Climbing History

Just a reminder to anyone interested in finding some of these rare books (like fifty classics): if you are an AAC member, you can check most of these books out from the American Alpine Club library. They will mail it to you, you just need to pay return shipping (five bucks-ish) usually.

https://americanalpineclub.org/library

This is a super cool resource which is wildly under-utilized.

A look at my climbing history bookshelf...

These are sorted shortest to tallest (as they are on my bookshelf, in inches, not stature in the literary world)

Mountains of My Life - Walter Bonatti

Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada - Clarence King

Closeups of the High Sierra - Norman Clyde

Royal Robbin - Spirit of the Age

John Gill - Master of Rock

Art of Freedom.: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka - Bernadette MacDonald

Climbing in North America - Chris Jones

Rites of Passage - E.C. Joe

The Eiger Obsession - John Harlin III

Touching the Void - Simpson

On Edge - the Life and Climbs of Hot Henry Barber

High Odyssey - Rose (Orland Bartholomew's historic first traverse of the high Sierra in winter)

Climbing Free - Lynn Hill

On the Ridge Between Life and Death - Dave Roberts

Touching My Father's Soul - Jamling Norgay

Conquistadors of the Useless - Lionel Terray

Killing Dragons: The Conquest of the Alps - Fergus Flemming

High Conquest - James Ramsey Ullman

On Snow and Rock - Rebuffat

Mountains - John Cleare

Ways to Sky - Andy Selter

Wizards of Rock: A History of Free Climbing in America - Pat Ament

A History of Mountain Climbing - Roger Frison-Roche

World Mountaineering - audrey salkeld

The Climbers - Jim Herrington

Lots of good recommendations already. Beyond the classics already mentioned here are some other suggestions: 

I really enjoyed Valley of Giants, an anthology of writings by women about climbing in Yosemite edited by Lauren DeLaunay Miller. The choice of only using first person accounts means, sadly, no Bev Johnson and it's not a history (pun intended) but it tells many fascinating stories. 

Jeff Smoot's highly entertaining Hangdog Days covers the painful birth of sport climbing in the US from someone who was both observer and participant. I wondered if it started life as a biography of Todd Skinner, who looms large over the proceedings, and would have enjoyed a stand-alone work on him alone. 

John Porter's One Day as a Tiger is a biography of super-alpinist Alex MacIntyre, a history of the move from expeditionary to lightweight mountaineering, and a musing on risk and fate.  

Gunkiemikewrote:

More on the international side - unfortunately I don't remember the name of the book (I can narrow it down if anyone is really interested), but George Mallory's early climbing days (well before his famous Everest climbs) made for a good read. He was quite the prodigy.

Possibly Into the Silence, Wade Davis' book on Mallory up to and including the Everest climbs? It puts Mallory into the social context of the time, immediately after World War One. Even if it is not the one you mean I recommend it.

Similarly, Kelly Cordes situates Cesare Maestri in post-war Italy in his magnificent The Tower. I can't recommend this highly enough.

Both books make the case for their subject's behaviour being influenced by the carnage and societal upheaval of a world war and, for Maestri, the need for heroes after Italy's humiliation.

I haven’t seen it mentioned yet - but “Pilgrims of the Vertical” is the most comprehensive history I’ve seen yet. Very Yosemite-centric and reads fairly academic with 40+ pages of works cited at the end.
https://a.co/d/as42NzL

duncan...wrote:

Lots of good recommendations already. Beyond the classics already mentioned here are some other suggestions: 

I really enjoyed Valley of Giants, an anthology of writings by women about climbing in Yosemite edited by Lauren DeLaunay Miller. The choice of only using first person accounts means, sadly, no Bev Johnson and it's not a history (pun intended) but it tells many fascinating stories. 

Jeff Smoot's highly entertaining Hangdog Days covers the painful birth of sport climbing in the US from someone who was both observer and participant. I wondered if it started life as a biography of Todd Skinner, who looms large over the proceedings, and would have enjoyed a stand-alone work on him alone. 

John Porter's One Day as a Tiger is a biography of super-alpinist Alex MacIntyre, a history of the move from expeditionary to lightweight mountaineering, and a musing on risk and fate.  

Possibly Into the Silence, Wade Davis' book on Mallory up to and including the Everest climbs? It puts Mallory into the social context of the time, immediately after World War One. Even if it is not the one you mean I recommend it.

Similarly, Kelly Cordes situates Cesare Maestri in post-war Italy in his magnificent The Tower. I can't recommend this highly enough.

Both books make the case for their subject's behaviour being influenced by the carnage and societal upheaval of a world war and, for Maestri, the need for heroes after Italy's humiliation.

Incredible. Thank you. I am documenting this list. I might make my own collection to hand to the local AAC someday.

Any of the original Ascents edited by Steck and Roper back in the 70's and 80's. Some of the best climbing writing ever published. There is a reason you rarely see them for sale - (although it looks like a 1980 is on Amazon).

jerryjwrote:

Any of the original Ascents edited by Steck and Roper back in the 70's and 80's. Some of the best climbing writing ever published. There is a reason you rarely see them for sale - (although it looks like a 1980 is on Amazon).

Good looking, just ordered!

I have Lionel Terray's autobiography "The Borders of the Impossible" I'll sell for $10 (14 shipped)

Gunkiemikewrote:

I have Lionel Terray's autobiography "The Borders of the Impossible" I'll sell for $10 (14 shipped)

Got a digital version for now. Hope someone takes you up on it!

Lots of good references above... here are a few I'd recommend (some of which overlap those previously mentioned):

• Royal Robbins: His first two volumes, To Be Brave and Fail Falling, are really great reads.  I don't have a copy of The Golden Age, so can't comment on that (yet).
• Lionel Terray: Conquistadors of the Useless.  Classic
  
• John Roskelley:  Stories Off the Wall.  What a character.
• Heinrich Harrer:  The White Spider.  Classic.
• Joe Tasker:  The Savage Arena.  Also Peter Boardman's The Shining Mountain 
• Joe Simpson: This Game of Ghosts.  Everyone has Touching the Void on their lists, for good reason, but Ghosts is also a must-read.
• Bob Godfrey and Dudley Chelton: Climb!  (the Jeff Achey 25th Anniversary edition is great too, and brings in some more recent history - but a lot of the pictures suffered in the newer volume).
• Ken Wilson:  Games Climbers Play and Jim Perrin's Mirrors in the Cliffs are both outstanding.
• Wade Davis:  Into the Silence was really astonishing; great read, with a interesting perspective.
• Pat Ament:  Royal Robbins - Spirit of the Age. A little bit of hero worship, but definitely worth reading.
• Layton Kor:  Beyond the Vertical. Pair this with Climb!
• Chris Bonington:  Annapurna South Face  (maybe not the greatest, but rather formative for me in my youth)

If you really want to look at some of the early/modern perspectives (while not being history books, per se):

• The Sierra Club:  Belaying the Leader (1956)
• Royal Robbins:  Basic Rockcraft (1971) and Advanced Rockcraft (1973)

And, any such list can't be complete without these classics:

• W.E. Bowman:  The Ascent of Rum Doodle
• Warren Harding:  Downward Bound

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to find a cup of tea, a comfy chair, and a good book.

Grant Jwrote:

Couldn’t find this online? Any tips?

It might be "Mallory and Irvine" by Firstbrook.

Tami Knight's and Sheridan Anderson's  works always made the most sense to me.

jerryjwrote:

Any of the original Ascents edited by Steck and Roper back in the 70's and 80's. Some of the best climbing writing ever published. There is a reason you rarely see them for sale - (although it looks like a 1980 is on Amazon).

I'm looking to sell a 1st edition Fifty Classic Climbs of North America by Steve Roper and Allen Steck, anyone interested feel free to PM me. Collectors item

I’d recommend any book by Cameron burns. He has a few anthologies with really fun climbing stories from all different time periods in climbing history. I think postcards from the trailer park is probably my favorite one of his books but you can’t go wrong with anything he has put together.

Valley Walls by Glen Denny. I couldn’t put it down. 

Probably has been said but...:

Camp 4 from Steve Roper

For a bit of pulp that gives a fairly good window into Valley SAR site/Camp 4 culture, centered around the Upper Merced Pass Lake drug plane crash, "Angels of Light" by Jeff Long is worth reading once.  I read it before hopping on a cross-country bus to Yosemite for the first time, and between that and a Climbing Magazine feature on Tucker Tech, had a pretty good picture of the Valley life I was dropping into.  Or at least the scene that existed in the parking lot, deli, bar, and meadow.  There was nowhere near the thriller-esque events of the book during my tenure, but the scene was recognizable and in some ways accurate.

Started with Climbers Guide to Yosemite Valley. I wonder what Chuck and Steve have to say about this quote nowadays 🤣

Rick Accomazzo ‘ TOBIN, THE STONEMASTERS, AND ME 1970-1980’

Check out the Yosemite Climbing Museum in Mariposa CA.  There are some amazing pictures, artifacts, and history to read.

Say hi to the Museum Manager Hannah.  She's great, and also my wife :)