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Favorite climbing book?


Blake

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how about the all time best book ever: the mountains of my life, Walter Bonatti!!!!! The Best by Far!!

 

I nearly agree, but go back to the originals. find and read On the Heights (1961, English translation 1964) and The Great Days (1971, English translation 1974). more stories, simply told and extremely powerful, written by the great man in his prime.

and less of the anguished ego than in Mountains of my Life. the "K2: The End of an Odyssey" section of the later book almost destroyed my climbing-career-long mental model of Bonatti as THE exemplar of mountaineering.

let it GO, Walter, let it go!

 

cheers,

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Thank you for stopping lurking and making a first post vwfanatic. Always nice to hear new voices.

 

That out of the way, I thought Fall of the Phantom Lord was one of the worst books I have ever tried to read. What a shit pile. If I wanted to read a book about Andrew Todhunter's masturbatory self centered narcissisism I would have had a different opinion. But honestly that book is 95% about Todhunter and 5% about Osman.

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masturbatory self centered narcissisism

If we're on that subject "Mountains of the Mind" Robert Mcfarland. A graduate thesis expanding into a book by adding a condscending narrative of how he's so much better than most climber's because he doesn't do hard climbs anymore.

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What's the one the Alaska aerial photo guy wrote about his trip that was published recently or something. Anybody know what the hell I'm talking about? Because I don't. I bought it for my brother last xmas on the theory that he'd bring it to the beach and I'd read it, but it didn't work out that way...

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On the Ridge Between Life and Death : A Climbing Life Reexamined, by David Roberts.

 

Not only does Roberts make one open his eyes to the risks inherent in climbing, he tells unbelievable stories of his expeditions in Alaska and Canada.

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On the Ridge Between Life and Death : A Climbing Life Reexamined, by David Roberts.

 

...... Roberts make one open his eyes to the risks inherent in climbing....

 

The abstract of that idea alone is enough to put me to sleep. Who cares, that kind of stuff is for people whos idea of climbing is climbing out of bed in the morning.

 

Like most of the books mentioned. Nobody mentions White Spider?

 

Book I loved 30 years ago was " James Ramsey Ulman, "Banner in the Sky".

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I tend to agree that the title, alone, doesn't suggest that it's a compelling read.

 

Be that as it may be, this guy put up first ascents in Alaska, which, at the time, were the hardest routes being put up. Roberts recounts his expeditions in incredible detail, and its absorbing reading.

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