In local climbing circles, there have been murmurs of a book, the Black Book, said to keep secrets of the Pikes Peak region’s best cracks and crags, a record unlike anything out there. The title is appropriately shadowy.

But actually it was first known as the Golden Book.

“The Golden Book of Bull,” says its keeper, Steve Cheney.

He started it from his old gear shop on Colorado Springs’ west side in the 1960s: a three-ring binder with blank pages, on which the greatest climbers of the day, names now legend, would jot down brief descriptions and claim first ascents.

Now the book resides in Cheney’s Grand Junction home. Now the yellowed pages are protected by a hard, blue cover — a good disguise.

Will it ever see daylight? Might it ever reach the hands of today’s climbers who speak of it like lost treasure?

“I don’t think I would like that,” Cheney says.

But now there’s another, this one more detailed.

It’s a Google document spanning 54 pages, chock-full of rock and ice unknown to but a few — those who’ve proven themselves worthy of the pioneers’ knowledge, those ambitious enough to venture even farther afield and chart new courses. Those like Phil Wortmann, considered this generation’s mightiest on the peak.

His working guidebook is for his eyes and his eyes only. For now. After all, he hasn’t been writing it for himself.

But how to proceed?

Here in the Springs, “there’s always been this club of cool people,” Wortmann says. “They’ll take you to certain crags or areas, and you’re now in that cool club. And if you go share all that information, you’re telling everybody about Fight Club. You’re that guy.”

He doesn’t want to be that guy. “The guy who ruined it,” he says.

Remarkably, the old guard has held in this ever-expanding metro beside the foothills, home to some of the best alpine, vertical granite anywhere, those in the know will tell you.

If you’re not in the know, they won’t say much more.

“We’ve always liked being the backwater of Colorado,” says Stewart Green, a ‘70s-era climber who’s gone on to be the area’s preeminent advocate and historian. “Whereas everybody in Boulder wanted to report everything and raise their credentials and name everything, we felt here, well, we’d just go climbing.”

But “The Golden Book of Bull” was embraced for a while. Then one day, Cheney says, there was a smash-and-grab — an intruder who swiped the book, returning it with missing pages, causing a stir in the small, ragtag community.

Then Cheney himself caused a stir. Word spread that he was considering writing a guidebook on Turkey Rocks. Climbers hurried to “The Golden Book of Bull,” blacking out their notes.

Cheney went ahead with the guidebook, almost immediately regretting it. He became a pariah. And worse, he saw what happened at Turkey Rocks (not quite on the scale of Cañon City’s Shelf Road, as he mournfully observed later).“So many people,” Cheney says.

As for Green, he wrote “Rock Climbing Colorado,” the Falcon Guide that has been a go-to for the sport’s rising wave. He chose to mostly feature routes already well-known and under the care of publicly funded land managers. Same goes for his guides to this city’s parks and open spaces.

But Wortmann’s proposed content? It would make Green worry about the fate of climbing in the mountain’s deep, dark reaches.

Much of the access is from the Pikes Peak Highway, where rangers wouldn’t appreciate more cars parked beside the road, more people embarking off trail, at risk of drastic weather changes near timberline. There could be similar problems on Gold Camp and Old Stage roads, Green suspects.

“We’ve always felt it could lead to restrictions on our use of the area,” he says.

So to publish would be to go rogue. To many, Wortmann would be a traitor. To others, he would be a savior, opening the door to unrealized wonders.

His dilemma speaks to the wider issue of the outdoors in the information age. Coloradans are all too aware of trail death by Instagram, of five-star ratings inviting unethical visitors to the wilderness.

The climbing tribe is particularly aggravated. For a glimpse, look to the Colorado Ice Conditions Facebook page. It started four years ago with Frisco-based Reid Kalmus.

“I created a monster,” he says.

He has since encouraged “teasing” — a simple photo depicting a frozen waterfall with a simple message such as “It’s in.” That’s it. Those in the know will know. There’s a running joke to post everything as Martha’s, the Rocky Mountain National Park couloir popular among newbies.

“I bet you a third of it is misinformation,” Kalmus says. And he’s OK with that.

But he’s not OK with the constant bickering and trolling. He doesn’t get it, nor does Wortmann.

For Wortmann, a certain frustration has festered.

“It’s like, ‘I know it, and other people don’t, and that makes me special.’ I think there’s some of that psychology at play,” he says. “I think there’s a lot of hiding behind conservation and preservation. It’s not authentic. If you’re taking 10 of your friends up there to trounce around, then you’re not concerned about conservation. You just want it for yourself.”

It’s the same kind of ego he carefully addresses in the rough draft of his guidebook, a prelude beside a long list of rules and warnings.

While trying to credit first ascents along the region’s vague thread of history, Wortmann knows some have been left out. “Please know it was not intentional,” he writes. “However, if you’ve worked hard for secrecy then you shouldn’t be angry about not being included.”

Ilana Jesse, an accomplished alpinist based in the Springs, knows her friend would ruffle feathers by publishing. “But his motivations are very pure, and I like it,” she says.

She’s just one of many with whom Wortmann has freely and excitedly shared beta. A full-time schoolteacher and father of a toddler, he’s known for going out of his way to show people places they’ve never been (this writer included).

“You get to share their experience,” Wortmann says. “You almost relive the same thing twice.”

He’s 42, plenty of climbing ahead of him. Though, some rock faces appear impossible.

“But I know there’s a kid out there that could do it, if only they knew where to go,” he says. “And what a waste that would be. They deserve to go up there and challenge themselves and take it to the next level and add their contributions. That would be cool.”