UKC

What do I do when I'm not climbing? Well I come home from climbing, talk about climbing, plan some climbing, think about climbing, and, as time goes on, remember going climbing. I have heard that some people even train for climbing. I also like to read about it - books, magazines, club journals, UKC forums and features, can all help feed my little climbing rat. Then there are DVDs, YouTube, TV, and full-blown feature films - full saturation is possible. I love it all. But it's books I've been thinking about since lockdown began.

Climbing bibliophile David Hume shares some thoughts on his mountain literature favourites after a long spell of lockdown reading...

Thanks David

"I think it would be great if every UK climbing area produced their own version of Peak Rock to document their place in our obsession."

The Great Mountain Crags of Scotland by Guy Robertson and Adrian Crofton is a step, with supporting books on the Cairngorms & Ben Nevis from the SMC.

All the titles you mention or show in the photos are in English, learning another language brings many more books (to my wife's dismay), most not available in translation. So from my shelves, Rebuffat's 100 best routes on Mt Blanc is just one title in a series.

I've noticed that there are quite a few folks on UKC who are/were cavers (as well as climbers). Obviously, the canon of literature is smaller and probably less appealing to non-cavers at a first glance. However, there are many examples that can stand with the best of climbing and mountaineering. One that I would very much recommend to anyone interested in tales of extreme adventure is Martyn Farr's 'The Darkness Beckons'. Fascinating and horrifying at times, it's a history of cave diving that is every bit as tremendous as the exploration of space. One book that had a massive influence on me personally is the little known gem 'Potholing beneath the Northern Pennines' by David Heap. I probably read that in my early teens and my fate was sealed.

I own an embarrassing number of those books. One you've not mentioned, which I think is as worthy as any, is Creagh Dhu Climber: The Life and Times of John Cunningham. A wonderful book that I found moving, and for want of a better word, atmospheric. It is years since I read it, so I don't recall the details, but I think it was very evocative of a time, a culture and a 'scene.'

... and not a guidebook amongst them!

Chris

Decades ago Pete Livesey wrote something about a cave rescue in Mexico which involved some super-human efforts by a hard-as-nails caver and many, many days of arduous underground travel. I'd totally read something like this again! Do you have any idea what story I'm talking about, and has it appeared in print again?

I'm not sure but it could be something involving Mike Boon, a Brit who emigrated to Canada and was on the original San Agustin/Sistema Huautla explorations in the seventies? There's a pdf link to a rescue there on caving.ab.ca/boon Boon did a lot of the original exploration of Mossdale Caverns in the sixties, solo wearing old clothes and a boiler suit, in winter and he was harder than nails! Livesey also played a part, naming one of his routes Mossdale Trip after the drowning tragedy there in 1967. I enjoyed Boon's book 'Down to a Sunless Sea'.

Yes, that's an excellent book: absolutely evocative of a particular period, and full of great stories. (It's also recommended reading for anybody wanting more info on the grandly-titled 'British / New Zealand Everest Expedition' of 1953 - which consisted of just two people: Hamish MacInnes and John Cunningham!)

Yes that name rings a bell. Thanks

Excellent piece, thank you.

As has already been noted, 'Guidebooks' is a major category too.  I know I'm not the only one who returns to read them not just to spark Proustian recollections, but also to appreciate the humour often only apparent once you've been there and done that or, to pinch a phrase from a Froggat guidebook, floundered miserably.

The category I'm currently working my way through is attempts on 8,000 metre peaks, and others contributed to a thread I started about this a while back.  Their contributions have pointed me at some books I'd never heard of before; I've recently finished Sandy Allan's In Some Lost Place, which was an excellent read.

There were already many good things on my 'to read' pile. Thanks to this piece, there are going to be some more.

T.

Yeah, but dude - Mountaineering in Scotland! 

Nice article.

Rather surprised not to see a copy of the Black Cliff in such a comprehensive selection. Although perhaps understandable given how expensive copies are now, as with a few other sought after titles: Extreme Rock (absent), Extreme Alpine Rock (present) and Fifty Classic Climbs of North America (absent).

I have about two thirds of the books mentioned but I've more interest in guidebooks than biographies. However, the article is rather apposite - I also have my shelves broadly organised in similar categories and I spent much of the first two weeks of lockdown organising my bookshelves... 

Unfortunately they're now in need of some attention again

PS got some spare copies of Rebuffat's Mont Blanc Massif and Stainforth's The Cuillin if anyone wants one and is struggling to get hold of a copy.

We published a book on Scotland's great mountain crags (with Vertebrate) a few years back, and I'm in the process of compiling a 'sequel' on Scotland's great sea cliffs - hopefully for publication later this year. Others are in the pipeline.  It's really important to keep the coffee table climbing book alive and kicking, for both historic and inspirational reasons. Cheers, Guy

Yes The darkness beckons is one of the all time greats and also one of the greatest titles.  Underwater Potholer by Duncan Price is a good read and I am looking forward to Rick Stantons autobiography which is coming out next month I believe.

I would also recommend Cave by Ali Cooper a novel which conveys the character of a lot of male cavers   very accurately, interestingly coming from a women.

Wow. No Murray on the mountaineering bookshelves!

Thanks for the suggestions. It's years since I stopped caving but I do like to hear about what's going on particularly with regards to new stuff being found. I've been corresponding recently with a few folks who are pushing some old leads I was involved with in Dentdale a long time ago. That's fascinating even though I almost certainly won't be going to look myself. I carried kit for a few cave divers in the past and watching them was scary enough. There were quite a few female cavers in my old clubs and they were certainly not shrinking violets. Even quite scary to a wet behind the ears youth ....

As for great titles, I love 'Down to a Sunless Sea'. Me and my mate Colin used to to quote Coleridge when were out on digging trips looking for 'caverns measureless to Man'. Never did find one, although did discover a 180m pitch in Turkey.

For my lockdown reading I have been alternating climbing biographies with other titles. I re-read The Villain, The Hard Years, Rock Athlete and I am currently freaking out to Full of Myself - no-one writes like Johnny Dawes but then not everybody likes his style!

I noted that the Black Cliff gets a passing mention - I think it deserves higher billing. Also High Peak captures the zeitgiest of its time (Homage to Ken Wilson there).

Just for you Chris. This is just some of them.  A whole new article awaits an author.

Cheers for that - I feel better now

Chris

One to add, my favourite climbing book, a classic IMO, Everest: The West Ridge, Thomas Hornbein

He is on the shelves! Couldn't use all the photos of piles of books. He should also have been mentioned in the text, thanks for noting his absence. I'm now after a second hand copy Robin Lloyd-Jones' biography of him.

Yes, it was a classic and I had a copy, lent it to a friend who lent it to a friend etc and it vanished. I see used copies going for £60-£70!

Fifty Classic Climbs of North America - I thought I had that, but maybe got confused with this one:

Good luck with the re-classification game!

Dave

Great article - thanks.

I thought you sneaked round and photographed my collection at one point, glad that others have them as battered as mine. And that someone else still owns that lovely little Gill Fawcett tome. Of its time but very funny. It lives next to Feeding the Rat

I also have a 50 Classic Climbs of North America -pretty battered, but too special to part with

Agreed ' The Darkness beckons' up there as a top 10 read....

Almost the same thing happened to me, my almost pristine copy of The Black Cliff was with a very well-known climbing friend when he was tragically killed, RIP my poor friend

I didn't have the heart to ask his parents to give it back to me (and I was out of the UK when he died and for his funeral). I had to buy a fairly battered new copy for 50 quid from a bookseller

Ref your lost book, it probably ended up in a charity shop somewhere. I'll  keep looking!

That never occurred to me - but that's probably what happened - I hope you find it one day, good luck!