UKC

Patagonia Beyond the Mountain by Steve House

© Christina Speed
Steve House is appearing at this years Kendal Mountain Festivals, 19-22 November. Details below.


Beyond The Mountain

"22,000 feet on the Rupal Face, Nanga Parbat, Pakistan: August 15, 2004. I take a deep breath and push the honed edge of the knife against the rope. It doesn't cut. I whetted the edge for just this reason. Frustrated, I look at the small knife in the palm of my mitten. I have carried this knife upwards for four days, on a climb where every ounce counts both towards and against my own survival. The rope is sacred, both a symbol and the truest expression of partnership, but if I can cut it Bruce and I can rid ourselves of four pounds and climb to the summit."

from Beyond the Mountain by Steve House.

  • Hardcover edition
  • 288 pages with 81 black and white photographs
  • Printed on 100% post-consumer waste paper
  • Published by Patagonia
  • Made in USA.

Steve House's first book, Beyond the Mountain, may not be a masterpiece, but it's the rare climbing book that I felt compelled to read cover to cover in just a few sittings, and it's certainly the best work about modern extreme alpinism in many years. And unlike some recent books on the subject, Beyond the Mountain is not just a collection of previously published articles but an entirely new work. The result is a revealing—but ultimately inconclusive—look into the life and mind of an extraordinary climber.

I used the word "extreme" above deliberately, as House is one of the rare American climbers whose feats—solo and with various partners—deserve the term, and because his uncompromising approach has often appeared extreme to other climbers. The book is framed by House's three attempts on Nanga Parbat spanning most of his adult life. Although he begins his prologue by writing "I've never been a storyteller," he is, in fact, a skillful writer. His accounts are rich with detail, and he is good with dialogue, capturing the distinctive voices of his willful partners. I'd read or edited accounts of many of the climbs covered in Beyond the Mountain, but the stories of his new routes in Alaska, the Canadian Rockies, and Pakistan still felt fresh. And some of them were entirely unfamiliar: House's teenage exposure to hard-core European alpinism during a school exchange to Slovenia, his first expedition to Nanga Parbat, a terrifying solo crevasse epic in the Mont Blanc massif.

The book's epigraph is the Bonatti quote, "What is there, beyond the mountain, if not the man?" For House and his peers, they are one and the same: The style and difficulty of one's climbs distills the essence of the climber himself. With their exceedingly high standards, House and his partners have been faulted for their elitist attitude toward climbs and climbers that don't measure up. However, I found less of the alpine "Brotherhood" in Beyond the Mountain and more humility and self-deprecation. House recognizes that whatever exalted state he may find at the crux of a hard climb is fleeting, that "success is empty," as he writes in his prologue. "When I climb, I know I will descend. When I grow to love my partners I know that they may die.... The sum is zero, and so the goals become the plotlines to our lives." Is such a plot meaningful enough to sustain a man, to complete a life? Are the sacrifices—the failed marriage, the meager material rewards—worth those gossamer successes, those few transcendent moments in the mountains? Such questions may be unanswerable, and perhaps wisely, House doesn't try to give us a firm answer.

(He is also honest, and not too apologetic, about the taints of his chosen super-light style of alpinism: the littering of excess gear abandoned on summit pushes, the climbs "completed" without summits.)

House's storytelling didn't always work for me (particularly in the chronological back-and-forth of the final Nanga Parbat tale), and the book could have used another proofreading. But on the whole Beyond the Mountain is a richly rewarding work. Above all, House succeeds in humanizing an activity—an extreme—that few humans will ever experience.

See reader reviews of Beyond The Mountain at : www.patagonia.com

UK Availability: Cordee are attempting to get 200 copies of Beyond the Mountain from the Publishers, Patagonia.


STEVE HOUSE AT KENDAL MOUNTAIN FESTIVALS

Steve House is appearing at this years Kendal Mountain Festival, 19-22 November.

Steve House  © various
Steve House

Steve House travels lightweight and fast over the most extreme alpine terrain and is a recipient of the Piolet d'Or for his and Vince Anderson's six-day alpine-style ascent of what is widely regarded as the largest alpine wall in the world the 4000m Central Pillar of the Rupal Face on Nanga Parbat in 2005. Steve House was dubbed by Reinhold Messner as, "The best high-altitude climber in the world today,"

Read a more detailed bio of Steve at www.patagonia.com

Beyond the Mountain - Steve House at Kendal Mountain Festivals
TIME & DATE: Friday 20 Nov: 20:30 - 22:00
TICKET: £8.50. Click to Buy


About The Reviewer

photo
Longs Peak by Dougald MacDonald
Dougald MacDonald is one of America's most respected climbing journalists. He previously owned Rock and Ice Magazine, and is currently an associate editor of the American Alpine Journal; senior contributing editor for Climbing magazine and a contributing editor for 5280 magazine in Denver. He is also a regular contributor to Men's Journal, Outside, Backpacker, Sunset, and more. All that on top of being a talented climber and an all round top bloke. He lives near Boulder, Colorado.

This review was first published on Dougald's excellent blog: The Mountain World. Although the internet is full of climbing blogs and sites, Dougald's professional insight in to the climbing media and all aspects of the sport make for a razor sharp commentary and a beacon of inspiration for climbers and climbing pundits worldwide.

You can view Dougald's book Longs Peak at Amazon.com




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