What do you read...

[eriknusanet]

Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer is an excellent collection of stories.

One of the most memorable was his personal story of climbing a remote peak in Alaska solo... at around 20 years old, he just left his construction job and set out for Alaska because it seemed like doing the climb would straighten out his life -- hair raising misadventures result, and his commentary (from age 35 or whatever) on his youthful idealism is pretty funny and real

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erik@MyPhysicsLab.com

[tobytortorelli]

wow

[klar404]

Reading about climbing????!!! The most BORING stuff i've ever read.Just read:

down and out in paris and london by george orwell palace walk by naguib mahfouz the comedians by grahm greene. It's so much more fun to climb that to armchair it. I'd rather read cosmo than kraukauer

[nolanr]

David Roberts has to be my favorite in the mountaineering/adventure genre. He's also branched out into some kind of cultural anthropologist or something. Anyway, I've liked everything I've read of his. I'm kind of off and on w/ the climbing literature, you can definitely OD on it. Just started "Conquistadors of the Useless" by Terray, good so far.

Non climbing lit., I read some of this, some of that. I Like Edward Abbey, Ivan Doig. But in my mind the absolute best author I've ever read (and nobody else has mentioned him yet, bonus points for me) is David James Duncan. Local NWerner. "The Brother's K" and "The River Why" are both just incredible. I'm not going to try to explain them, just read them. You won't regret it.

[nolanr]

Oh yeah, reread the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Hobbit, and the Silmarillion earlier this year. Good stuff. When is the movie coming out, I'm getting tired of waiting for it?

[carolyn]

Rick,

I just put down In the Zone last week. I was curious again after you asked about how the accident happened. I went back and looked thru it a bit. He seemed to elude to the fact that the belayer did something, but wouldnt come right out and give specifics.

AJ, I find it interesting that in the presentation he wouldnt really answer the question, too.

I think earlier in the story the author also mentioned being irritated that it was taking his partner so long to set up the belay. Or am I getting it confused with another story.

In the story, there is no specific reasons mentioned, other than he couldnt find anything but little knobs for his feet, he slipped, yelled "falling", and wound up hanging from his rope right above the ledge.

*shrugs*

who knows

 

[AJ]

Rick, it has been a while since I read Potterfield's book but I thought he hinted at the possibility of his belayer failing to catch the fall. I recall him writing that his belayer was using a new "tube" style belay device (instead of a Munter or Figure-8).

I once went to a slideshow he did and the question came up but he wouldn't answer it directly. He would not name the belayer and didn't (publicly) blame the individual. One hell of a fall and an awful bivy. Good to hear he eventually recovered almost fully.

[Griff]

Gotta mention H.W. (Bill) Tilman. He was a great writer, tells a good story and a good joke (often at his own expense) and, of course, packed more adventure into his life than most of us could hope for.

[This message has been edited by Griff (edited 10-19-2001).]

[Terminal_Gravity]

In the Zone;

I felt cheated by not hearing why he took such a long fall. One reason to read epic stories is learn how not to repeat the mistakes of others. Even though first story was an amazing display of fortitude and a good read; I have to give the book a big thumbs down.

"Voices from the Summit" is one of the absolute best books on mountaineering that I have ever read (again & again). It is unfortunately only available in a coffee table format and new is priced way to high. Powell's has several used copies for around 20 bucks. I gaurantee it is well worth it.

[bellemontagne]

The best guidebook I have read is Alan Watts' gudie to Smith Rock. It's pretty entertaining and somthing you can definitely skim over cover to cover.

Two of my favorite climbing Biographies are Lou Whittaker: Memoirs of a Mountain Gude and the Burgess Book of Lies about the Alan and Adrian Burgess.

I frequently re-read some of the chapters of these books. Some of Adrian and Alan Burgess' tales are a hoot! You don't get a lot of that in some climber biographies. John Long's Close calls is pretty hilarious too.

The best climbing magazine? Climbing of course. Rock and Ice seems a little kind of dudish and short on substantive articles.

The Falling Season by Hal Clifford is pretty interesting for those involved in SAR. Marc Twight's Extreme Alpinism while meant to be instructional provides an insight into Marc Twight and his fast and light ethos.

If you are a bulletin board wanker, check out http://www.crag.com. The ultimate wanker board for climbers.

And of course the absolute best non-climbing literature is by Tom Clancy (IMHO).

[Uncle_Tricky]

Hayduke Lives is not nearly as good as Monkeywrench--its raw and bitter and lacks the humor of the original. It reads like a rushed rough draft written by a dying man angry that his life was over before he was ready to go. Which it was--Abbey wrote it in the last month or two of his life and died before he fully completed the book or even had the chance to edit it. Still worth reading if you're a real Abbey fan though.

Though his strength was never fiction, I'd highly recommend a couple of his other fiction works: "Black Sun," a short bawdy love story and "A Fool's Progress," which is a great, sad, powerful and funny story that is also basically a fictionalized autobiography of his life. In my opinion his best work of fiction and you learn a lot about the man behind the writings.

Anyway, I'm in the process of building a shed\shop and dreaming about building a house someday, so I've been reading a lot of technical stuff recently--Building the Straw Bale House, A Pattern Language, The Solar House, Building Tiny Houses, etc.

One of my favorite fiction authors I've read recently is T. Coraghessen Boyle. His "Budding Propects" is a hilarous story about three guys trying to get rich in a season by cultivating a huge crop of weed in Norcal. The various misadventures they experience along the way with bears, cops, women, weather and hillbilly neighbors will have you laughing out loud. If you like rolling hysterically, fire up a fattie and crack open this book.

[This message has been edited by Uncle Tricky (edited 10-21-2001).]

[texplorer]

The moral of this post:

Everyone has an opinion on what is "good" to read and wants everyone else to read what they like. I agree, yall should all read alot more. Intellectualize your feeble little minds and leave real climbing to me! Teee hee

[EddieE]

Philfort - You sure that wasn't Smoot's book?

[sexual_chocolate]

Uncle Tricky. I see your interest in straw-bale houses. Do you know of a Joe and Tracy, over in the Mazama area? Two old friends I've lost touch with. They're building either a straw-bale or earth house, somewhere over there.

[pope]

What do I read? Thanks for caring! I read Climbing Magazine! But I like dessert before meat and potatoes, so I always flip to my favorite section first...right up front, just after "Hot Flashes", there's a column with neat little tidbits, human-interest stories about our pebble-crimping, back-stepping, sequence-miming heroes. You learn about who's getting married, who's having a baby, who's dating Billy Back-step's X-girlfriend, who broke from their strict diet and had a slice of chocolate cake before astonishing the Euros on the World-Cup circuit. These bits of trivia and entertaining anecdotes make the stars of this sport seem more human, like they could be your buddy. I think next time Sharma's in town I'm going to tell him what a great interview he gives and how he's inspired me to push my personal envelope. Maybe he'll let me belay him!

[sexual_chocolate]

pope. It sounds like no one has really taken the time to spend some quality time with you, sport-climbing!

I understand it can be a little intimidating at first, but with personal support and proper coaching, I'm sure you'd really enjoy it!

I actually am a sport-climbing coach, so if you want some pointers, let me know, and I'll help you out, free of charge.

[pope]

OK, don't tell anybody, but I've always wanted to learn to comb my hair in the middle of a drop-knee move. I too am a coach, and I understand that some skills just aren't coachable. Think you can help?

[Dru]

one time, i was down in zion, bumming around in the rain after bailing on a wall route*, and i found a copy of ed abbey's desert solitaire in a mormon thrift store - after i read it i understtod how privileged i was to see rain in the desert. didn't feel so bummed anymore.

* it is scary when you see the rock soften to the point where the nut you are standing on starts to track out...

[Uncle_Tricky]

Choco-latte--names don't ring a bell. If you even get in touch with them tho, I'd be interested in taking a look at their place. The Methow has more straw bale houses than any other area in the NW--something like 10 or 12 of em. I've had the chance to tour a few of the houses in the valley and have been really impressed. Properly done and combined with passive solar design, you'll have a house that is warm in winter, cool in summer, long-lasting and unique. Perfect for a relatively dry climate like the Methow which has large temp swings over the course of the year. For now, I'm just trying to get an illegally habitable shed up before the winter sets in...judging from the weather this week, I may be too late...

[jordo]

Ever notice that when you read a guide or a climbing magazine, your palms start to sweat and you have to go to the can cause you're anticipating actually climbing? That's why I keep my climbing library in the bathroom; it keeps me regular. At the same time, reading language and literacy theory textbooks at UBC constipates me, so I have this perfect balance in my life. I could do my masters degree on the psychosomatic effects of language. Sort of reminds me of this really hot summer in Bishop where my partner and I got really constipated eating too much cheese, then we ate too many prunes and got the runs. Back and forth.

[nolanr]

I actually liked Hayduke Lives! more than Monkeywrench Gang. I got the impression much of Abbey's fiction contains elements of truth, both events that have taken place and characters that bear resemblance to real people. I prefer Abbey's collections of essays, Desert Solitaire was pretty good, Down the River and Beyond the Wall (might not have the titles quite right) were also good. I enjoy his writing and it makes me yearn to see some of the desert southwest/canyon country, but I think I'll always love mountains more.

[Retrosaurus]

I enjoyed "A Fools Progress" more than any or Abbey's other works. Absolutely fun reading with a strong feeling that it is more than fiction.