and will help spread the climbing population around and will in turn relieve some of the over use of the popular areas.  The majority of new areas that will be included in this book are of very high quality and will appeal to all levels of experience and difficulty.  We would go so far as to say that this is one of the greatest climbing booms in this region since the developement of Rumney Cliffs.  Both the authors have been closely involved in this new route development and Jon Sykes has been the driving force for at least 75% to 80% of these new routes.  Sykes’s name is well known and respected in the New England climbing community and in its self offers name recognition and sale ability of this book.

 
With concern to the older areas that have been covered by previous guide books many of these areas have seen significant change since there last documentation.  Such change reflects:

-The addition of new routes to establish areas;

-Routes lost to rock fall;

-Changes in grading of climbs (general consensus of harder or easier);

-The need for better route and approach descriptions.

CRAWFORD & ZEALAND NOTCHES:

The last time Crawford & Zealand Notch routes have been published was in Ed Webster’s second edition: Rock Climbs in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, 1987.  That is twenty years ago!  The major new addition to this region is Mt. Oscar which lies in Zealand Notch (the back side of Bretton Woods Ski Resort).  To date it boasts 21 high quality routes in a beautiful setting.

FRANCONIA NOTCH: 

The Franconia Notch areas have been well documented.  However, Cannon Cliff, suffered considerable damage to routes since the Old Man of the Mountain fell down.  There has also been continued new route development, particularly on the East side of the Notch, since Jon Sykes last effort.  For the most part the new guide book will duplicate most of what was in Secrets of the Notch.  This section will be the cornerstone of the new guide book.

KINSMAN NOTCH:

The Kinsman Notch area has never been documented for its rock climbing (ice climbs have been included in other guides).  Along with Mt. Oscar (Zealand) and Olvarian Notch this is where all the new excitement lies. This area so far includes 15 separate cliffs with a total of 150 new routes and counting!  Most of these climbs are easily accessible and of superior quality. 

OLVARIAN NOTCH:

Olvarian Notch has also remained undocumented.  It has been brought into the climbing community’s eye concerning land owner issues.  It is hoped that this area becomes part of the White Mountain National Forest or under the stewardship of the Access Fund by the time this book is written.  This 700 foot cliff has several high quality and difficult face climbs. 

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