Years ago, Gerry Roach was climbing another mountain when he struck up a conversation with a stranger. The man knew the name Gerry Roach, the name behind Colorado’s preeminent guidebook to the state’s 14,000-foot peaks.

The acquaintance took issue with Roach’s description of “S” Ridge on Snowmass Mountain. “Too short,” he said.

“I thought for a minute,” Roach recalled, “and I said, ‘Wait a minute, I wrote a whole paragraph on how to get started on that ridge.’ He came right back and said, ‘That’s the problem. You only wrote one paragraph.”

The encounter reminded Roach of the seemingly unquenchable thirst for information among today’s climbers. It reminded him of photos accompanying route descriptions online — photos with dotted lines to precisely depict directions.

Roach stared at such a photo once. “And I thought, wait a minute, if you need that dotted line, I’m not your guy.”

Living in Montrose and still climbing as he approaches 80, Roach has been the guy for generations of fourteener baggers. “Colorado’s Fourteeners: From Hikes to Climbs” was published in 1992 as the definitive, most comprehensive guide to the summits, penned by someone who’d been frequenting them since the 1950s.

Almost a decade after the latest iteration, now comes a new “Colorado’s Fourteeners.” The book’s fourth edition is available on Amazon.

In terms of route descriptions, not much has changed, Roach said. Nonprofit steward Colorado Fourteeners Initiative has realigned some trails over the years, installing more switchbacks and extending the distance of formerly straight-up trips.

“But mostly what’s changed is the crowding,” Roach said.

In 2020, using data from several sources, including in-ground foot counters, Colorado Fourteeners Initiative estimated the 54 mountains saw 415,000 hikes. Most were clustered on the peaks closest to the Front Range. On Quandary Peak, for example, almost 50,000 hikes were estimated.

At Quandary this summer, visitors not paying for reserved trailhead parking will be directed to Breckenridge for a shuttle ride. It’s just one change at fast-to-fill trailheads, where officials have tried to enforce against illegal parking along adjacent roads.

For the new book, “I went through all the Front Range trailheads and basically added a sentence that said, ‘Trailheads fill up at 2 a.m., plan accordingly,” Roach said. “Whatever that means.”

Please excuse him if he’s short on details here or elsewhere. “To me,” he said, “the word ‘adventure’ means you don’t know the outcome.”

That’s something he knows well from a legendary mountaineering career. Roach is regarded as the second person to log ascents of the world’s seven highest summits. Growing up in Boulder, he was inspired by Edmund Hillary’s 1953 Everest expedition.

Four years later, Roach dashed up Mount Massive, his first fourteener. “Not a soul” was there, he said. And he remembered few at Maroon Lake, the scenic base of the Maroon Bells that now requires a parking reservation or shuttle ride.

“This was back when you could drive up to the lake, throw your pack out 20 feet from the water, camp out and jump up early and go climb peaks,” Roach said.

Those share a range with Capitol Peak, the infamous monolith pictured on the new cover of “Colorado’s Fourteeners.” The picture captures the extreme: a skier approaching a sharp ridge.

“I’m a little worried it will dissuade the casual hikers,” Roach said. “But, I don’t know. I didn’t want to put a picture of somebody walking up a trail with a dotted line on it.”