Off Peak, by Patricia Glyn

Patricia Glyn writes of a much happier, later South African climb of Everest than the fraught 1996 expedition, in Off Peak: The Discovery Everest Expedition Diary. Her team, or rather the team she covers, heads to the Nepal side of Everest during the 2003 pre-monsoon anniversary season. Deshun Deysel returns, along with Sean Wisedale, Mark Disney, and a collection of climbers, a paramedic, and Glyn. They get off to a good start, make contributions to the stringing of the route, and are fortunate to have a somewhat average and uneventful climb of Everest, though with a surprise ending.

It's Glyn's writing, however, that makes this book worth the read. Though stuck in Base Camp, she makes the most of things with good humor and a some friendliness/nosiness with the other expeditions on the mountain. Her writing is deliberately un-adventurous, jokingly calling nights on the mountains "sleepovers" and commenting on the many ironic joys of the grand pastime of high-altitude mountaineering. She turns a relatively mundane (for Everest) Everest climb into a gem of the literature with her off-kilter style.

Even if they managed to get someone to the summit, this is not the expedition in which Sibusiso Vilane made his first climb of Everest. He summited as a part of the Jagged Globe commercial operation. See his To the Top from Nowhere for details on his climb.

The Will to Climb, by Richard Harris

Richard Harris writes about his climbs with his son, Christopher, including their quest for the Seven Summits and their attempt on Everest, in The Will to Climb. Christopher starts his climbing life early, becoming the youngest climber to scale Mount Cook, at 13, in 2002. Father and son climb together, working on higher and more technical mountains with an eye towards Everest. Sponsorship gets them to Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, and Aconcagua, before landing a last-minute gift that covers enough to get them, and a film crew, to Everest in 2006. Harris writes about his Everest experience in a diary-style, with daily entries and a blow-by-blow of events. Much of the narrative focuses on the author's experiences, though it's clear he has high regard for his son. Fate is not so kind to father and son on Everest, but their high-altitude cameraman, Lincoln Hall (originally famous for his 1984 Everest climb chronicled in White Limbo), gets the chance of a lifetime to climb to the summit with a cadre of their team's Sherpas. Ultimately, their team is but one of many dramas that Abramov's Seven Summits Club expedition faces, with deaths of climbers and near misses by others.

Hall, of course, has a great climb to the summit, but faces cerebral edema, madness, and seeming death on the trip back to high camp. (See his Dead Lucky for a first-person perspective.) Harris' team had the foresight to tape the radio traffic after things started getting out of hand, and he provides transcripts of the
English-language radio messages between the summit, Advanced Base Camp, and Base Camp. The story takes an odd twist as they discover that Hall is actually still alive the next day, but they are already on their way home, as they had planned on his safe return and being back to travel with them. Also, they had already informed Hall's family of his death, and had to contact them once again.

I was hoping to discover the further adventures of Christopher Harris online after reading this book, but alas, I'm out of luck. The youngest yet did manage to scale the Seven Summits in 2006---20-year-old Danielle Fisher. Jordan Romero would later, in 2010, climb Everest at 13 and finish his Seven Summits at 15, when all the red tape was cleared to get him to Vinson, in Antarctica. (See Katherine Blanc's The Boy Who Conquered Everest.)

Incredible Ascents to Everest, by Sumati Nagrath

Sumati Nagrath writes about some of the most inspiring climbs of the world's highest mountain in Incredible Ascents to Everest: Extraordinary stories of ascents from a blind man's success to a Sherpa's record 21 climbs; from the oldest on the mountain to one who was first to ski down Mt. Everest. This large, photographically-illustrated volume tells a selected history of climbing Mount Everest, in which a climb's inspirational value, rather than its technical challenges, warrants its inclusion. The author picks a great set, given these parameters, for a book that should appeal to a wide audience, with the most important climbs of Everest's history mixed in with some of its great stories. The chapters focus on individuals, such as Junko Tabei or Min Bahadur Sherchan, but Nagrath includes a number of other notable climbers alongside, including Tamae Watanabe and Davo Karnicar. I like the international scope of this book, as so many Everest histories are Anglo-centric, and I appreciate Nagrath's attention to detail in her storytelling. The book is well-formatted, with an interesting mix of text, full-page photographs, quotes from climbers, and sub-sections. I found this book both entertaining and well-informed. Enjoy!

The Mountain: My Time on Everest, by Viesturs and Roberts

Ed Viesturs, with David Roberts, writes about his ten expeditions to the world's highest mountain, along with a commentary on selected climbs throughout its history, in The Mountain: My Time on Everest: The Irresistible Lure of the World's Highest Peak. The book follows much of the same pattern as his two earlier volumes, on K2 and Annapurna (K2 and The Will to Climb), in that he relates his own experiences on the mountain in question (and others) to many of the great climbs of the past, and he gives much fuller details of his own expeditions to the mountain than in his No Shortcuts to the Top, the tale of his climbing the fourteen 8000-meter peaks.

I appreciated getting full details on his early climbs, including ones that did not get him to the summit. His trip to the Kangshung Face gets a lot of attention, especially his wavering back and forth, as a relatively young climber, between going for it despite the dangers and listening to his survival instincts. His first attempt, via the Great Couloir, that got him within 300 meters of the summit, establishes his abilities at altitude; I had no idea previously that it was a paid-for trip by a group of Arkansas climbers, who decided that some professional guides might make great substitutes for Sherpa. His solo attempt, via the Japanese Couloir, is more than just a bum trip, but rather a trial against horrendous snow conditions and the limits of his mountaineering instincts. More details of the 1990 International Peace climb emerge, in which Viesturs makes the summit for the first time, without supplementary oxygen.

His commercial trips, including his guiding climbs in the early and mid 90s, his film projects, and his Eddie Bauer climb, also come to life. He leaves the details of his 1996 IMAX climb to his earlier works, but he writes considerably more detail on his two early Everest guiding trips, such as how he ended up climbing to the summit without oxygen after his client was too exhausted to continue on his first guided expedition, and his good impression of Erling Kagge, the first to reach the "three poles" under his own power (You may remember that Edmund Hillary drove a tractor to the South Pole, and took a flight with Neil Armstrong to the North Pole...), on his second. His 1997 NOVA climb sounds like a lot more fun than he originally portrayed it, and the crowds during his recent climbs sound like more of a problem than he wanted to admit earlier. Even so, Viesturs doesn't knock commercial climbing, or even say that having so many people on the mountain is necessarily wrong.

His history is perhaps a little more ordinary than his two previous books covering a single mountain. While he can get away with picking favorites while relating the history of K2 or Annapurna (since they've overall had considerably fewer climbs and their histories are familiar to quite few), Everest has an established timeline for English-speaking audiences that's a bit hard to ignore. He gives credit to Mallory's mountaineering judgement on the 1921 reconnaissance, though less so in subsequent years. He's impressed by Norton's great effort in 1924. Shipton and Tilman's minimalist ethic catches his attention for the 1930s, stating that if they'd just had better weather in 1938, the history of high-altitude climbing might have been completely different. The 1963 American ascent, via the West Ridge, impresses him as one of the most daring and phenomenal climbs in Everest's history. He also discusses the historical canon of China's two North Ridge climbs, Bonington's Southwest Face climbs, Messner and Habeler's bottle-free ascent, and Messner's return to climb Everest solo. I'm glad he took time to add to the English-language record with his descriptions of the 1980 Polish winter ascent and Loretan and Troillet's 1986 40-hour midnight dash to the summit (See Loretan's Den Bergen Verfallen.). I appreciate that even if Viesturs and Loretan have completely opposite climbing styles, that Viesturs can still show a lot of respect for Loretan's achievements in the mountains. Though I'm grateful for the foreign-language information he did cover, I'm a bit sad he didn't continue on and perhaps discuss the Soviet climb of the Southwest Pillar, the Yugoslav or Bulgarian West Ridge Direct climbs, or the Japanese climbs of either the North Face or the Northeast Ridge Direct. He does help the world out a bit, by bringing attention to the two American climbs on the Kangshung Face in 1981 and 1983, which culminated in six climbers making the summit. Then again, his own Great Couloir climb would have made a lovely parallel to the Australians' climb in 1984, and his Kangshung Face climb would have made an interesting comparison to the 1988 climb nearby by an incredibly small team of four.

I enjoyed this book. I appreciate reading a highly-experienced climber's opinion on the history of Everest, and I'll take whatever I can get. Since I have read so much about Everest already, I most enjoyed getting the gritty on Viesturs' less-vaunted attempts. His history is pretty accurate, and his analysis makes sense. This might be a book directed towards previous Viesturs/Roberts readers, but it is certainly accessible to anyone who's read a climbing book or two. I'm looking forward to more collaborations by Viesturs and Roberts in the future. Hope you like it!

No Place but UP!, by Lance S. Fox

Lance S. Fox, veterinarian from Wisconsin, achieves the summit of his dreams in No Place but UP! An unlikely adventure, his tale chronicles his journey from a novice climber, who experienced altitude sickness climbing Colorado Fourteeners, to a determined father who shows his kids that no dream is too high. He, like several modern Everest climbers, first dreamed about climbing Everest after reading about the troubled 1996 season. A shortage of mountains in Wisconsin sends him to Colorado, Washington, and Mexico for his early mountain experiences, before he skips straight to Everest, with the blessing of Russell Brice. He also has the fortune to find a sponsor to cover his expenses for his climb with Himex in 2009, and to become a part of the Everest: Beyond the Limit television program. In addition to achieving his dream, Fox seeks to help the Sherpa people, using his talents as a veterinarian specializing in cattle to treat hundreds of yaks, both before his climb and on a return to Everest base camp in 2011. 

The climbing goes well, at least for Fox. Brice's operation, relatively new to Nepal, shows what comfort and caution can mean on the south side of Everest. They head up Lobuche Peak, rather than the Khumbu Icefall for early acclimatization runs, the route is strung all the way to the summit (including double lines for technical sections) before any paying climbers head to the top, and the climbers use three, rather than two, oxygen tanks as a norm on summit day. Fox encounters the crowds that are typical of a climb high on Everest lately, and he deals with his many fellow climbers genially, if at times nervously. He feeds on the social aspect of climbing, and makes many lasting friends among his teammates, though his climb strains one already established friendship. He also gets to meet his climbing hero, Ed Viesturs (author of The Mountain: My Time on Everest---look for a review soon!), who climbs in 2009 as a part of the First Ascent Eddie Bauer promotional climb. Fox tells his story well, and has a great attitude---a great first book and first climb.

Everest: Legendary Victors and Vanquished, by Peter Sherwood

Peter Sherwood puts together a small volume on a big mountain in Everest: Legendary Victors and Vanquished. He writes about the history of climbing Mount Everest, focusing on three important seasons: 1924, 1953, and 1996. Though the book is tiny (smaller dimensions than a trade paperback, and 100 pages long), it is chock-full of color photographs, both historical and modern, that accompany Sherwood's prose. He writes about the expeditions intelligently, though not in detail, doing a good job not to focus on heroes or oversimplify. The photographs are a good set, beautifully printed (Thank you, Sherwood for using so many of Noel's hand-colored slides for 1924!), that add quite a bit of color to the limited text. A great book for a gentle introduction to the phenomenon of Everest!

Alive in the Death Zone, by Lincoln Hall

Lincoln Hall, the famous Everest author and survivor, writes a narrative of his climbs for older children in Alive in the Death Zone. Hall ties in his climbing biography to an introduction to Mount Everest to create an exciting storyline that teaches. While he brings to life his climbs of gradually higher and more technical mountains (including features on his climbs on Dunagiri, Annapurna II, and his two climbs on Everest), he also relates some of the history of climbing Everest, the challenges of high-altitude mountaineering, and a bit of the cultural geography of the Everest region.

The largest part of the book focuses on his 2006 climb to the summit of Everest, his near-death experience below the Second Step on the Northeast Ridge, and his rescue and against-the-odds survival. He tells of the expedition in good detail for young readers, in a style that's easy to understand, but not dumbed-down. His focus is slightly different than his adult-readers' memoir of the event, Dead Lucky, with a more journalistic approach that describes many things that adults often take for granted, such as why a tent with a certain shape works better, or the utility of acclimatization. I appreciated his frank writing on his overnight ordeal and the results of his mortification. I found it curious, but perhaps appropriate, that he left out some of the more gruesome details of his troubled rescue.

I'm a huge fan of this book. Not only does it work an exciting story into the often tedious task of introducing Everest, but also it tantalizes with quality prose and images. The book is suffused with Hall's (and others') photography---often first-rate action shots or mountain landscapes, with some documentary photographs that bring the story to life. The format and printing are high-quality, and there's even a visual reference guide for the technical equipment he uses on his climbs. Finally! An Everest book for kids that has it all!

Wo die Schneeloewen Tanzen, by Peter Meier-Huesing

Peter Meier-Huesing writes about the unlikely adventure of a solo flight from England to India and an attempt on Everest in 1934 in Wo die Schneeloewen Tanzen: Maurice Wilsons Vergessene Everest-Besteigung. Meier-Huesing (writing in German, of course) takes Maurice Wilson's story and weaves it into a palatable narrative, adding dialogue within the history and providing background and a sense of place using the writings of earlier Everesters. The author quotes from Wilson's diary and letters, giving a good feeling for who he was and a bit of his personality. The book covers Wilson's upbringing, war experiences, his nomadic young-adulthood, his illness, and his quest to fly to Everest and climb to the summit to show the world the great power of faith, prayer, and fasting. Meier-Huesing shows that Wilson's war experiences had a profound effect on his future, as well as the overbearing expectations of a successful father.

The book is distinctive not only for its being in German. Meier-Huesing's use of dialogue, though interpretive rather than historical, adds quite a bit of flavor to the story and sorts out the attitude and determination within one of Everest's stranger suitors, such as in the back-and-forth between Wilson and the Abbot of Rongbuk. Also, of the three available book-length accounts (See Dennis Robert's I'll Climb Mount Everest Alone or Ruth Hanson's A Yorkshireman on Everest for the other two.), Meier-Huesing goes the farthest in describing the potential intimacy between Wilson and Enid Evans. Oppositely, he seems the least interested in the pre-history of his great conversion to his strange faith. This isn't my favorite of the three accounts, but it's a strong telling and a pleasant read. Hope you like it!

High, edited by Clint Willis

Clint Willis presents a grand collection of writing from the two highest mountains in the world in High: Stories of Survival from Everest and K2. Willis has a talent for picking good moments of exciting stories, and chooses a lot of winners in this book. In his introduction, he gives a brief history of climbing Everest and K2 for the uninitiated, which should do to give this stories some context. His excerpts are a pretty good size (from ten to thirty pages) and have a nice focus to them, whether presenting Matt Dickenson's summit climb on Everest, or Ed Webster's nightmarish descent of its Kangshung Face. Willis' K2 material includes excerpts from Houston and Bates' Five Miles High and The Savage Mountain, Bonatti's On the Heights, Galen Rowell's In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods, Rick Ridgeway's The Last Step, and Jim Haberl's K2: Dreams and Reality, and well as the articles "Bad Summer on K2," by Krakauer and Child and "The K2 Mystery" by David Roberts.

For Everest, Willis picks a good set. Smythe describes his attempt, in 1933, to climb alone below the Northeast Ridge, after leaving a sick Eric Shipton behind at their tent in Camp Six. Doug Scott and Dougal Haston tell of their 1975 climb, from the Rock Band on the Southwest Face to the summit and back (including a bivouac at the South Summit), in Everest the Hard Way. Brummie Stokes describes the progression of his frostbite injury, leading to amputation, in Soldiers and Sherpas: A Taste for Adventure. Chris Bonington and Charles Clarke tell of their waiting in vain for the return of Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker from their climb of the Pinnacles of the Northeast Ridge in 1982 in Everest: The Unclimbed Ridge. Alan Burgess and Jim Palmer describe the first tragedy to strike the Canadian team in 1982, with an avalanche striking climbers in the Khumbu Icefall, killing three Sherpa in Everest Canada: The Ultimate Challenge. Maria Coffey tells of her experiences in Lhasa and Xigatse on her way to Everest with Hillary Boardman to pay respects to their lost loves in Fragile Edge. Ed Webster escapes the Kangshung Face in 1988 with two of his team, in Snow in the Kingdom: My Storm Years on Everest. Matt Dickinson has a difficult climb to the summit in 1996, even in great conditions, after the tragedy of May 10/11, in The Other Side of Everest. I'm Highly grateful that there are no accounts of the 1953 summit climb here. While I'm a sap for Hornbein's account of 1963, it's a bit over-excerpted, and not here either. Thank you, Clint Willis.

Willis is also the author of The Boys of Everest: Chis Bonington and the Tragedy of Climbing's Greatest Generation, and the editor of Climb: Stories of Survival from Rock, Snow and Ice, Epic: Stories of Survival from the World's Highest Peaks, and Epics on Everest: Stories of Survival from the World's Highest Peak.

Everest, by the Royal Geographical Society

The Royal Geographical Society gives an exhibition of its photo archives from early expeditions to the world's highest mountain in Everest. This large volume contains images from 1921 to 1953 of the Society-supported expeditions (through the Mount Everest Committee), including several new to me and likely previously-unpublished. Though the bulk of the book, containing hundreds of images, rehashes the tried-and-true photographs that make up the canon of Everest photographic history, the sheer number of photos means that even the Everest aficionado will find something here to like, as well.

It seems like, with Lowe and Lewis-Jones' recent The Conquest of Everest, we have two photobooks serving the same purpose, but the Royal Geographical Society's work covers the early expeditions in addition to the 1953 (though in less detail than the first ascent), and the presentations on 1953 have different focuses. Conquest sticks to the action on the mountain in 1953, whereas Everest uses a more documentary style in its photo selections. Lowe's work serves additionally as a memoir, while RGS focuses on its photo presentation, excepting a short introduction by Jan Morris and a couple paragraphs on each of the expeditions. There are two wonderful images of Lowe on the Southeast Ridge in Everest, by the way, that you won't find in Conquest. 

It's amazing to think that these hundreds of photos are but a taste of the tens of thousands of images from Everest expeditions within the RGS' archives. I imagine they are capable of producing books on this scale of each individual expedition, instead of Everest's entire early history. I'm grateful for the many new images I experienced within Everest, but it also makes me hungry for more!  Perhaps in 2021, 2022, 2024....