Mountain Lit

Armchair Mountaineers Unite!

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

The authors of the books we love need our support.

This will interest you even if you’re an active climber, and not the armchair-type…

I am announcing the start of a campaign to encourage you and anyone that appreciates mountaineering literature and guides to support the authors of those books. Where would you be if your favorite hiking or climbing book was never written? Without loyal readers that buy and refer other readers to these books, the authors would not be given the chance to share their knowledge with you. These authors need your help.

Climbing Authors on a Precipice

Here is something you probably didn’t know and should realize: The segment of the publishing industry that provides you with outdoors and mountaineering literature is very small and fragile. The publishers that print the books we enjoy often don’t print many copies – maybe a few thousand, unless they are publishing works by Jon Kraukauer or David Roberts. For example, The Mountaineers Books, the publishing arm of the Mountaineers based out of Seattle, Washington prints about 25-30 titles a year (down from 40-45 before the American Recession) – most of which are guidebooks. This is according to Publishers Weekly. Now consider this:

  • Promotions – The authors have to overcome a lot of obstacles in order to be published and promote their book – most of which they must do without their publishers’ help, contrary to common belief that the publisher-alone sells the book.
  • Sales – Authors have to sell new books in order to make a profit. That used book by your local author you bought at a discount didn’t help put money in her pocket to climb and write again.
  • Referrals – Many book buyers today are nervous to purchase books they never heard of by authors they don’t know. Those books often go unreviewed on booksellers’ websites and without any word of mouth or electronic chatter. This could hold back the publishers of our favorite genre from printing new copies and investing in other great works by authors you might enjoy.

Suburban Mountaineers for Authors

Here is where you come in: In order to keep the books you love in print you need to help publicize them! One of the best way to sell a new book in a buyer-be-ware market is through word-of-mouth referrals and quality reviews on the Internet.

As of today, I am asking readers of the Suburban Mountaineer to buy these books and review them as part of my new campaign: Suburban Mountaineers for Authors.

Together, we will read and review the latest books, talk about them on Facebook and Twitter and on our blogs. If you don’t have a blog, send me your reviews and I will post them on The Suburban Mountaineer and attribute them to you.

Click on the Suburban Mountaineer for Authors page on the right of the homepage and get clear, easy guidance on how to help. I’ll also let you know how to contribute your reviews to be posted on The Suburban Mountaineer.

If you are an author of a climbing book or guide, please contact me as well so we can help get the word out about your work.

Thanks again for visiting the Suburban Mountaineer.  If you enjoyed this post, you can follow me on Facebook or on Twitter.

Mount Rainier Wilderness through Floyd Schmoe

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

A Year in Paradise: It has a little climbing, a little nature and a lot of outdoor living. (The cover image was provided as a courtesy by The Mountaineers Books.)

I recently read a book by Mount Rainier National Park’s first on-staff naturalist and an early professional guide of the peak. A Year in Paradise by Floyd Schmoe, originally published in 1959, and reprinted by The Mountaineers Books in 1999, tells about the first four seasons he spent in the Paradise Valley in 1920 after World War I. It tells about the natural splendors of Mount Rainier and the enjoyment in struggling with wilderness living.

The story is true and told in a positive way that promotes the idyllic qualities of nature. Others that don’t enjoy nature would surely only perceive the suffering of wilderness living, though Schmoe certainly doesn’t promote it that way.

After the war, Schmoe and his wife moved to the Puget Sound area looking for work. He is lured to Mount Rainier in January with the same intoxication that draws climbers. On a lark, and without any climbing experience, he seeks a job as a guide. Fortunately, he doesn’t lead the uninitiated up that easily, but his timing was impeccable because the park needed to station two people at the Paradise Inn to satisfy the insurance provider’s requirements; one other building’s roof had already caved in because of the 30 feet of snow. They dug their way into a their winter home, tended the roof, learned to ski, recorded weather readings and conceived a child (not surprising) that season.

During the spring, Schmoe moved out of the Paradise Inn and into one of the many tents that were scattered in the Paradise Valley. He and his pregnant wife would live here while he learned to be a guide. He explains the role of being a guide and also provides several anecdotes with some groups on the lower part of the mountain; he did not start heading to the summit until late in the season. On one occasion he relays a story of being lost and having a member of his guided party doubtful of his navigation capabilities.

Schmoe was not yet a naturalist when he live this life in 1920, but his skills and knowledge of the parks flora and fauna as well as the glaciers and their now long melted caves that he acquired since then and by the time he wrote this book were well integrated.

While the book did not take some opportunities for drama — mainly because of the perspective and the author just coming out and telling you everything — the book is a pleasant and informative read about living around Mount Rainier. It might be a little romantically inclined toward the land at times, but I’m okay with that. I wouldn’t have said it any differently.

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Beyond the Mountain

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Beyond the Mountain is the alpine climbing autobiography of Steve House. For those of you not familiar with House, he is a progressive mountain climber that is known for great alpine challenges, or, as Reinhold Messner put it in the forward, “He climbs the right routes on the right mountains in a time when everyone is climbing Everest.” Generally, it is an engrossing, intense and at moments even offensive story about climbing at the highest possible level. He takes his reader straight into the action of his climbs from 1989 through 2004 without hesitation.

The book addresses House’s introduction to alpinism through the Slovenian student exchange program he was a part of when he was nineteen years old and the trip he took with his Slovenian hosts to Nanga Parbat and first the Rupal Face. He also addresses his most impactful climbs personally and in the climbing community, including a lightning ascent of the Slovak Direct Route on Denali and even a multi-expedition trip to conquer K7 in the Charakusa Valley of Pakistan, plus his ascents with famed-mountaineer, guide and one of his mentor’s, Barry Blanchard, in the Canadian Rockies.

The main take away from this story is about greatness. Steve House is a great climber. He’s got the 10,000 hours put in that qualify him as an expert climber. Not only that, he has an additional 10,000 hours on the most challenging peaks and alpine walls of our day to boot! The book gets at the idea of commitment as the way to greatness. Whole commitment. Maybe obsession is a better word. The book is worth the read if you want to be challenged to climb better and is inspiring to the armchair mountaineer on the idea of pursuing a goal relentlessly.

Of course, the goal that House chose was one that opened the door to the top without the potential for disappointment, unless he quit or died trying. While he started his young climbing career as wanting to be good enough to climb the Rupal Face, he matured and dogmatically pursued becoming the best alpine climber he could become. Whether he is the best is up for debate, but he is certainly in the top five of climbers currently climbing.

He continues to climb. He recently returned from climbing Makalu in the Himalayas. Beyond the Mountain was not a complete autobiography, but it was a milestone in climbing literature for its forthrightness and a rare chance at intimacy with a private, self-motivated climber that has a lot of life issues and value propositions that might offend, but his output from the equation of his life in climbing has netted out to being remarkable.

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The Messner Saga on Nanga Parbat

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment
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Nanga Parbat. (All rights reserved)

Reading anything by Reinhold Messner translated from the original German can be arduous, at least for me. His poetic language, I’ve been told, works best in German so it sounds awkward in English. Of course, we read his books because of who he is not because of his mastery in prose. While his book like the Crystal Horizon are benchmarks in literature about the sport, his 2003 book The Naked Mountain, is part of the controversy that surrounds the legend of Reinhold Messner.

I read The Naked Mountain several years ago when it was released in the United States. It’s about his climb up Nanga Parbat (26,660 ft./8126 m.) in 1970 with his brother Gunther. In short — as I have had it explained to me by a couple of sources — they climbed the Rupal Face (shown above) despite expedition leader Karl Herrligkoffer intent for Reinhold to summit alone. Reinhold and Gunther topped out without a rope and bivied near the summit in bad weather. Exhausted and unable to get help, they decide to descend via the Diamir Face on the other side from which they came. They become separated and Reinhold lost track of his brother, and later he suspected Gunther was lost in an avalanche. Reinhold wanders back to base camp weak from the climb and an emotional wreck.

Reinhold was accused by the other members of the climbing team, including Herrligkoffer, of abandoning his brother just to traverse Nanga Parbat for the bragging rights. Messner responded with defamation lawsuits. Since then the controversy hasn’t gone away. Messner reopened the wound with publication of this book.

From afar, it’s odd that Messner was entangled in such controversy, though it probably had more to do with strong personalities and ego than the facts. He broke several myths about mountaineering, especially about high altitude climbing in the Himalaya. He climbed light and fast and without supplemental oxygen when many speculated that there might not be enough air up high to sustain a climber. His overall respect by the public and climbers not on the 1970 expedition cannot be denied; he was even elected to European parliament for the Italian Green Party a period.

According to the 2004 American Alpine Journal (see page 448), two other books also published in German were released to counter what was said in The Naked Mountain. However, the printing of English translations of Between Light and Shadows by Hans Saler and The Traverse by Max Von Kienlin were prevented by court order. Both argued that Reinhold was only seeking self-glory and sacrificed his own brother to have it. It probably did not help Von Kienlin that his wife Ursula left him and briefly married Reinhold Messner in the 1970s.

In 2005, Gunther’s body was discovered on the Diamir Face, disproving Von Kienlin’s and Saler’s argument that Reinhold abandoned his brother short of the summit to die just so he could go up one side and come down the other. The egos in Von Kienlin and Saler appear to still be there, saying that it could not be Messner’s brother. I for one believe Reinhold Messner and hope he and his brother find peace.

Well, thanks again for visiting. If you enjoyed this post, you can following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or on Twitter.

Lessons from an Ignorant Climb on Mount Kenya

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

Happy Friday, all!  The weather got warmer here in Peaklessburg.  Some friends in cold New England said it was up to 40 degrees (F) and they were downright giddy!  I hope you got out and enjoyed it as much as they did.

I finally read No Picnic on Mount Kenya by Felice Benuzzi at long last.  As everyone probably knows, it is the story of three prisoners of war from World War II interned at a camp by Mount Kenya (17,057 ft./5,199 m.) on the equator.  Through a great job of story telling, Benuzzi and his companions break out of the camp to climb the mountain and willingly return to life as POWs.

The part that interested me the most was that these climbers did not have much research on their target before venturing off.  They had a pair of contraband binoculars to study the mountain.  They had no reliable maps.  They had no idea about the climbers hut at the base of its primary spire.  They had no intelligence on the climbs by other alpinists before them.  This lack of knowledge, or little knowledge that they did acquire, allowed them to experience the joy and the struggle of exploring the mountain as if for the first time in history.

Today, it is not often that we as climbers, or even hikers, stumble upon a target on our travels and go off without a lot of planning and research.  There is a wealth of information today about the majority of mountains on the Internet, in outfitter’s book section, professional mountain guides and the American Alpine Club Library.  Sometimes we’re lucky to find a gem that no one has written much about and it is up to that explorer to lay down the first ascent (FA), if he or she is fortunate and gutsy enough.

While research is prudent, approaching a well-known peak or a little-known mountain with a degree of ignorance can open up opportunities.  Be analytical.  Be objective.  Think through the challenges on the ridges, walls and slopes.  There might be something worth trying, even if it has already been done and written about.  It will still be the first time, even if not a FA.

Well, thanks again for visiting.  Remember, you can follow the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook and Twitter (@SuburbanMtnr) to learn of new posts and obtain other news and information.

Fritz Wiessner and Dudley Wolfe on K2

/ Andrew Szalay / 6 Comments
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K2 on Fire. (All rights reserved)

I just finished reading The Last Man on the Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2 by Jennifer Jordan (2010).  Jordan will be at National Geographic tonight presenting on this book.  I was planning on going to see her, ask some questions and report to you tomorrow, but unfortunately, I have a conflict that is unavoidable.  In any case, here is my review of her take…

Jordan tells the story of Dudley Wolfe, the wealthy American on the 1939 K2 expedition lead by Fritz Wiessner.  However, the story of Wolfe on K2 is the story of that tragic expedition and its leader.

Wiessner was a German-immigrant and was the finest mountaineer in America at the time.  Until later in life, he always struggled with debt and having sufficient income.  He deferred the leadership of the 1938 K2 expedition to rival Charlie Houston because of his business obligations at the time.  The team in 1938 was experienced stars, but for a variety of reasons, personal and economic, Fritz could only put together a second-rate team – most of whom, except Wolfe, never went higher than Camp IV.

I have read a couple of different takes on the 1939 attempt and Jordan’s book follows the pattern of most others, but brings the available research together more thoroughly.  The questions Jordan tries to answer, or at least provide the best information about, was whether Dudley Wolfe belonged on the expedition, was he qualified to reach the high camps and remain there for an extended period of time even though his outlook on summiting was dim, and lastly, was he stranded out of negligence or the occupational hazard innate in mountaineering?

Wolfe reached Camp VIII only with Wiessner’s assistance.  Eventually, Wiessner had to descend for supplies – or possibly help to get Wolfe to the top.  There is a lot of speculation here on why this really happened.  Wolfe managed to descend to Camp VII and he never climbed any lower.  He would spend nearly two months in those high camps withering away and likely suffering from cerebral edema.

Wolfe was the first casualty of climbing K2, and for a variety of reasons (both justified and muddy) he was left stranded and helpless in Camp VII.  Jordan discovered his body at the base of the peak while visiting the K2 base camp in 2002 while writing her first book Savage Summit.

This book paints Dudley Wolfe in a more favorable portrait.  Ed Viesturs and David Roberts in K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain make Wolfe seem more incompetent – but to say he was unqualified (which Viesturs and Roberts do not) to be high on the mountain is wrong too.  It is worth the read to see the relationship between Fritz and Dudley.  Wiessner wanted to the summit desperately for glory and notoriety.  Wolfe was an adventure junkie and needed Wiessner to get him as close to the top, if not the top itself, as reasonable.  This arrangement, and the affects of altitude, which were not fully understood, was their collective undoing.

As a mountain junkie, I don’t recommend this book unless you are either interested in the mysteries of the 1939 expedition or want to know everything about K2 specifically.  There are other more informative K2 books, like Viesturs’ and Roberts’ story, and better climbing stories in general.  On the other hand, Jordan’s story might also appeal to readers that enjoy the age of romance in mountain exploration as it tugs at that string.

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