Beyond the Mountain (Audible Audio Edition) Steve House Reinhold Messner foreword Random House Audio Books
Download As PDF : Beyond the Mountain (Audible Audio Edition) Steve House Reinhold Messner foreword Random House Audio Books
What does it take to be one of the world's best high-altitude mountain climbers? A lot of fundraising; traveling in some of the world's most dangerous countries; enduring cold bivouacs, searing lungs, and a cloudy mind when you can least afford one. It means learning the hard lessons the mountains teach.
Steve House built his reputation on ascents throughout the Alps, Canada, Alaska, the Karakoram, and the Himalaya that have expanded possibilities of style, speed, and difficulty. In 2005 Steve and alpinist Vince Anderson pioneered a direct new route on the Rupal Face of 26,600-foot Nanga Parbat, which had never before been climbed in alpine style. It was the third ascent of the face and the achievement earned Steve and Vince the first Piolet d'or (Golden Ice Axe) awarded to North Americans.
Steve is an accomplished and spellbinding storyteller in the tradition of Maurice Herzog and Lionel Terray. Beyond the Mountain is a gripping listen, destined to be a mountain classic. And it addresses many issues common to nonclimbing life - mentorship, trust, failure success, goal setting, heroes, partnership - as well as the mountaineer's heightened experience of risk and the deaths of friends. Beyond the Mountain is a window into the process of a man working to be the best he can be.
Beyond the Mountain (Audible Audio Edition) Steve House Reinhold Messner foreword Random House Audio Books
The climbs are amazing but I find that stories of alpinism far are more riveting by Tasker, Roberts Child, Krakauer, Twight and Blanchard because writing about their emotion is the core of their books. This book in comparison feels like a move-by-move description of climbing. What makes climbing great is working through your own inadequacies and fears while dealing with your partners different motivations and similar fears but still getting those days when everything meshes - especially the partnership. This book just hints at that feeling that we as climbers are seeking, made all the better when we almost lose in the tension of uncertainty.Steve House's alpine climbs are amazing - he is probably the best American alpinist. However, he does not bring it is his writing like he brings it on his climbs. I have read accounts of many of these climbs previously in Climbing and Rock and Ice and the accounts of these same climbs by Marc Twight and Barry Blanchard are far more riveting than this book.
While in climbing, Steve House always takes the sharp end of the rope, in writing this book, he has passed on taking the sharp end in reviewing and writing about emotion. His accounts of a client dying on a climb or going to a climbing friends funeral seem to pass on emotional reflection and report it- - it is very difficult to write about - but that is what makes a climbing story gripping, sympathetic and a great read. I was also disappointed as the tension of climbing with partners seemed to be glossed over, such as when Steve dropped or forgot stuff. How did it affect his partners? It seemed that the author did not want to dwell on any tension with climbing partners in writing this book, so we end up reading a sanitized version of his amazing climbs.
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Beyond the Mountain (Audible Audio Edition) Steve House Reinhold Messner foreword Random House Audio Books Reviews
I expected this book to be interesting, and perhaps to help motivate me, to get out and do an ice climb this winter. However this book is an up-close, personal, and honest look at alpinism, and the picture it paints is a little more unsettling. They seem to take risks in the mountains that to me would be absolutely unacceptable. Much is sacrificed in the pursuit of climbing, and this includes to include relationships with others. While climbing is described as being a journey of self-exploration and refinement, it doesn't seem to free the author from his struggles with his emotions or his relationships with others. It's a human book. The stuff about climbing is great as well, really fun to read about. But the two seem to be separate in my mind. I like both sides, for different reasons.
All in all, a lot of food for thought, and an enjoyable read.
Beyond the Mountain, Steve House
My early exposure to mountaineering literature was through books like Maurice Hertzog's Annapurna and John Hunt's The Ascent of Everest. These accounts described heroic struggles of man against nature and provided much detail regarding the organization and logistics of siege style Himalayan climbing. However, these efforts gave little insight into the psychology or motivation of the climber, nor did they allow the reader to glimpse the tensions and personality clashes that frequently characterize climbing teams.
More recently, however, a new genre of mountaineering book has emerged characterized by deeply introspective "tell all" accounts of rivalry and discord. Examples include anything by Kurt Diemberger, Ed Webster's My Storm Years on Everest, and to some extent Royal Robbins's "serialized" autobiography.
Steve House's Beyond the Mountain clearly falls into the latter category. It is soul searching, highly personal, and unabashedly confessional in describing House's personal failings and embarrassments. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It has a quirky style, often jumping forwards and backwards in time when describing a single climb, almost like a screenplay, but the overall effect was compelling, at least to me. The central section of color photographs is superb and I frequently found myself wondering how did they even managed to take some of the shots given the unbelievable difficulty and exposure of the climbing situations. Also, given House's extreme light weight philosophy with respect to gear, I can't imagine that the cameras were any more than the tiniest digital models, although this couldn't apply prior to about 2000. (I actually think there is a book waiting to be written about the technical aspects of climbing photography under various demanding conditions).
By the end I was almost jaded (this isn't a complaint) by descriptions such as House's solo ascent of K7 in thirty hours.
This was easily one of the best books I've read. I didn't give it five stars due to the back and forth at the end of the book, which other readers have also commented on. At the end I found it hard to keep up and was waiting for a climax that in some ways I never found.
But, what is interesting about this book, and sets it apart from the rest, is the connection to his personal life. There is scene he describes after he completes what is essentially his life's work. The scene is dark and grimy, something most people would not admit, but most can react to in some way. When authors are blunt it makes the book better.
The connection is constant between the "normal" life and climbing, or, the question of "what is the point?" Being an outdoorsman I often find myself asking "why" when it comes to pushing physical limits or the wild. What House does is beyond what most people can comprehend so he tries to answer that question.
I wanted a little bit more at the end, but overall this was a great book.
The climbs are amazing but I find that stories of alpinism far are more riveting by Tasker, Roberts Child, Krakauer, Twight and Blanchard because writing about their emotion is the core of their books. This book in comparison feels like a move-by-move description of climbing. What makes climbing great is working through your own inadequacies and fears while dealing with your partners different motivations and similar fears but still getting those days when everything meshes - especially the partnership. This book just hints at that feeling that we as climbers are seeking, made all the better when we almost lose in the tension of uncertainty.
Steve House's alpine climbs are amazing - he is probably the best American alpinist. However, he does not bring it is his writing like he brings it on his climbs. I have read accounts of many of these climbs previously in Climbing and Rock and Ice and the accounts of these same climbs by Marc Twight and Barry Blanchard are far more riveting than this book.
While in climbing, Steve House always takes the sharp end of the rope, in writing this book, he has passed on taking the sharp end in reviewing and writing about emotion. His accounts of a client dying on a climb or going to a climbing friends funeral seem to pass on emotional reflection and report it- - it is very difficult to write about - but that is what makes a climbing story gripping, sympathetic and a great read. I was also disappointed as the tension of climbing with partners seemed to be glossed over, such as when Steve dropped or forgot stuff. How did it affect his partners? It seemed that the author did not want to dwell on any tension with climbing partners in writing this book, so we end up reading a sanitized version of his amazing climbs.
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