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jakepramsey
Trad climber
Yosemite, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 19, 2018 - 10:12am PT
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I’m looking for the best books to learn about Climbing history and those who came before me. Also any good stories would be appreciated.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Feb 19, 2018 - 10:21am PT
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De Saussure - Voyages dans les Alpes in 4 volumes
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Feb 19, 2018 - 10:48am PT
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Recent and Decent, find PDH online.
A Youth Wasted Climbing by David Chaundy-Smart.
Beginning paragraph of the introduction:
On a planet bursting with worn-out widgets and increasingly uniform experiences, clambering up hard rock, loose stone, and brittle ice remains an essentially misunderstood, exotic and intensely unique experience. When indulged in properly, serious climbing amounts to a tremendous waste of resources, potential and time. It has no economic value for its participants, and under the right circumstances, it remains a foolish and dangerous pastime that consolidates friendships and ends marriages. Naturally, those attributes are part of its appeal.
Seek out the books published by Gollancz Books in the sixties about Terray, Patey, and other legends.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Feb 19, 2018 - 12:53pm PT
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Two excellent options would be the omnibus collections, One Step in the Clouds(fiction), and Mirrors in the Cliffs(non-fiction). Both have some excellent writing, and a wide variety of classic short pieces on all sort of different types of climbing.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Feb 19, 2018 - 01:38pm PT
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Doug Scott: "Big Wall Climbing"
Chris Jones: "Climbing in North America"
Steve (Crusher) Bartlett: "Desert Towers"
Three of the best sources of climbing history you'll find. The first two are probably out of print, but should be available used on Amazon, while Crusher's book is relatively recent and available new.
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Cancer Boy
Trad climber
Freedonia
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Feb 19, 2018 - 06:35pm PT
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The obvious choice: Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage aka The Lonely Challenge, Herman Buhl. Maybe more mountaineering than climbing but a must read. Fuel for generations of climbers.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Feb 19, 2018 - 06:36pm PT
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Roper's Camp 4
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Feb 19, 2018 - 06:37pm PT
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The obvious choice: Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage aka The Lonely Challenge, Herman Buhl. Maybe more mountaineering than climbing but a must read. Fuel for generations of climbers.
Absolutely!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Feb 19, 2018 - 07:47pm PT
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I’m looking for the best books to learn about Climbing history and those who came before me.
We all have different ideas about what "learning about climbing history" means. Words that resonate with me might leave you bored after one sentence. Or vice versa. Maybe you think climbing is a California thing, and anything that happened in France a hundred years ago -- or in Scotland seventy years ago or Canada thirty tears ago -- is, by definition, irrelevant.
But if you want the real deal, the history of what might be the most significant push into the future of climbing...
...order a copy of "Mountaineering in Scotland."
The prose is dated, but the climbing... Yeah, Bill Murray and his friends/partners pretty much invented serious winter climbing. Everyone who has swung an ice tool in the last eighty years climbs in his shadow and owes him a huge debt.
But he didn't climb in Yosemite Valley, so maybe he doesn't count...
...you decide.
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