Kickstarter

I haven't communicated much, but have been very busy. The amount of work involved in putting together a guide like this is more than I expected!

I had the first draft copy printed last week and plan on printing and binding drafts at the end of each of the following weeks as the guide approaches completion.

On March 23rd, I'll be heading out from Denver to Fruita and Moab for about four days to ground truth all the maps and try to shake out any errors that may be in the write-up. The high ground will probably be inaccessible from snowpack, but I should be able to check almost everything out. If anyone wants to join me, your welcome to come along.

On March 30th, I will be at the Yeti Beti fundraiser in at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden, Colorado on March 30th where some of the guides will be auctioned off. These will not be the final prints, but damned close. You should come out and support this great cause regardless of whether you want to see the guides.

I hope to have the guides back from the printers and begin mailing the guides out to Kickstarter backers starting the week of April 8th.

I am including a page of thanks to all the Kickstarter supporters at the end of the book. If you'd like your name to appear different from the name you provided to Kickstarter, please email me with the name you'd like me to use, along with your name as it appears on Kickstarter. I've attached the list of backers taken directly from Kickstarter, capitalization left unchanged and the order is the order the backers appeared on the website.

How your names will appear in the guide:

amy fritz, Andy Schuette, SonOfSlam, Derek Akerhielm, James Dever, Allen Wood, gabrielle r, David Adam Bernstein, Tom Schmitendorf, Stephen Waits, Lynn Iwamoto, Alex Christensen, Randy Fay, Lance David, Bob Waltenspiel, Adam Kyle Brodkin, Chadd Biehler, Bill Turner, Mike Dion, Duncan Ross, Joshua Siler, Mike Ratliff, Zach Margolis, Heather Bowden, Mike Adamski, Jason Smith, Frank Weaver, Tim Pontz, christopher weiss, Tarl Ford, eohaymond, joseph koziol, Tom Wannamaker, karyn staley, Emerson Wells, Davis Crain, Alex de La Barre, Michelle Melgares, Brian Blackwell, Brandy Monique, terry, Dave Crowell, Marielle, Mark Pinto, Josh Patsey, Leo Kacenjar, MBybee, Andrew Werner, Bob Campbell, ART BEYOND BORDERS, Eric Niksch, James Leano, Chancellor Pascale, Chris Kelly, Jonathan Harris, Earl Hammond, Laura Makar, Jeff Villano, Dave Maloney, Alan C. Brown, Chris Leoniak, Brad Baldwin, Travis McMaster, Jerome Leugers, R Mark Schoenhals, David Porter, Erin Ross, Steve Dufficcy, Will Stacy, Sean Baillargeon, Albert Garcia, Sheri Mounteer, Egil Nilsson

I have attached some photos of select pages from the guide book. If you see errors in them, don't worry, this is still an early draft.

As of this morning, I have enough pledges to get an ISBN, pay the contributing photographer and map artist, and pay for printing. Thanks so much for your part in making this happen!

Any additional funds that come in after today will be used to create an ebook version or app for iOS.

I'm so excited to have met the financial goal in two days! Thanks to all the mountain bikers, other trail users, and friends that supported me!

I was concerned about meeting my goal, having never done anything like this before, so I kept it low. Actual costs for the initial run will run closer to $2000 for all the rights and associated publishing costs. (I didn't know that artists want twice as much for their work if you want reproduction rights!) Any additional funds I receive up to $2000 will be used to fund the initial print run. If things keep going as well as they have, I'll probably push the initial print run from 100 to 200 books.