Best Mountaineering Literature

 

K2:The Story of the Savage Mountain, Jim Curran (The Mountaineers Books 1995) (a history of the ascents, from the earliest explorations on, including the 1986 tragedy, and more recent ascents) Kiss or Kill – Confessions of a Serial Climber, Mark Twight (The Mountaineers Books 2001) (uninhibited writings by this “extreme” alpinist) Last Season, Eric Blehm (Harper Collins 2006) (the life and death of a back-country ranger in the Sierra Nevada) Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest, Beck Weathers (Villard Books 2000) (this pathologist on Rob Hall’s commercial Everest team was left for dead after the killer blizzard of May 10, 1996 hit; after 18 hours in subzero weather at 26,000 feet, he awoke from a hypothermic coma and miraculously made it back to camp)  Lou Whitaker: Memoirs of a Mountain Guide, Lou Whitaker (The Mountaineers 1994)

The List- M-Z

Minus 148º: First Winter Ascent of Mt. McKinley, Art Davidson (The Mountaineers 1999)(one team member was killed in a crevasse fall early on the route and things went downhill from there; totally gripping account)  Missing in the Minarets: The Search for Walter A. Starr, Jr., William Alsup (Yosemite Association 2005) (captivating narrative of Starr’s mysterious disappearance in the Minaret region of the Sierra Nevada in 1933 and the efforts to find him) Mixed Emotions: Mountaineering Writings of Greg Child, Greg Child (The Mountaineers 1993)(with writing skills equal to his mountaineering skills, the author recounts his adrenaline-filled ascents of big peaks in the company of other great mountaineers)  Moments of Doubt: And Other Mountaineering Writings, David Roberts (The Mountaineers 1997) (wonderful essays on the author's own climbs and adventures, profiles of other climbers and adventurers such as Messner and Roskelley, and some meditative essays on the meaning of "our antics in the outdoors") Nandi Devi: The Tragic Expedition, John Roskelley (The Mountaineers Books 2000) (gripping and emotional story of the 1976 expedition where Willi Unsoeld’s daughter, Devi --named after the mountain-- lost her life) Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage: The Lonely Challenge, Hermann Buhl (Mountaineers Books 1998) (autobiography including account of his solo, unaided climb of Nanga Parbat)  No Shortcuts to the Top, Ed Viesturs (Broadway Books, 2006) (climbing all fourteen 8,000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen) No Way Down: Life and Death on K2 Graham Bowley (Harper Collins 2010)(chronicle by a non-climber of the tragic events of August 2, 2008, when 11 climbers lost their lives on K2) Not Without Peril: 150 Years of Misadventure on the Presidential Range of New Hampshire, Nicholas Howe (Appalachian Mountain Club 2000)  Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite, Michael P. Ghiglier and Charles R. Farabee, Jr. (Puma Press 2007) (This volume is an account of the nearly 900 fatalities in Yosemite’s 156 years of recorded history. The chapters are divided into major categories of mishaps including rock climbing accidents, drownings, falls from waterfalls, and hiking and scrambling fatalities) On the Ridge between Life and Death: A Climbing Life Reexamined, David Roberts (Simon & Schuster 2005) (dramatic story-telling by someone who had been involved in 3 mountaineering fatalities by the age of 22)  One Mountain Thousand Summits:The Untold Story of Tragedy and True Heroism on K2 Freddie Wilkinson (New American Library 2010) (the climber author recounts, minute by minute, the events of August 2, 2008, when 11 climbers lost their lives on K2) Postcards from the Ledge: Collected Mountaineering Writings of Greg Child, Greg Child (The Mountaineers 2000) (short stories about the author's memorable mountaineering experiences with prose combining humor and sensitivity)   Scrambles Amongst the Alps, Edward Whymper (Dover Publications 1996) (the author is famous for his first ascent of the Matterhorn) Shattered Air: A True Account of Catastrophe and Courage on Yosemite's Half Dome, Bob Madgic (Burford Books 2005) (events of July 27, 1985 when 5 hikers climbed Half Dome in the face of a storm; 2 died and the other 3 were seriously wounded by two lightening strikes)  Starlight and Storm, Gaston Rebuffat (Modern Library 1999) (this French mountaineer climbed the hardest north faces in the Alps) Summit Fever, Andrew Greig (The Mountaineers 1997) (the poet author's account of becoming part of an expedition to climb the Mustagh Tower in the Karakoram Himalayas with no climbing experience whatsoever) Surviving Denali: A Study of Accidents on Mount McKinley 1903-1990, Jonathan Waterman (The AAC Press, 2d ed. revised 1991) (covers accidents involving climbing falls, crevasse falls, avalanches, frostbite and pulmonary and cerebral edema) Tears in the Wind: Triumph and Tragedy on America's Highest Peak Larry Semento (2016) (an account of a guided expedition on the West Buttress route of Denali and the fatal fall of an assistant guide) The Ascent of Denali, Hudson Stuck (Stackpole Books 2003) (narrative of the first climbing expedition to summit Denali in 1913 recounted by the author and expedition leader) The Beckoning Silence, Joe Simpson (The Mountaineers Books 2003) (British climber and author of Touching The Void, Simpson recounts climbing adventures around the world including an account of his attempt on the north face of the Eiger) The Boys of Everest: Chris Bonington and the Tragedy of Climbing's Greatest Generation, Clint Willis (Carroll and Graf Publishers 2006) (a narrative of British mountaineering history between 1958 and 1985 with Bonington as the central character; some of the "boys" include Boardman, Haston, Tasker and Whillans)  The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest, Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt (St. Martin’s Paperbacks 1997) (Boukreev defends his role as a guide in the May 1996 Everest tragedy against criticisms leveled at him in Krakauer’s account Into Thin Air) The Climb Up to Hell, Jack Olsen (St. Martin’s Paperbacks 2000) (a gripping account of a 1957 rescue effort on the north wall of the Eiger that received world-wide attention)  The Crystal Horizon, Reinhold Messner (The Mountaineers 1998) (an account of the author's 1980 solo ascent of Everest without oxygen)  The Endless Knot:K2, Mountain of Dreams and Destiny, Kurt Diemberger (The Mountaineers Books 1991) (impassioned account of a great climbing career and of the tragedy that took 13 lives on K2 in 1986)  The Falling Season: Inside the Life and Death Drama of Aspen's Mountain Rescue Team, Hal Clifford (The Mountaineers 2000) (the author became a member of Aspen's mountain rescue team to write these thrilling accounts of rescues in and around Aspen, Colorado)  The Hall of the Mountain King: The True Story of a Tragic Climb, Howard H. Snyder (Scribner 1973) (the author's account of the 1967 Denali expedition where 7 climbers of a larger team that Synder's 3-man team was forced to join perished in a storm; the leader of the larger team, Joe Wilcox, later wrote his own account of the expedition, White Winds, partly in rebuttal to Synder's book; both works deserve a reading) The Hill: A True Story of Tragedy, Recovery, and Redemption on North America's Highest Peak , Ed Hommer (Rodale 2001) (after losing his lower legs in a plane crash on Denali in 1981, the author came back to climb the mountain 18 years later)  The Impossible Climb:Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life, Mark Synnott (Dutton 2018)(a brief biography of Alex Honnold and an account of the training for and free solo of El Capitan)

The Last Step: The American Ascent of K2, Rick Ridgeway (The Mountaineers 1999) (an account of the first successful American ascent of K2 in 1978) The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mount Everest, Conrad Anker and David Roberts (Simon & Schuster 1999) (Roberts presents a biography of George Mallory while Anker provides a detailed account of the 1999 discovery of Mallory's body including Anker's attempt to replicate a key part of Mallory's 1924 climb) The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative, David Roberts (Mountaineers Press 1991) (the author wrote these two accounts of adventures in the Alaskan mountains while in his 20’s) The Mountains of My Life, Walter Bonatti (Modern Library 2001) (includes a defense of his controversial role in the first ascent of K2)The Other Side of Everest, Matt Dickinson (Three Rivers Press 1999)(1996 ascent of north face) The Rescue Season, Bob Drury (Simon & Schuster 2001) (the story of the low profile U.S. Air Force parajumpers squadron and its heroic rescue work in the mountains of Alaska) The Villan: a Portrait of Don Whillans, James Perrin (Mountaineers Books 2005) (excellent account of the character and career of this British climbing icon)The White Death: Tragedy and Heroism in an Avalanche Zone, McKay Jenkins (Random House 2000) (set against the 1969 tragedy where 5 young climbers perished by avalanche on the north face of Mt. Cleveland in Glacier National Park, and the efforts to find their bodies, the author presents a fascinating natural history of avalanches)The White Spider: The Classic Account of the Ascent of the Eiger, Heinrich Harrer (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam 1998) (legendary ascent of the North Face of the Swiss Eiger) The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest, Mark Synnott (Dutton 2021) (the author's account of his search for Sandy Irvine of the 1924 Mallory Expedition during the 2019 season in which 11 climbers perished on the mountain)Thin Air: Encounters in the Himalayas, Greg Child (Mountaineers 1998) (superb writing about climbing the world's most perilous mountains from Gasherbrum IV to K2)This Game of Ghosts, Joe Simpson (The Mountaineers 1995) (memoirs of a climbing life by the author of Touching the Void) Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations...One School at a Time, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Viking 2006) (the incredible account of how Mortenson went from a failed attempt on K2 to building schools in the breeding grounds of the Taliban as his own brand of the war on terror)

 

Tibet's Secret Mountain:The Triumph of Sepu Kangri, Chris Bennington and Charles Clarke (London:Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1999) (the story of the authors' expeditions to an unclimbed mountain in Tibet, 22,802 foot Sepu Kangri) To the Top of Denali, Bill Sherwonit (Alaska Northwest Books 1990) (stories of mountaineering on Denali including accounts of expeditions in the early 1900’s)  Touching the Void, Joe Simpson (Vintage 1997)(a thrilling read of the author’s survival in the Andes after a climbing accident) Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey, Goran Kropp (Discovery Books 1997) (an account of bicycling from Sweden to Everest and summiting the mountain without supplemental oxygen) We Aspired: The Last Innocent Americans, Pete Sinclair (Utah State University Press 1993) (the author recounts his life as a climber and ranger in Grand Teton National Park between 1959 and 1970) White Winds: America's Most Tragic Mountaineering Expedition, Joe Wilcox (Hwong Publishing Co. 1981) (in the summer of 1967, the author led a 12-man expedition to climb Denali; caught in a hellish storm near the summit, 7 of the team perished; this book is partly in rebuttal to the first written account of this tragedy, The Hall of the Mountain King, by Howard Snyder)  

Selected Other Essential Reading

Accidents in North American Mountaineering, Issue 59,The American Alpine Club (The American Alpine Club, Inc. 2006) (yearly published accounts and analyses of reported mountaineering accidents, including rock climbing, in the previous year within the United States and Canada)  Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, 6th Ed., Don Graydon and Kurt Hanson, eds. (The Mountaineers 1998) (soup to nuts; touches on the A to Z's of mountaineering, climbing and wilderness travel)  The American Alpine Journal:The World's Most Significant Climbs, Issue 80, The American Alpine Club (The American Alpine Club 2006) (published yearly, this multi-hundred paged journal includes feature reports on significant climbs, briefer reports on climbs and expeditions world-wide, and reviews of recently published mountaineering literature)  

Specialized Literature

  Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, Laurence Gonzales (W.W. Norton & Company 2003) (gripping stories of disaster and survival in the context of the science and art of how humans deal with survival situations) Extreme Alpinism:Climbing Light, Fast & High, Mark F. Twight (The Mountaineers 1999)(the gist of the concept is climbing the hardest routes with the least gear and most speed; the author covers techniques, mental preparedness,cardio training, nutrition, equipment and clothing) Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance, Peter Stark (Ballantine Books 2001) (what happens to the body and mind in the last moments of life when falling, freezing to death, drowning and other manner of death while engaged in risky outdoor activities)   Life at the Extremes: The Science of Survival, Frances Ashcroft (University of California 2000) (this volume by an Oxford physiology professor explains the physiological response of the human body to extreme environments (altitude, heat, cold, underwater, outer space) and explores the limits of human survival) Survival of the Fittest: Understanding Health and Peak Physical Performance, Mike Stroud (Vintage 1999) (a very readable exploration of aspects of human physical performance from a scientific and evolutionary perspective and informed by the author's own experiences as a polar explorer and ultra endurance athlete)  Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance, Kenneth Kammler, M.D. (St. Martin's Press 2004) (medical case studies based upon the author's practice of medicine in the most hostile environments on earth including high altitude, desert, high seas, jungle and underwater environments)