Uplifted by Mountain Art--T.S.M. Newsletter
Greetings from Peaklessburg.
Several mornings each week I go through the latest posts on climbing websites and social media. There is news of climbs, increasingly stories with videos reposted from Instagram, plans for festivals and competitions, rescues, aborted attempts and summit tallies from the Karakoram and Himalaya, gear reviews, and interviews. In between it all are stories of art, from words to describe events and their significance, personal experiences, photography, visions, and knowledge and talents from other spaces. I like how climbing, as a lens of humans in nature and the built world, connects me to so many creative things we do and the beautiful ideas you have.
For example, the books I read and review are art in and of itself, but I also discover tangential things. Recently in Climbing dot com, Suzie Hodges Irby writes about boulderer Alison Vest and her sewing talents. I read David Stevenson’s blog I May Be Some Time because I met him through the American Alpine Club and enjoy everything he writes there. This week, he posted an exercise of things people have written on a particular day, May 20th. I love this one from Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo:
There is an art of the future, and it is going to be so lovely and so young that even if we give up our youth to it, we must gain in serenity by it. Perhaps it is very silly to write all this, but I feel it strongly; it seems to me that, like me, you have been suffering to see your life pass away like a puff of smoke; but if it grows again, and comes to life in what you make, nothing has been lost and the power to work is another youth.
I like staying atop of climbing news and hearing about how the GriGri is being improved (thought that’s poppycock,) but I like how, in all, it’s as if all the climbing world occasionally takes a break in high camp for a longueur and either deal with demons or combat it with art. In a hard world, I find comfort in the lens of climbing, particularly climbing in and through nature and art. It always delivers such encouraging and beautiful things.
RECENT POSTS, in case you missed them...
Well, not recent. Actually, here is one brand new post up today and two more. One that I thought was timely and one that I just thought you would enjoy if you haven’t seen it before.
What ‘Uplifted’ by Sonnie Trotter Is Not Makes it Beautiful
Trotter had, in essence, been writing the pieces that culminated into Uplifted for most of his climbing career. Some were his personal essays, some were published in magazines, and the book was in development prior to the pandemic. The result is Uplifted is Trotter’s collected works, shared chronologically (or at least that was his intention, according to interviews), largely with unpublished works, and we get to know Trotter even better than we did, and I started to understand what the book did well and did not. Click here to read my latest post.
Honouring High Places: The Mountain Life of Junko Tabei
Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Chomolungma 50 years ago this week. Tabei had a country girl accent, which stood out. She was also the dreamer, yet conscious of everyone’s limited imagination: When her women’s mountaineering club was organizing an expedition to Mount Everest, Tabei writes: “A common response was: ‘Wow! Himalayas! I would love to go, even just to see Everest.’ Then, ‘But … I don’t have that much skill, or time, or money….,’ and so on. I found it difficult to hear people crush their dreams with the word ‘but.'” In fact, her attitude of “I will go on” without any excuse or any “but” to offer was her hallmark. To read more, click here.
Mislead by the Olympics: Born to Climb by Zofia Reych Reviewed
The arrival of climbing as a medal sport in the Olympics was celebrated by the competitive climbing community, and some others looked on with curiosity if not interest. Although the competitive climbers viewed it as an indication of its validity as an athletic pursuit, climbing, by-and-large, did not reach an evolutionary peak. Born to Climb: From Rock Climbing Pioneers to Olympic Athletes by Zofia Reych had a opportunities to address or refute this evolutionary development, but instead it tells a story that gives too much weight in connecting Olympic climbing to climbing’s very beginnings. Click here to read the rest.
MORE ON JUNKO TABEI
Jenny Hall recounts this milestone and considers why she isn't more celebrated. Read her article here in The Conversation.
DAWN HOLLIS ON THE ALPINIST PODCAST
You know Dawn. Dawn Hollis, author of Mountains Before Mountaineering and who had an article on the same subject (done before the book, by the way) in Alpinist 57…? Well, she was interviewed on the Alpinist Podcast. It’s not linked on the website yet, but it is on Spotify.
Hollis did her Ph.D. on Western humans relationship with the mountains before the first ascent of Mont Blanc. You know, the time we that we’ve been told that we didn’t love the mountains and that they were boils on the earth. Well, Hollis found that that indeed was not the case, and that there was a a bit of a misguided conspiracy that blossomed into our common misconception. Mountaineers’ love for the mountains is special, but it’s not unique as many might have us believe. Listen here. (I also have a post about her book, and that is at this link.)
Well, that’s it for May. Thanks for reading. And be sure to subscribe to a climbing magazine to support the climbing community and climbing writing in print. I mean, how many of us have been inspired through those publications? So, please find at least one you love and subscribe.
Andrew