Ben Nevis and Being Authentic--T.S.M. Newsletter
Greetings from Peaklessburg.
Welcome to the new and improved T.S.M. Newsletter. I spent some time figuring out how to get a banner, which you can see up top, and how to integrate writing this piece into my normal routine. I am hoping to deliver this on a monthly basis as a roundup of posts and some other meandering content on mountain climbing and its literature, of course. So let’s jump in…
Despite climbing being a popular activity for the last 20 years, I am still try to draw on the energy of it being in the realm of subculture. Let me explain: Growing up in the 1990s in Western New York, climbing was mostly alien. I tried to conform to the mainstream and did a good job, but I found a type of therapy through climbing then. Being in private made it my liberating secret. I live with high-functioning anxiety and it tends to make you a people pleaser, among other things, readily conforming, if you’re not sure what your personal core values are; I do now, but didn’t then. I found a ways to be successful in that traditional mainstream environment, but the inner climber in me was freer and more authentically me.
I am sharing this because I also recognize that the popular trend of climbing at the gyms, and outdoors too, have grown to be more “performance” based. A lot of the media is conforming to a sleeker, less gritty, style. I tried it for a while. I learned things. And I realized I dislike it, too. For me, the athletic training-focused, nutrition-plan, and routine packages just are not fun. I learn a little bit from that, but I’m just going to go and just climb. I like to train for climbing by climbing. A higher grade interests me, but it actually, doesn’t motivate me. I wonder how many of you get to a higher grade or grow just from having fun? Maybe the grade doesn’t matter.
For this month’s newsletter, I am drawing on that idea of finding ourselves, unapologetically, though respectfully. I have a roundup of recent posts, and news of two new books being published next month. I also just want to tell you that I am very proud that I am adding my first entry in an American Alpine Journal. No, not a route (though I wish it was for a big wall line at Baffin Island.) I reviewed Will Cockrell’s Everest, Inc. (2024) which will be in the 2025 AAJ. Climber, author, and book review editor in the AAJ David Stevenson joked that after reading my review I did him a favor: Now he doesn’t have to read the book.
RECENT POSTS, in case you missed them...
Thoughts on ‘The White Spider’ by Heinrich Harrer
Under ordinary circumstances, I would post a headline on this blog like this one: “‘The White Spider’ by Heinrich Harrer Reviewed.” That is if I were to review The White Spider, so many years after it’s initial publication. It’s popularity hasn’t waned. If I were to claim to review the work, it would be like having the gall to review Into Thin Air and accuse Jon Krakauer of deceit and lies 30 years later. Not that I am a Krakauer fan, but who in God’s world would do such a mean thing? Click this to read more.
On ‘The Climb’ and ‘Above the Clouds’ by Anatoli Boukreev
I avoided reading Anatoli Boukreev’s two books for as long as I could for two reasons: First, I read Into Thin Air and wanted to be done with the 1996 tragedy and Chomolungma in general, and secondly, you can glean much about Boukreev from admirers and critics in their various articles and posts from time to time. (Goodness the conversation is still going!) Since I got rid of my prohibition on Everest books, I decided to finally read Boukreev’s own words, albeit translated. Here’s the rest of the post.
On ‘A Youth Wasted Climbing’ by David Smart
This memoir is now my footnote to clear something up: The age-old criticism that climbing is a selfish activity is wrong, but there are plenty of instances where people in Smart’s life asked him to do something other than climb. His parents asked him to actually attend school, not be a truant, and get good grades. A vice principal made a similar request. A girlfriend asked him to take up hockey instead. In all of these cases, Smart was prioritizing climbing — racing to learn climbing from scraps of knowledge and climb better and more often to improve — but his vice principal, parents, and girlfriends (there were multiple like this one) that wanted Smart to use his time and develop skill the way they wanted. Here’s the rest of it.
Upcoming Books
Earlier this month, Abrams Books published the story of six women in 1970 about Grace Hoeman, Margaret Young, Dana Isherwood, Arlene Blum, Margaret Clark, and Faye Kerr, who set out to make the first-female ascent of Denali. Together, they were the Denali Damsels. The books is Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All-Women’s Ascent of Denali by Cassidy Randall.
Two books are coming out in May. The Mountaineers Books are publishing Crisis on Mount Hood: Stories from a Hundred Years of Mountain Rescue by Christopher Van Tilberg, about America’s oldest all-volunteer SAR team. And Patagonia, through Penguin/Random House, is publishing the memoir of Sonnie Trotter, Uplifted: The Evolution of a Climbing Life. I’ll be reading Uplifted in April for a review on the blog.
Later this year, Joanna Croston, yes, that Joanna from the Banff Center, along with Jasmin Paris and Tessa Lyons will have Mountaineering Women: Climbing through History published by Thame & Hudson. It’s available for pre-order and will be released on September 17th.
Parenting Advice from a 10-Year Old
For your parents and aunts and uncles, or pseudo aunts and uncles, I like this for the advice and the writing. As my headline says, it’s advice for us grown ups, via Blue Ridge Outdoors, which I always loved to read in hard copy when lived in Virginia.
John Cunningham Climbs Ben Nevis, 1976
I don’t know the whole story behind this film, but it’s one of my favorites in the climbing genre. It plays into some stereotypes, but maybe that’s just the period. Let’s follow John Cunningham up Ben Nevis and finish with him at the pub. Be you, everyone. I’ll like you more for it!
Thanks for reading and feel free to reach out and shoot me an email. I’m aiming for my next newsletter at the end of April. ‘Til then…
Andrew