Discussion Topic |
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 24, 2009 - 11:57pm PT
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Ed Drummond wrote this amazing piece about an epic FA of the Arch Wall on the Trolltind Wall in Norway,arguably Europe's largest. It first appeared in the 1973 Ascent. They were up there for three weeks and very nearly perished from exposure.
Ed is a poet and really draws the reader into marvellous layers of desperate emotion and details of the passage.
With all of Ed's wonderful wit and phrasing, this is my favorite short climbing story......Post up yours!
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Double D
climber
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Jan 25, 2009 - 12:08am PT
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Classic!
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jan 25, 2009 - 12:10am PT
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Just want to say Steve Grossman that I always so enjoy your Threads ! Great to meet you at the Nose Reunion. Lynne
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jan 25, 2009 - 12:14am PT
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I've always loved that one. But it's 10 pages. Somehow, I think that disqualifies it from the "Short Climbing Story" category. Even without the pictures it's still long.
Or maybe we live on different literary planets. If Ed's Troll Wall piece is your favorite short climbing story, what is your favorite long climbing story?
My favorite short one is a little thing Jim Sinclair wrote about thirty years ago. Can't remember where it was first published. Ascent? CAJ? I'll look for it and try to get it posted up here tomorrow.
D
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Jan 25, 2009 - 12:15am PT
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"How long will it take you to retrieve that?"
The account from, Summit(?), could have bee Off Belay™, maybe even Climbing™ about the Minnesotans climbing McCarthy West on Deto, is still one of my stand out faves. Last time I mentioned it, here, someone posted it.
"harder to shake than a Duluth winter."
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 25, 2009 - 12:18am PT
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A long piece, maybe, but not relative to a long climb and a long wall. Which is something you notice right away when you're at the base of Trollveggen.
Jim Sinclair's article is called "Sometimes You Know - Sometimes You Don't." It was in the Canadian Alpine Journal in 1974, and reprinted in Games Climbers Play. For me, the title says all that's needed.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 25, 2009 - 12:24am PT
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Well, let's throw it open to extended play, shall we!?! On the hunt for the elusive favorites......
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Jan 25, 2009 - 01:27am PT
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I remember that article like it was yesterday, one of the best ever. I eventually got there a few years later but it was a long and winding road. I took the train up from Oslo just for a look-see. Fortunately I didn't have to invoke any ploy other than "it is late October and pissing down." I could only see the top intermittently, at mid-day it was too dark to get a decent picture. It is the most sinister-looking place and, shudder, the choss! It looks like the whole thing is ready to come down anon. I camped at the base, but not too close, and listened to the rain-loosened missiles all night. They might have been loosened by Odin's goats pulling his chariot. What sort of man would brave that? I was humbled and happy to get back on the train.
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perswig
climber
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Jan 25, 2009 - 07:51am PT
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Dear god, that is some amazing, lyric writing. Thanks for scanning and posting.
Dale
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Michael Kennedy
Social climber
Carbondale, Colorado
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Jan 25, 2009 - 10:09am PT
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"Mirror, Mirror" - one of the all-time classics. Should be required reading.
"A Short Walk With Whillans" by Tom Patey is another must-read.
"Mind Games" by David Pagel may be the story Jaybro mentions (Climbing #85, August 1984). Hilarious and well worth finding.
Steve, thanks for getting these historical threads going, they bring back great memories and help keep some of the history alive.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 25, 2009 - 11:13am PT
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My pleasure, Michael! The history is what makes the ST so fun! So many great stories that just need a little bump!
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Jan 25, 2009 - 11:44am PT
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any length?
The Soloist's Diary, hands down.
followed by, 'One Green Bottle.'
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Otto, NC
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Jan 25, 2009 - 12:21pm PT
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Dave Pagel's hysterical account of driving back to Minnesota from Boulder is an all-time favorite of mine.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jan 25, 2009 - 12:34pm PT
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Drummond's Troll Wall story is an absolute classic, thanks to Steve for bringing it back
into daylight.
I read a lot as a young climber, with dreams far beyond my achievements. No piece of
writing influenced me as much, then or since, as Chuck Pratt's "The View from Deadhorse Point."
Steelmonkey kindly posted Pratt's article on SuperTopo a few years back. Interesting how
so much seminal writing first came out in Ascent.
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yo
climber
I drink your milkshake!
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Jan 25, 2009 - 01:14pm PT
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11/10
like Spinal Tap
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Jan 25, 2009 - 03:13pm PT
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How about "Midges"? I have to find date and author but some of you must remember this short, short gem set in the bogs of the northern UK.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 25, 2009 - 03:33pm PT
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"Midges" is in G.J.F. Dutton's "Nothing So Simple As Climbing". It may first have appeared in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, or something of the sort - Dutton was editor of a journal, too. And an extremely witty writer.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Jan 25, 2009 - 04:51pm PT
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" It's a 5.10 mantle into Heaven , brother."
Forgot about that one!
"Pneumanuts",
"He mumbled something about a new technique, then floated past the crack" from memory, but it was something like that.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jan 25, 2009 - 05:17pm PT
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Robin Smith's story "The Bat and the Wicked," about a Scottish FA with Dougal Haston, is
also among the best of the best. Maybe one of our scanmasters will bring that back to
the light too.
Tragic to lose such fine writers, climbers, people as Smith, Haston and Patey, so young.
"A whole generation of British alpinists," as one writer put it (there were many more as well).
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 25, 2009 - 07:02pm PT
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Along the lines of purposeful tribulations, another fine writer Sir Martin Conway, had this to say in Mountain Memories, 1920.
What would a man know about mountains who knew them only in days of cloudless peace? He that would "enter into the treasures of the snow" must wander in high places in Nature's many moods. When lightening is mated with the clouds, and when rain and snow-fall link earth and sky with silver cords, he must be a joyful onlooker and participant in the drama, even if he rejoice with trembling. To climb along a narrow beclouded ridge, when the gale sweeps across it and grasps at its crest, is a far more thrilling experience than to tread the slenderest arete in still air and clear sunshine. A tower of ice, whencesoever beheld, will be a brilliant thing, but the traveller who passes beneath one tottering to its fall will carry away a more vivid remembrance of its grandeur. Such sights and memories are unpurchasable treasures which have to be won. No written record can transfer them, nor are they easily to be erased by the passage of time.
I just bought the book and it has lots of great passages.
Hmmmm- This one's too short! Perhaps the next will be just right?!?
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jan 25, 2009 - 07:16pm PT
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"It's a 5.10 Mantle Into Heaven" get a vote from me, too.
On a longer, and more serious, side, I think my all-time favorite mountain writing was by William H Murray. "Mountaineering in Scotland" and "Undiscovered Scotland" are wonderful books describing an amazing and relatively unknown period of climbing history. There's a certain amount of writing by continental Europeans on the years on either side of WW II, but this is a pretty much unknown gem.
And as a side note, anyone who thinks he's hard is in for a major deflating. Bill Murray, and a couple of his friends, more or less invented serious winter mountaineering. Their climbs were perhaps the biggest single leap over previous generations ever made.
D
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 26, 2009 - 11:12am PT
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The Scottish winter is not for the faint in any regard. I haven't had the opportunity to dig into the Murray books but I have both that you mentioned. A whole world waiting patiently for you on the shelf!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jan 27, 2009 - 01:35am PT
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Steve
An interesting bit of history regarding Bill Murray's books is that while he'd done a fair bit of climbing before WWII, he hadn't written much. When the war started, he enlisted and was eventually posted to North Africa. Where he was captured and interned in a German prison camp.
To pass the time, and stay sane, he began writing about his climbing experience. As I understand it, he'd written pretty much all of what would eventually become "Mountaineering in Scotland" when his manuscript was taken from him and thrown away. Not long after that the war ended and he returned home, where he started the writing all over again.
D
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 27, 2009 - 01:55am PT
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W.H. Murray was a fine mountaineer, writer and man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Murray
His post-mortem autobiography is called "The Evidence of Things Not Seen", and is a treat to read. The title is taken from the Jewish/Christian/Arab scriptures, Hebrews 11:1.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 27, 2009 - 10:50am PT
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Thanks for the background!
I sometimes tell myself that I'm saving learning the guitar for an extended stay in jail, though I desire the one and not the other!
Order in the midst of chaos. Hardly the last to be saved by the written word!
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Thorgon
Big Wall climber
Sedro Woolley, WA
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Jan 27, 2009 - 11:54am PT
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Yet another classic from the "Vault"!
Thanks Steve, by the way when is that
SuperTopos SlumberParty at your house,
so we can pour through your collection?
Ha det bra,
Thor
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2009 - 11:42am PT
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From the aforementioned Mountaineering in Scotland by Murray, this gem of a chapter closing on a winter ascent of Tower Ridge on the Ben.
"To our surprise we found ourselves in calm. For the wind, baffled, struck upright from the cliffs. Before us stretched vast snow-fields, shining frostily under the stars; beyond, rank upon rank of sparkling peaks. A great stillness had come upon the world. We seemed to tread air rather than crusted snow; we were light of foot; we walked like demigods in joyous serenity. The intensity of our exaltation seems peculiar to the following of a great rock-climb to a climax of supreme beauty. After the hard fight on Tower ridge we were elated, by the miracle of sunset, steadied; for in profound beauty there is more solemnity than gayness; so that our faculties were in balance yet highly keyed, therefore abnormally alive to the deep peace of the summit. Its grace flowed in upon the mind with a touch soothing and most delicate. We need feel but once the spell of that enchantment to understand Schumann's declaration that the true music is a silence. In the quiet I feel something of the limitation of personality fall away as desires were stilled; and as I died to self and became more absorbed in the hills and sky, the more their beauty entered into me, until they seemed one with me and I with them.
Later, while we walked slowly across the plateau, it became very clear to me that only the true self, which transcends the personal, lays claim to immortality. On mountains it is that spiritual part that we unconcsiously develop. When we fail in that all other success is empty; for we take our pleasures without joy, and the ache of boredom warns of a rusting faculty.
At last we turned toward Achintee and went down like fallen angels, with an ever-mounting reluctance, from a spiritual paradise to the black pit of Glen Nevis."
Absloutely stunning bit of prose!!!!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jan 28, 2009 - 04:30pm PT
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Another interesting facet of Murray's climbing (as opposed to his writing) was that he was a very early practicioner of the non-stop ascent. When we read about the current wall rats doing non-stop pushes up El Cap, or Steve House and crew doing non-stop pushes up Denali or Himalayan peaks, we tend to think of it as a big breakthrough, a new thing. But Murray was doing it seventy years ago.
Read his piece about the Cuillen (sp?) traverse. Kinda Croft-like, isn't it?
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 28, 2009 - 04:31pm PT
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Should that be "Croft is sort of Murray-like"?
...on the shoulder of giants...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2009 - 07:30pm PT
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And the indomitable Harold Reaburn before him and.....
If I could edit the title on this thread, it should have been Excerpt Your Favorite Climbing Story. Fun to get at the pith of the tale.
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SammyLee2
Trad climber
Memphis, TN
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Jan 28, 2009 - 08:35pm PT
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I've admitted to being stupid in the past, so no surprise here and now.
Why can't I read the GD thing? Comes out pale in tiny print. I saved it as .jpg and tried to change it, so I could read it, no luck.
What am I not doing that I need to, to read the dang thing?
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deeski
Trad climber
North Carolina
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Jan 29, 2009 - 12:05am PT
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Definitely "Channel Surfing" by John Long! I read it late one night in the Ski Patrol Hut at the top of Beech Mountain in a total white out at 9:30pm waiting for the ski area to close so I could sweep the slopes and just go home. After reading the story I stopped channel surfing and enjoyed the beauty of a full moon that peaked through the snow storm as I slowed down and totally enjoyed the ski back down to the base. I took the time to listen to my friend's stories over a few brews of the special moments they remembered in the snowy places they had skied and climbed....and somehow it didn't matter that it was 3:00am and we all had to be back at the base to patrol again in just a few hours. Thanks Largo!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2009 - 12:25am PT
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Can't leave Shipton and Tilman out of the discussion. Blank on the Map and Nanda Devi are pretty hard to beat for adventure.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jan 31, 2009 - 10:22am PT
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“I was climbing the long ridge west of Mt. Clark….I saw more clearly than I have ever seen before or since the minute detail of the grasses, the clusters of sand shifting in the wind, the small flotsam of the forest, the motion of the high clouds streaming above the peaks. There are no words to convey the moods of those moments.”
Ansel Adams
Undated fragment quoted by Nancy Newhall in The Eloquent Light (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1963)
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Jan 31, 2009 - 09:05pm PT
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Steve: I’ll stay on topic for a second and actually agree with you (after hurriedly leafing through my collection of Ascents) that Drumond’s Mirror Mirror was a great story. I’ve always enjoyed reading British climbing writers.
After some more leafing I came up with “The Conquest of Tillie’s Lookout” by Ira Wallach in the 1969 Ascent as the most fun Ascent story (still on topic with Ascent). I was able to quote terms like “Enfoot”, “Nastiff”, and “Rumpage” for the next few years to the confusion of my friends; as we did exploratory climbing “off the map” in Idaho.
The short story that most influenced me was in Mountain 24, in 1972 and was later reprinted in “The Games Climber’s Play.”
“The Greatest Climber in the World” by Bernard Amy borrows much of it’s ideas from another author’s previous story on Zen Buddism in the “Nobel Art of Archery”.
It mattered not to me. The concepts and images invoked by the story caught my imagination with quotes like: “to be at the summit of the rock, you must be the summit of the rock, and thus of stone.”
The narrator of the story meets the Japanese Zen super-climber in Chamonix. He shares the story of the Asian climbing disciple Chi-Ch’ang who studies climbing as a Zen discipline. Chi Ch’ang so masters the art; that he eventually transcends climbing and indeed forgets what stone or climbing gear looks like.-----------how could a early 70’s hippie not be taken with the theme.
Fritz:)
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BEA
climber
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Jan 31, 2009 - 09:30pm PT
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Pratt's desert climbing essay and Dave Seidman's account of the Direct South Face on McKinley, both from early Ascents.
Also from Ascent: "Fashion, Climbing, and Dahluagiri"
Chuck Kroger's account of the Heart Route in, I think, Climbing had a welcome whimsical tone to it.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 14, 2009 - 09:57pm PT
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A little Reinhold from The Seventh Grade, another of my favorites.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Mar 14, 2009 - 11:39pm PT
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I'll see if I can scan and post some photos of the Troll Wall. Photos, that is, from a distance - I haven't climbed it, though I've done other things in the area.
To translate Norwegian into English:
Trollveggen = the Troll Wall.
Trolltinden = the Troll Peak.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Mar 15, 2009 - 01:37am PT
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Anyone have a copy of Mind Games by David Pagel??
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Mar 15, 2009 - 05:01am PT
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Lito Tejada Flores "Rojo's Peon", a story that when was published in 1975 on Italian climbing magazine "Rivista della Montagna" (translated by no one else than "Nuovo Mattino" guru Gian Piero Motti) affected me as no other climbing fiction has ever done.
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Michael Hjorth
Trad climber
Copenhagen, Denmark
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Mar 15, 2009 - 10:52am PT
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Edwind Drummond is a splendid writer and his book ”A Dream of White Horses” (London 1987) is one of my favorites. 40-45 short stories and poems. He’s not always a likeable guy and has a somewhat inflated ego - to be noticed in his account of a badly planned Makalu expediton (A Grace Period) and from his rescue from NA Wall (and stalking of R.R.)
I specially love his poem/prose from “Great Wall”, a second ascent after Pete Crew (who is watching him) of this Cloggy-classic:
“AfivefootarmsuspensionbrigingyourlifeinyourhandathreefootarmIdon’thavetofalloffSolestickonicenice. Made it, snug as a nut, my diogt in the peg. While I’m not-resting at the peg he tells me he used it. I’m getting to like him.”
RE. Trollwall: My most overwhelming climbing memory. Not Drummonds Arch Wall exactly, but still. We started on Swedish Route, but due to ice in the cracks shifted to old Rimmond at half hight. 33 pitches, 33 hours. Refrigerator blocks fell repeatedly past us by few meters from the top overhangs. Not bothering us, but setting a special ambiance!
And his Dream of White Horses, Wales. Just nice.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 15, 2009 - 10:54am PT
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Luca,
I am a big fan of Lito's writing. Any chance that you have an english translation of the piece that you mention? Please post if it is a favorite. That's the aim of this thread....
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Mar 15, 2009 - 11:08am PT
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Here's it:
I literally know it to memory, having read it the first time while at the very impressionable age of 14, and having being haunted by it since then. If anyone knows Lito, tell him he ruined my life (no big deal, a lot of writers did!)
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Mar 15, 2009 - 11:57am PT
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Steve:
posted - see above
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 15, 2009 - 12:42pm PT
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Superb writing! Muy bien hecho, Lito!!!
Luca- thanks for the contribution. I can see why that story would resonate with you, it does with me......cosas Patagonicas.
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dmalloy
Trad climber
eastside
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Mar 15, 2009 - 01:49pm PT
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thanks, you guys, for posting this great and hard-to-find stuff.
Waaayyy back in the thread, people were discussing what was meant by "short" climbing story - I take Steve to mean something that is not a book, so Annapurna or Touching the Void are out, but some of these long magazine pieces certainly qualify.
The one I have not seen mentioned on this thread which I have really enjoyed, and have seen mentioned on other threads, is "Losar" by Voytek Kurtyka, published in Alpinist 4. I won't scan it, as it is the wrong size for a flatbed and I don't want to ruin the binding on my (precious) copy of Alpinist - but if you have not read it, next time you are at a friend's house who has the complete set of Alpinist, grab #4 and plan on settling in for 45 minutes or so.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2009 - 08:46pm PT
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Another gem from AAJ 1980. Fifty years on....and still sweet!
Bless the persistence of memory!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 26, 2009 - 10:11am PT
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Bump for Bradford!!!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 5, 2009 - 11:58pm PT
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Bump for a tale.....
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 12, 2009 - 11:16am PT
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Mountain Lit bump!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 22, 2009 - 12:57pm PT
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And another...
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Pratmaker
Trad climber
Norway
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The Arch wall route in the troll wall has now been freeclimbed in a 36 hours push by local climber Sindre Sæther, Amazing...
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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The Black Canyon with Kor - Ament - I think it's from Mountain 50, later in Games Climbers Play.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 5, 2011 - 10:02pm PT
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Literary Bump...
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Ed in a current photo by someone else
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MH2
climber
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The Jean Weber account of the Japanese ascent of Mount Alberta in 1925 as found in Chris Jones' Climbing in North America and 'A Nice Clean Break' from Games Climbers Play.
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Michael Hjorth
Trad climber
Copenhagen, Denmark
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Anders,
I suppose it's dust on your nice picture - and not one the trollspires doing a basejump from the rim! (Which happens!)
Here is one from the Narrow Slab on Rimmon, 1992:
Climber: Peter Harremoës
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Beautiful. Anything but LEB please!
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George Bell
Trad climber
Colorado
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For satire, I agree with Tami about "It's a 5.10 Mantle into Heaven". Another good one is Bob Viola's "Big-Wall Tale of Woe".
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Probably a speck of dust or something. I'll check.
Though I did see some basejumpers from Trollveggen, in 1997.
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Michael Hjorth
Trad climber
Copenhagen, Denmark
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Yep, it was Arch Wall. Cosgriff did it with Norwegian climber Aslak Aastaarp in 1989. Here is a frontpage of the Norvegian climbing mag, Norklatt, from 1993:
About that time I went to a lecture by Tom in Gothenburg, Sweden. Among many hilarious pictures the most memorable was one from Half Dome. Cosgriff was hanging from a chest harness reading Washington Post (or some such). Bare buttom and about 2 feet below him was an extremely long brown missile aimed for the approach slabs. Definitely pre-poop-tube-times! There was a roar of laughter from audience!
So Base, if you are in contact with him, please ask him to scan it and post it here. It will become an instant classic!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 22, 2012 - 03:07pm PT
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I had the pleasure of hearing Bruce talk about his fun up on the Trophy Wall at this year's Bozeman Ice Festival! What a treat!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 25, 2012 - 01:33pm PT
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Who's the fairest of them all?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2012 - 10:37am PT
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4th of July Bump...
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Michael Hjorth
Trad climber
Copenhagen, Denmark
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Nov 14, 2013 - 06:44pm PT
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Bump for literature!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2014 - 12:31pm PT
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Bump for Jaysen...
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Jun 26, 2014 - 09:18pm PT
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Grossman Bump.
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Jun 26, 2014 - 09:27pm PT
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"Mirror, Mirror" certainly left an indelible image on my 16 year old mind. I had the good fortune of meeting Edwin two times back in that day ('77-'78); a wonderful individual with incredible talent.
Fortunately there is an abundance of wonderful climbing literature and short stories. Many tales by many characters! It is possible that no other pursuit has such a representation in the written word.
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Blakey
Trad climber
Sierra Vista
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Jun 27, 2014 - 02:34am PT
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I was brought up on Murray's writings, and they were part of the required literature BITD. Great adventures that inspired a rather rough dalliance with Scottish winters in my youth.
People have alluded to Murray writing his book while a POW - On that theme...... Murray enlisted into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, in I think 1940.
He was captured in June 1942 near Mersah Matruh, while retreating towards El Alemein, by an Africa Korps tank commander.
The moment of capture is always tense, and even in the Western Desert, where there was some soldierly respect there was no guarantee that you would survive capture.
Murray described his moment of capture in Mountain 67....
'To my astonishment he (The German tank commander) forced a wry smile and asked in English, 'Aren't you feeling the cold?'....I replied 'cold as a mountain top'. He looked at me and his eyes brightened. 'Do you mean you climb mountains?' He was a mountaineer. We both relaxed and he stuffed his gun away. After a few quick words, the Alps, Scotland, rock and ice, he could not do enough for me.
Then off to the cage in Italy, Germany and finally Czechoslovakia, until repatriation in 1945.
Steve
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2014 - 04:22pm PT
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Bump for Ed and his host of talents.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2014 - 12:19pm PT
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...though it trembled, it snapped not, O Dolt!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2016 - 11:48am PT
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Classic mountaineering literature bump.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 8, 2017 - 04:08pm PT
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Bump for A Dream of White Horses...
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| Messages 1 - 75 of total 75 in this topic |
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