“No Shortcuts to the Top” is not a book about a single expedition but an autobiography of climber Ed Viesturs (pub. 2006). He was, of course, the first American to climb all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks in the world without using bottled oxygen.
You can accomplish something like that, he explains, by breaking such a large goal into small pieces. Sometimes it’s as small as trying to reach the rock 40 feet away. “It’s only by nibbling away at those immense distances that you can achieve the whole,” he wrote.
As with any mountain, a frequent question is “Why?”
He answers: “There’s an immense pleasure in getting all this business down to a science, in carrying out the climb of an 8,000er as efficiently and safely as humanly possible. And there is nothing else in life like getting to the summit. What’s more, I’ve always felt that the greater the challenge, the greater the reward.”
Viesturs also spends several pages going into detail about what a mountain climbers wears and carries, as well as the day-to-day drudgery of a long expedition – details I haven’t seen explained in other mountain books.
Viesturs also played a part in helping keep the 1996 Everest disaster from being worse than it was. (Unrelated but interesting, he got married shortly before that Everest trip.)
That particular venture was part of making an IMAX film with David Breashears, a laborious task with heavy equipment made even more difficult at altitude. There’s a nice little reference to having to re-shoot a short segment, referred to as “the highest take two in the world.”
At another point, Viesturs gives a good explanation of altitude’s effects on the body. In his case, besides a strong work ethic, testing determined that he was very high on the scale of being able to function in thin air with little oxygen, plus having a larger than normal lung capacity.
Stats time (I like stats): We hear about the famous mountains but Viesturs point out the ratio of climbers who reached a summit to the number of climbers who died, through 2003, was 7:1 on Everest, 3:1 on K2, and only 2:1 on Annapurna.
Annapurna was Viesturs’ last of the 14 big ones to successfully climb, and it took a couple attempts. Reaching that summit with partner Veikka Gustafsson, “We hugged each other hard. I couldn’t speak, I was so choked up. But I didn’t have the emotional flood I’d expected . . . (we) sat there for long moments, as I tried to comprehend that my dream of eighteen years had at last come true.”
He did it, in small pieces at a time. And then in true Viesturs fashion: “The climb of Annapurna was only half over. Never had getting down been more mandatory.”
One more interesting point from the book is a short discussion of how the Internet became a part of mountain climbing. Some 50 years earlier, it could be as much as two weeks before news of a climber reaching a summit made it back to the general population. Now, it’s possible to monitor expeditions with constant updates sent right from the mountain itself.
Mouth-watering Omaha Steaks
Showing posts with label mountains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mountains. Show all posts
Friday, March 28, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Book review: 'The Mountain'
As a follow-up to Jon Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air,” we go to the other side of the mountain in Ed Viesturs’s “The Mountain” (pub. 2013).
In the Mount Everest tragedy of 1996 in which five climbers died, Viesturs was with a nearby group on a film project and assisted in saving some of those who did survive. He briefly recounts that experience along with several other trips to the highest point on earth, plus a history of some of Everest’s other significant moments.
In all, Viesturs calculated he spent two and a half years on Mount Everest over 15 expeditions. Maybe he made it that many times because of a sincere concern for safety. He emphasizes: “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”
True, because it is relatively common for climbers who reach a summit like Everest to die on the way down for a variety of reasons. Getting there really is only half the trip. It’s not uncommon either for climbers to come across the frozen bodies of those who have gone before them.
That said, the summit is still the prize. Viesturs: “Then, all at once, I realized there was nowhere higher up to go. I’d reached the summit of Mount Everest . . . At that moment, there was no one on earth who stood higher than I did.”
On the ‘96 trip after the tragedy, Viesturs recounts one of the hardest experiences of his life being passing the bodies of friends Rob Hall and Scott Fischer on the way to the summit: “On the way down, I stopped and sat beside each of them, as I struggled with my emotions. Sitting next to Scott’s frozen body at 27,300 feet, I couldn’t help speaking out loud to him. ‘Hey, Scott,’ I said, ‘how are you doing?’ Of course, there was no answer but the wind. ‘What happened, man?’”
On a brighter note, Viesturs tells about the American Mount Everest Expedition in 1963, a massive undertaking costing today’s equivalent of millions of dollars. But in those days, getting the first American ascent of Everest ranked not far below putting the first man on the moon.
Since then, of course, climbs to the top of the world have become a tourism boom with sometimes dozens of climbers reaching the summit on the same day as part of guided commercial trips. It’s actually an added danger to climbing that a popular mountain becomes so crowded that the slow-movers are an additional hazard for the faster ones.
Man keeps trying to up the ante, in finding new routes, climbing with less equipment, during a new season, or anything to distinguish the effort from what has been done before.
Viesturs tells of climber Erhard Loretan toying with the idea of trying a parapente in 1986 – a sort of wing/parachute device – to sail off a cliff to a valley below. Loretan reconsidered from jumping off Everest’s summit at the time, although the feat was accomplished a couple years later by Jean-Marc Bolvin.
Loretan did try the equipment in another setting and his description is priceless: “Between a flight and a fall, the only difference has to do with its duration. If you fall for a long time, it’s a flight. If you fly only briefly, it’s a fall.”
In the Mount Everest tragedy of 1996 in which five climbers died, Viesturs was with a nearby group on a film project and assisted in saving some of those who did survive. He briefly recounts that experience along with several other trips to the highest point on earth, plus a history of some of Everest’s other significant moments.
In all, Viesturs calculated he spent two and a half years on Mount Everest over 15 expeditions. Maybe he made it that many times because of a sincere concern for safety. He emphasizes: “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”
True, because it is relatively common for climbers who reach a summit like Everest to die on the way down for a variety of reasons. Getting there really is only half the trip. It’s not uncommon either for climbers to come across the frozen bodies of those who have gone before them.
That said, the summit is still the prize. Viesturs: “Then, all at once, I realized there was nowhere higher up to go. I’d reached the summit of Mount Everest . . . At that moment, there was no one on earth who stood higher than I did.”
On the ‘96 trip after the tragedy, Viesturs recounts one of the hardest experiences of his life being passing the bodies of friends Rob Hall and Scott Fischer on the way to the summit: “On the way down, I stopped and sat beside each of them, as I struggled with my emotions. Sitting next to Scott’s frozen body at 27,300 feet, I couldn’t help speaking out loud to him. ‘Hey, Scott,’ I said, ‘how are you doing?’ Of course, there was no answer but the wind. ‘What happened, man?’”
On a brighter note, Viesturs tells about the American Mount Everest Expedition in 1963, a massive undertaking costing today’s equivalent of millions of dollars. But in those days, getting the first American ascent of Everest ranked not far below putting the first man on the moon.
Since then, of course, climbs to the top of the world have become a tourism boom with sometimes dozens of climbers reaching the summit on the same day as part of guided commercial trips. It’s actually an added danger to climbing that a popular mountain becomes so crowded that the slow-movers are an additional hazard for the faster ones.
Man keeps trying to up the ante, in finding new routes, climbing with less equipment, during a new season, or anything to distinguish the effort from what has been done before.
Viesturs tells of climber Erhard Loretan toying with the idea of trying a parapente in 1986 – a sort of wing/parachute device – to sail off a cliff to a valley below. Loretan reconsidered from jumping off Everest’s summit at the time, although the feat was accomplished a couple years later by Jean-Marc Bolvin.
Loretan did try the equipment in another setting and his description is priceless: “Between a flight and a fall, the only difference has to do with its duration. If you fall for a long time, it’s a flight. If you fly only briefly, it’s a fall.”
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Book review: 'Into Thin Air'
“Into Thin Air” – by Jon Krakauer (pub. 1997)
On Mount Everest in 1996, twelve men and women died on the mountain within a few days – the result of a storm moving in as several climbing expeditions were all trying to get to the top at once.
Climber-author Krakauer was there on assignment for Outside magazine to report on the commercialization of mountain climbing. Because of the economic tourism benefits, Everest and other popular mountains have become magnets for adventuresome wannabes who pay many thousands of dollars for guided trips to places like the highest point in the world.
Coincidently, with the Walter Mitty movie out, Krakauer twice makes references to Mitty types in this book, contrasting dreams and reality.
This is a fascinating work, with gut-wrenching honesty about survival and later self-doubt about what could have been done differently to save others (nothing).
Along the way are several deep insights:
• “Once Everest was determined to be the highest summit on earth, it was only a matter of time before people decided that Everest needed to be climbed.” Climber George Leigh Mallory explained it tersely: “Because it is there.”
• the mechanics of crossing the Icefall: “. . . the ability to tiptoe in mountaineering boots and crampons across three wobbly ladders lashed end to end, bridging a sphincter-clenching chasm. There were many such crossings, and I never got used to them.”
• Passing by a body and a half on the way up: “The first body had left me badly shaken for several hours; the shock of encountering the second wore off almost immediately.”
• Being a guided client instead of a climber, Krakauer observed: “the most rewarding aspects of mountaineering derive from the sport’s emphasis on self-reliance, on making critical decisions and dealing with the consequences, on personal responsibility. When you sign on as a client, I discovered, you are forced to give up all of that . . . a responsible guide will always insist on calling the shots . . . he can’t afford to let each client make important decisions independently.”
• While the toll of 12 deaths in spring 1996 was the worst single-season since climbing Everest began 75 years earlier, Krakauer later is able to look at the statistics another way: “The 12 fatalities amounted to only 3 percent of the 398 climbers who ascended higher than Base Camp – which is actually slightly below the historical fatality rate of 3.3 percent . . . between 1921 and May 1996, 144 people died and the peak was climbed some 630 times – a ratio of one in four. Last spring [1996], 12 climbers died and 84 reached the summit – a ratio of one in seven. Compared to these historical standards, 1996 was actually a safer-than-average year.”
• And finally: “Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet . . . now that I was finally here, actually standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn’t summon the energy to care.”
On Mount Everest in 1996, twelve men and women died on the mountain within a few days – the result of a storm moving in as several climbing expeditions were all trying to get to the top at once.
Climber-author Krakauer was there on assignment for Outside magazine to report on the commercialization of mountain climbing. Because of the economic tourism benefits, Everest and other popular mountains have become magnets for adventuresome wannabes who pay many thousands of dollars for guided trips to places like the highest point in the world.
Coincidently, with the Walter Mitty movie out, Krakauer twice makes references to Mitty types in this book, contrasting dreams and reality.
This is a fascinating work, with gut-wrenching honesty about survival and later self-doubt about what could have been done differently to save others (nothing).
Along the way are several deep insights:
• “Once Everest was determined to be the highest summit on earth, it was only a matter of time before people decided that Everest needed to be climbed.” Climber George Leigh Mallory explained it tersely: “Because it is there.”
• the mechanics of crossing the Icefall: “. . . the ability to tiptoe in mountaineering boots and crampons across three wobbly ladders lashed end to end, bridging a sphincter-clenching chasm. There were many such crossings, and I never got used to them.”
• Passing by a body and a half on the way up: “The first body had left me badly shaken for several hours; the shock of encountering the second wore off almost immediately.”
• Being a guided client instead of a climber, Krakauer observed: “the most rewarding aspects of mountaineering derive from the sport’s emphasis on self-reliance, on making critical decisions and dealing with the consequences, on personal responsibility. When you sign on as a client, I discovered, you are forced to give up all of that . . . a responsible guide will always insist on calling the shots . . . he can’t afford to let each client make important decisions independently.”
• While the toll of 12 deaths in spring 1996 was the worst single-season since climbing Everest began 75 years earlier, Krakauer later is able to look at the statistics another way: “The 12 fatalities amounted to only 3 percent of the 398 climbers who ascended higher than Base Camp – which is actually slightly below the historical fatality rate of 3.3 percent . . . between 1921 and May 1996, 144 people died and the peak was climbed some 630 times – a ratio of one in four. Last spring [1996], 12 climbers died and 84 reached the summit – a ratio of one in seven. Compared to these historical standards, 1996 was actually a safer-than-average year.”
• And finally: “Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet . . . now that I was finally here, actually standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn’t summon the energy to care.”
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Book review: The Big Open
“The Big Open” by Rick Ridgeway (pub. 2004). Remember, reading books about mountain climbing makes living through a Minnesota winter pale in comparison.
This one isn’t about climbing, but about climbers on a month-long trek through remote Tibet in search of migration routes and calving grounds of the chiru, a type of antelope. May not sound suspenseful, but the observations, thoughts, and feelings are a good read.
The trekkers are:
• Ridgeway, who was among the first Americans to summit K2 some 25 years earlier.
• renowned photographer/climber Galen Rowell. Sadly, unknown at the tim, this turned out to be Rowell’s last expedition before he and his wife died in a plane crash a few weeks after the trek.
• Conrad Anker, professional mountaineer.
• Jimmy Chin, 28, the youngster of the group.
Unlike some other expeditions, this group got along amazingly well while they traversed the wilderness to find the chiru and extend the research of wildlife biologist George Schaller. Their goal was to document aspects of the chiru to reduce or eliminate pouching of the animal before it went extinct – hides were used for expensive shahtoosh scarves. They built their own rickshaws to carry about 250 pounds of gear and supplies each for their walk across nowhere.
Some samples:
• After a long day of traveling, Ridgeway was exhausted and worried about getting pneumonia. The group debates whether to set up camp or go further. Rowell offers to scout ahead and takes off running, returning in a jog half an hour later. Ridgeway: “We have been pulling our rickshaws for ten hours. For the last four hours we have been trudging uphill at an elevation above 17,000 feet. Galen is 62 years old. How does he do it?”
• Dramatic point: crossing what they named the Gorge of Despair, they hear Rowell scream and start thinking about how badly injured he might be and that there’s no help whatsoever in the isolated area, only to find he had slipped and his camera got wet.
• After finding the sought-after chiru calving grounds, the men split up for a day in different directions. Ridgeway, without a camera, comes within touching distance of a newborn. Back at camp, he mourns missing the opportunity to record the moment as the others say they didn’t get close – but later reveal the fantastic shots and video they actually did get.
With the mission complete, in the last 100 miles on the way out, what do you expect these guys to do? They stop to climb a mountain – a relatively smaller one that could be scaled and descended in two days, but one that also gave them an overview of the land they had just traversed.
After caching some of their supplies and equipment and heading for the mountain, they realized they left behind passports and $10,000 in cash to be used for transportation home. They looked around at the remote surroundings and lack of human habitation.
Ridgeway wrote: “We look at each other, shrug our shoulders, and keep going.”
Toward the end, Ridgeway and Rowell, both veterans of numerous expeditions, agreed this was one of their most fulfilling trips ever.
For more, see:
• photos and summary from National Geographic
• Ridgeway interview
• video on the trek
This one isn’t about climbing, but about climbers on a month-long trek through remote Tibet in search of migration routes and calving grounds of the chiru, a type of antelope. May not sound suspenseful, but the observations, thoughts, and feelings are a good read.
The trekkers are:
• Ridgeway, who was among the first Americans to summit K2 some 25 years earlier.
• renowned photographer/climber Galen Rowell. Sadly, unknown at the tim, this turned out to be Rowell’s last expedition before he and his wife died in a plane crash a few weeks after the trek.
• Conrad Anker, professional mountaineer.
• Jimmy Chin, 28, the youngster of the group.
Unlike some other expeditions, this group got along amazingly well while they traversed the wilderness to find the chiru and extend the research of wildlife biologist George Schaller. Their goal was to document aspects of the chiru to reduce or eliminate pouching of the animal before it went extinct – hides were used for expensive shahtoosh scarves. They built their own rickshaws to carry about 250 pounds of gear and supplies each for their walk across nowhere.
Some samples:
• After a long day of traveling, Ridgeway was exhausted and worried about getting pneumonia. The group debates whether to set up camp or go further. Rowell offers to scout ahead and takes off running, returning in a jog half an hour later. Ridgeway: “We have been pulling our rickshaws for ten hours. For the last four hours we have been trudging uphill at an elevation above 17,000 feet. Galen is 62 years old. How does he do it?”
• Dramatic point: crossing what they named the Gorge of Despair, they hear Rowell scream and start thinking about how badly injured he might be and that there’s no help whatsoever in the isolated area, only to find he had slipped and his camera got wet.
• After finding the sought-after chiru calving grounds, the men split up for a day in different directions. Ridgeway, without a camera, comes within touching distance of a newborn. Back at camp, he mourns missing the opportunity to record the moment as the others say they didn’t get close – but later reveal the fantastic shots and video they actually did get.
With the mission complete, in the last 100 miles on the way out, what do you expect these guys to do? They stop to climb a mountain – a relatively smaller one that could be scaled and descended in two days, but one that also gave them an overview of the land they had just traversed.
After caching some of their supplies and equipment and heading for the mountain, they realized they left behind passports and $10,000 in cash to be used for transportation home. They looked around at the remote surroundings and lack of human habitation.
Ridgeway wrote: “We look at each other, shrug our shoulders, and keep going.”
Toward the end, Ridgeway and Rowell, both veterans of numerous expeditions, agreed this was one of their most fulfilling trips ever.
For more, see:
• photos and summary from National Geographic
• Ridgeway interview
• video on the trek
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Books: mountain climbing and K2
To the Summit (and beyond)
After traveling to Colorado last year and realizing I couldn’t bring the mountains home with me, I did the next best thing and dug into books about mountains.
The first couple I found were pretty much travel guides to Colorado. Then I came across Joseph Poindexter’s “To the Summit,” an overview of 50 of the world’s most notable mountains with all kinds of beautiful photos, significant history notes, and interesting facts or stories about each one.
That set me off on a mental expedition to K2 through several other books (plus a couple fictional movies as well). Instead of finding out more about the Rocky Mountains, I ended up geographically on the other side of the world in the Himalayas – in fact, Denver and K2 are at nearly opposite points on the earth.
I didn’t read the books in order because I didn’t find discover them in order, but here’s a list in the chronological sequence I would recommend (and someday will repeat).
Each (except Messner’s) is as well written as a best-selling novel, but tells the dramatic stories of climbing and/or "failing" on the world’s second-highest and most brutal mountain. For mountain climbers, it's considered failure not to reach the summit, even only by a few hundred yards. I suppose, like losing the Super Bowl on a last-second field goal, it's recorded as a loss, but discounts all the success it took to get that close.
I also found that reading these books makes Minnesota winters much more tolerable – after picturing climbers stuck in a tent at 20,000 feet for several days to wait out a blizzard, it doesn’t seem so bad to walk from the office to a cold vehicle at 10-below.
• “The Last Man on the Mountain: the Death of an American Adventurer on K2” (Jennifer Jordan) – the 1939 American expedition led by Fritz Wiessner in which climber Dudley Wolfe died on the mountain; his remains were found by the author of this book 63 years later.
• “K2: The Savage Mountain” (Charles Houston and Bob Bates) – 1953 American expedition. Includes a harrowing incident in which while attempting to descend because of an ill and injured member of the party, six others slipped and fell but were saved by a heroic measure by one of the climbers.
• “In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods” (Galen Rowell) – the 1975 American expedition which didn’t come close to the summit. It’s still an insightful look into sport of climbing along with intriguing history of K2.
• “The Last Step: the American Ascent of K2” (Rick Ridgeway) – the 1978 American ascent, which was the first successful American expedition getting 4 climbers to the summit.
• “Addicted to Danger” (Jim Wickwire) – This book is about Wick’s career; he was one of the Americans who summitted in ‘79 and made it back, barely.
• “K2: Mountain of Mountains” (Reinhold Messner) Messner climbed K2 without oxygen. Maybe it’s a language barrier, but this one is tough to read.
After traveling to Colorado last year and realizing I couldn’t bring the mountains home with me, I did the next best thing and dug into books about mountains.
The first couple I found were pretty much travel guides to Colorado. Then I came across Joseph Poindexter’s “To the Summit,” an overview of 50 of the world’s most notable mountains with all kinds of beautiful photos, significant history notes, and interesting facts or stories about each one.
That set me off on a mental expedition to K2 through several other books (plus a couple fictional movies as well). Instead of finding out more about the Rocky Mountains, I ended up geographically on the other side of the world in the Himalayas – in fact, Denver and K2 are at nearly opposite points on the earth.
I didn’t read the books in order because I didn’t find discover them in order, but here’s a list in the chronological sequence I would recommend (and someday will repeat).
Each (except Messner’s) is as well written as a best-selling novel, but tells the dramatic stories of climbing and/or "failing" on the world’s second-highest and most brutal mountain. For mountain climbers, it's considered failure not to reach the summit, even only by a few hundred yards. I suppose, like losing the Super Bowl on a last-second field goal, it's recorded as a loss, but discounts all the success it took to get that close.
I also found that reading these books makes Minnesota winters much more tolerable – after picturing climbers stuck in a tent at 20,000 feet for several days to wait out a blizzard, it doesn’t seem so bad to walk from the office to a cold vehicle at 10-below.
• “The Last Man on the Mountain: the Death of an American Adventurer on K2” (Jennifer Jordan) – the 1939 American expedition led by Fritz Wiessner in which climber Dudley Wolfe died on the mountain; his remains were found by the author of this book 63 years later.
• “K2: The Savage Mountain” (Charles Houston and Bob Bates) – 1953 American expedition. Includes a harrowing incident in which while attempting to descend because of an ill and injured member of the party, six others slipped and fell but were saved by a heroic measure by one of the climbers.
• “In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods” (Galen Rowell) – the 1975 American expedition which didn’t come close to the summit. It’s still an insightful look into sport of climbing along with intriguing history of K2.
• “The Last Step: the American Ascent of K2” (Rick Ridgeway) – the 1978 American ascent, which was the first successful American expedition getting 4 climbers to the summit.
• “Addicted to Danger” (Jim Wickwire) – This book is about Wick’s career; he was one of the Americans who summitted in ‘79 and made it back, barely.
• “K2: Mountain of Mountains” (Reinhold Messner) Messner climbed K2 without oxygen. Maybe it’s a language barrier, but this one is tough to read.
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