Climbing Days

Climbing Days, by Dan Richards, is an exploration of the writing and climbing feats of his great great aunt and uncle Dorothy Pilley and IA Richards. The book borrows its title from Dorothy’s own 1935 memoir Climbing Days which chronicled the pair’s pioneering climbs during the 1920s - including the first ascent of the North Ridge of Dent Blanche.

While vaguely aware of his relations’ reputation - IAR was an influential 20th century literary figure - it wasn’t until Dan came across Pilley’s writing that he discovered the extent of their climbing achievements.

Rather than a conventional biography, the book is Dan’s attempt to understand the pair by retracing some of their steps. He travels to Wales, the Lake District, and learns to climb himself in order to make an ascent of the Dent Blanche.

This is a highly enjoyable book, full of fascinating detail, that has sent me off in search of the original. Read how reviewers greeted it back in 1935.

Manchester Guardian, 29 May 1935.

An advert for the book appeared in the Observer on 19 May 1935.

Observer, 19 May 1935.

Mountaineering books published in 1938

The first week of December is traditionally the time when newspapers and magazines begin to publish their round-ups of books of the year. And of course publishers capitalise on this by advertising their wares to Christmas present-buying readers - as can be seen from the following advert that appeared in the Observer on December 4 1938. Hodder & Stoughton took out a half-page advert to display reviews of their output and, in particular, the Black Jacket series of climbing and exploration books.

It's interesting to see which books are still talked about and what's been forgotten. Eric Shipton's Blank on the Map is still referred to, as well as Frank Smythe's books (including The Valley of Flowers). However, Ronald Kaulback is a name rarely mentioned these days.

(click image to enlarge)

The Boardman Tasker prize

It is 30 years since Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker were last seen on Mount Everest attempting to traverse the pinnacles on the unclimbed north east ridge. To commemorate the lives of the two climbers who pioneered a series of groundbreaking ascents, as well as producing books that have acquired classic status, the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain literature was set up by family and friends in 1983. The aim was to promote mountain related literature and, three decades later, it is still going strong. The winner of the 2012 prize (from a very strong shortlist) is announced on Friday 16 November.

By coincidence, I've been working my way through the Boardman Tasker Omnibus, a collection that includes the climbers' four books - two published posthumously. I was familiar with some of Boardman's work but less so Tasker's. Apart from the well told tales of close calls and danger, what struck me about the latter's writing was his honesty about the risks and fears of life at high altitude.  As he says in Everest The Cruel Way, an account of a winter attempt on the west ridge in 1980, 'whichever way a big mountain is climbed it is rarely enjoyable'. Of course there is the physical hardship but there are also the tensions that develop between team members forced to spend weeks together in close proximity. Tasker doesn't shy away from criticising fellow climbers, but handles it in such a way that the reader understands disagreements in the context of the expedition.

Aside from this there are details that make you realise just how much has changed over the past 30 or so years. On his first Asian expedition, Tasker drives an old Ford Escort van across Europe, Iran and Afghanistan to get to Dunagiri, a 7,000 metre peak in Northern India. On the 1980 Everest trip, there is the excitement - in the pre-internet age - of receiving hand-written letters. Also, the team was filing news reports about the expedition for the Observer and in return the paper was mailing out a copy each week. Tasker describes the disorienting experience of reading news weeks after the event (including reports of John Lennon's death).

One minor disappointment with the Omnibus is the lack of photos from some of the climbs (or at least in my edition). I did come across came a Boardman Tasker feature about their 1980 K2 west ridge and Abruzzi spur expedition in the Observer though. This does include some stunning pictures. Both writers provide accounts of the climb in their respective books - one of the collection's strengths being the contrasting views of various expeditions.

The Observer, 15 February 1981

Some interesting notes by Boardman about his early climbing career, written in 1981 for a talk at Stockport Grammar School, can be read here.

On this day: A Century of Mountaineering, November 3 1957

Perhaps it was just a slow news day or maybe the news editor really did think that the publication of Century of Mountaineering was just what Observer readers wanted to read about on the front page of their paper. Whatever the reason, Arnold Lunn's book provided an excuse to print the above picture on November 3 1957. Usually regarded as the father of modern British skiing, Lunn was also an accomplished mountaineer and the book is a very enjoyable read. A sample of his Oxford Mountaineering Essays can be viewed here.

Survival stories

Last week's rescue of 'los 33' after being trapped in a Chilean mine for over two months provides an excuse for papers to review previous stories of survival. In the Observer, Ed Douglas selects The 10 best Mountain Survival stories. It's a good mix of the well known, such as Touching the Void, Into Thin Air etc, plus a few lesser known tales such as British climber Tony Streather's 1957 expedition to Haramosh.

Not all of the books listed are classics and of course everyone has their own favourites - just take a look at the comments. I might have included Ernest Shackleton's climb over the mountains of South Georgia (as told in Alfred Lansing's Endurance). There was also Doug Scott's epic crawl down the Ogre in 1977 after breaking both legs, and Stephen Venables's high altitude rescue from Panch Chuli V in the Himalaya which he wrote about in A Slender Thread. Making lists, it's an endless task...

Walter Bonatti

The Mountains of My Life by Walter Bonatti regularly makes it on to top-ten lists of mountaineering books. A collection of the Italian climber's classic writings on everything from his epic 1955 solo route on the Petit Dru in the French Alps to controversy on the slopes of K2, the year before. Penguin have just republished a translation of the book and the sprightly 80-year-old recently spoke to the Guardian about his life.

Bonatti is one of the 20th century's greatest alpinists so, as I've been asked on a number of occasions, why he didn't make it into the Guardian Book of Mountains? The simple answer is that his exploits just weren't reported in the paper. The vagaries of the newspaper business can mean that sometimes mountain triumphs end up being relegated to little more than a small paragraph.

However, with the Guardian piece reminding me of Bonatti's many triumphs, I double-checked the Guardian's archive to see if I'd missed something. When I compiled the book, the paper hadn't been digitised so the only way to search was by way of the old card index and then trying to find the piece on microfilm. This method certainly threw up some interesting material but inevitably a number events just didn't get noted.

After scouring the digital archive, apart from a few news in briefs, I still didn't come up with much. The following item though, which did make it to the front page on August 30 1961, does capture the essence of the man: