No comments about Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia.

1 comments about Bloomers and bugles.

1. Arch Merrill was my father's favorite historian. Dad was also an avid collector of his books. Since he died, his collection has come to me, and I have been slowly working my way through them.
   
   Bloomers and Bugles covers the period between the passing of the frontier and the close of the Civil War. Like most of Merrill's books, it treats the period through small biographical sketches which give a flavor of the time. In this book, Merrill explores women's rights through notables such as Susan B. Anthony and looks at the underground railroad by discussing Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Much of the appeal of Merrill's writing comes from the fact that he intersperses national figures with local ones-- teaching the history of the region along side the history of a nation.
   
   Merrill was a newspaperman for over 50 years. His writing is gentle and amiable, not unlike a walk in the woods. There are probably better modern sources for histories of the time. However, if you are looking for history specific to upstate New York, Merrill is a great source.

No comments about Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.

4 comments about Nansen.

1. Nansen is a norwegian hero and legend. Huntford does a thorough job uncovering Nansen, the man and his triumphs. The Fram expedition and his travels with Johansen make this book hard to put down. Huntford is the premier biographer of polar explorers. Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen, and Nansen are all featured in books by Huntford. To learn more about norwegians, one only needs to read this book. Nansen was not only an adventurer, he was a pioneering scientist!



2. This is a very dynamically written biography of Fridtjöf Nansen, polar explorer who established the farthest north not to be beaten for a couple of next years. The journey in "Fram", custom built ship, is bizarre enough, indeed. As intended, the ship entered polar ocean close to the Siberian coast of Taimyr Peninsula, where it was locked frozen in the ice for the next three years. The expedition mainly performed some scientific observations, self-imprisoned in the lonely ice of the north. The drift helped the frozen ship move slowly towards the North Pole with no activity on the part of explorers. It failed however to approach the pole itself, so Nansen set for the pole using dogs and sleighs, together with only one human companion, Hjalmar Johanssen. Cut off from the ship and inventory, they tried hard to achieve their goal. Having failed, they decided not to come back to the ship, which itself would be hard to find given the conditions of the environment and the ice drift. They headed for Svalbard instead, hundreds of kilometers away, instead. Meantime, they discovered an unknown archipelago, or at least it seemed so to them. They spent winter there in the ice cave, having hunted enough walruses to make a living. The story is full of adventures, exciting, unexpected, amusing or just otherwise sad, but always engaging. Read for yourself how they ended up. The journey for the farthest north is only part of the book, which is extensively long, covering all Nansen's life, and all of his activities, including the League of Nations leadership, for which later he was awarded a Nobel prize. Very recommended, as it is by no means a typical biography.



3. Our book club, all ladies over 60, loved this book. It is a wonderful subject for discussion - Nansen himself, his adventures,his heroics, his accomplishments and Huntford's amazing writing makes for a great read whether or not you are
   Norwegian.



4. Roland Huntford is, without a doubt, one of our greatest biographers on Polar explorers. His writings on Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton are among the very best. It is no less the case in NANSEN In this story of a very unusual, complex and troubled man, Huntford pictures Nansen as he really was, not some trumped up hero of his own making. Nansen was not a great leader of men, nor was he easy to be around. Yet, he had incredible drive and determination in all he did. His scientific research in his early days was ahead of its time and sadly, much of what he accomplished he was never given credit for. When he turned his life to Arctic pursuits, his drive was no less intense, as he perfected the art of Cross country skiing, was the first to cross Greenland and eventually ended up on one of the greatest epics of our time with his quest for the North Pole. Nansen's own account of the North Pole adventure was his book "Farthest North". Huntford, in his biography, covers this story in depth, drawing from Nansen's diaries as well as those of the other men involved. The result is that we have a deeper insight into what really happened rather than just relying on Nansen's own account. Whatever the case, this adventure was one of the most remarkable of all polar explorations and this alone is worth reading.
   The story of Nansen's life after this great episode, seems to bog down a bit. Nansen lived off his North Pole quest which made him a household name worldwide. This result was to put him into the political world in a way he never dreamed. Throughout the remainder of his life one has the feeling he really wanted to be exporing again and just get away from people and fame. He was a troubled and often unhappy man. Nonetheless, he certainly deserves his place as the father of Polar Exploration and many of those who followed owe much to him. An interesting story well worth the time.

5 comments about The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Antarctic Expedition.

1. The Coldest March (referring to the month as well as the verb) is about British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his team of explorers and scientists who raced a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen to the South Pole in 1911-12. Amundsen was the first ever to reach the Pole. Scott and four of his crew (hand-chosen by Scott) reached the Pole a month later. Amundsen's team made it back but Scott's did not. Many books and reports have been written since trying to explain why Scott failed to return. Many critics site several bad decisions on the part of Scott leading to the legend that he was a bumbler. Scott kept a journal right to the end and sometimes his self-effacing entries fueled the criticism.
   
   Susan Solomon may seem to have an agenda. Throughout the book, Solomon attempts to defend many of Scott's decisions and actions. She has tremendous expertise in the subject. Solomon studied the Ozone layer in the Antarctic. She is a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado. When considering the legend of Scott, Solomon admits that she assumed the Brit explorer foolishly disregarded the power of Mother Nature until she studied the data and diaries left by Scott and his crew (xvii). While Solomon often defends Scott against highly critical historical accounts like Huntford's The Last Place on Earth, she is no apologist. She also points out Scott's errors and baffling decisions.
   
   At the beginning of each chapter, Solomon includes part of the experiences of a modern-day Antarctic visitor. This visitor is not a specific person but a conglomeration of typical visitors. At first I was confused as, while reading about this modern experience, the story would shift gears to 1911-12. Soon, I figured out the pattern. The modern stories are at the beginning of each chapter (only about 2-3 pages each) and are in bold print. These stories are able to demonstrate clearly the issues or problems surrounding the Scott legend: i.e. comparing the huge stock of frozen vegetables at the warehouse there today and the comfortable living conditions against what Scott and his him men faced (pp. 71-2), the importance of drinking plenty of water in higher elevations versus the meager cups of tea Scott and company could drink each day with the scarce fuel they had, (p. 209), how much a visitor suffers in just a short period in extreme conditions (p. 286), etc. These stories, especially one explaining the need to risk snowblindness to better see crevasses (p. 183) helped me, as a reader who will never experience anything remotely close to the Antarctic, better understand the issues people face there.
   
   Solomon clearly refutes points of criticism of Scott: i.e. that his men suffered from scurvy because they refused to eat seal meat or their ponies (pp. 3, 176), that the final five men who journeyed to the Pole did not have enough to eat because they only prepared food for four (p. 213), etc. She does point out Scott's weaknesses and mistakes. For example, he put too much faith in the opinions of some of his men (p. 86) and, even more importantly, he planned by the margins, putting too much stock in past experiences and not preparing for the possibility of worse case scenarios as did Amundsen. The inferior sleeping bags and faulty fuel cans were significant problems stemming from a lack of proper testing and preparation. Solomon is no sycophant and makes a fair assessment based on Scott's and his men's diaries and other primary sources.
   
   What makes this work a fresh approach is the information on weather conditions taken from stations set up near Scott's path. They provided data for several decades demonstrating that the conditions Scott faced during the last month of their lives (March 1912) were extremely rare and perhaps unprecedented. What is puzzling is Solomon's conclusions which are contradictory. She discusses the rarity of the blizzard they faced in March 1912 and then shifts to explain that a 10-day blizzard noted in Scott's diary probably did not occur and that the men stayed in their tent for other reasons; one possibly being Scott's frost-bitten foot. Then, out-of-the-blue, Solomon mentions a suicide plan Scott wrote in his diary on March 11 involving opium tablets (p. 322). They decided not to take them but it seems odd to only mention such an entry briefly towards the end of the book. They probably lived another 18 or more days. Her confusing and inconclusive ending is the only criticism I have of this well-written and fascinating book. It is extremely well-researched and, on a historical level, offers fresh ideas and approaches. She also discusses the men on Scott's team (Edward Wilson, Lawrence Oates, Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans, Lt. Edward Evans, Apsely Cherry-Garrard, etc.) describing some of their backgrounds, characters, and personalities which added a lot to the human side of the story.



2. Primarily a scientific investigation and a good one at that, with the human interest aspect secondary but significant. Solomon is very informative. Being in the Antartic may mean not just reckoning with the cold but also with low humidiity and high elevation. What being severely frostbitten is like. Considerations of what to bring on an Antartic expedition. The impact on bodies and minds as the temperature drops lower and lower.
   
   Diary fragments are used heavily to reveal what Scott and his team were thinking. Solomon's tone is more descriptive than dramatic. One page the team has reached the South Pole and not many pages later, with little buildup, they are dead. Much of the human interest comes from Solomon's speculations after that as to why the team died as they did.
   
   For a polar story told with less science but more drama, try also "Mawson's Will" by Leonard Bickel. They complement each other well. That Mawson, alone of his team, escaped the fate of Scott and his team is incredible. The PBS video based on "The Coldest March", an episode of the "Secrets of the Dead" series entititled "Tragedy at the Pole" is excellent.



3. Susan Solomon's book on the ill-fated Scott expedition of 1911-1912 tries to refute the Scott bashing in Roland Huntford's superior book, "The Last Place on Earth." Huntford carefully explains why the lesser-known Amundsen deserves praise while Scott pretty much kills himself. Solomon describes Scott as a "bumbler"- someone who makes mistakes because of incompetence. But her title and thesis is- it was the weather's fault. Inspector Clouseau was a bumbler. Scott's "preparation and leadership" cost him and all his men their lives.
   
   The best part of Solomon's book is her make-believe Antarctic visitor. One evening he watches the television serial "The Last Place on Earth" based on Huntford's book. She even quotes from it, "Any man who sits in his tent in the Antarctic and whines about the weather is not fit to lead." She then explains it was very cold. She should have kept quoting the film because it has many great quotes she didn't use; allow me to recite just a few. "Men die; cattle die; I thyself shall die; one thing I know shall never die- Judgment over the Dead". Hello Susan.
   
   In Scott's group, Meares says, "I took a trip across Siberia a journey of 2,000 miles, taught me many things, but chiefly I learned the narrowness of the line that man walks in nature between farce and tragedy, a lesson the Norwegians have learned on sea, on ice and mountain; it is a lesson Scott and his kind will never learn." I don't know if Mr. Meares said this but his case is stronger than Solomon's.
   
   Finally, the most eloquent for last. Amundsen warns his men to lay out markers an additional 2 miles in both directions of a depot. "Two miles?" they ask. "Yes" replies Amundsen, "This is not the place to take chances."
   
   If Susan Solomon wants to blame the weather, okay, but perhaps she has been breathing the ozone too long.



4. Solomon's is a well-written book that begs the question: How many ways are there to say that it is cold in winter at Antarctica?
   
   Solomon builds a molehill of meteorological data that pales in comparison to mountains of other evidence. Scott's lack of provisions, inadequate marking of depots, splitting of teams, depoting of ski and evaporation of stored fuel are not the only problems with his journey.
   
   Scott apologists lay the journey's failure and death of the party on the bad weather encountered at the end. They fail to note that 2 companions had already died by the last encampment and the last (Evans) party barely made it back 3 weeks earlier (for the same reasons listed above).
   
   The sheer fact of the matter is, that on a journey of over FOUR MONTHS, Scott had barely FOUR DAYS of extra rations for a job requiring 5000 calories per man per day.
   
   A 3% margin of error in the coldest, windiest, least hospitable corner of the globe is hoping on more than luck...



5. I've read several books on this subject. This one doesn't add quite enough.
   
   What's important to note is that Scott's expedition was not considered a failure at the time. His primary goal, unlike Amundsen, was to gather scientific data, not reach the pole first. Amundsen traveled fast and light; Scott put scientific discovery first. Among other achievements, the rock fossils his men gathered later contributed to proving plate tectonics.
   
   While Solomon's weather information is fascinating, the book "Captain Scott" by Ranulph Fiennes covers absolutely everything that was a factor, including the hellish weather. Fiennes even crossed the Antarctic using Scott's methods.
   
   Fiennes was moved to undertake his dangerous mission by "The Last Place on Earth," which he viewed as a slander of Scott's achievements. A British court agreed; the author of "The Last Place on Earth" was ordered to pay damages to Scott's son.
   
   Fiennes gives detailed background on all of Scott's decisions, including what is seen as one of his greatest errors, using ponies instead of dogs.
   
   Although the book "The Last Place on Earth" was found to be slander, the drama by the same name, available on DVD, is a fine piece of film making with excellent performances. Don't take it as gospel, though.

No comments about They Married Adventure: The Wandering Lives of Martin and Osa Johnson.

5 comments about Flying North South East and West: Arctic to the Sahara.

1. A fantastic adventure written by a former Smoke Jumper who didn't have a million-dollar budget and a press agent for every aviation feat completed. You'll find yourself white-knuckled while simply flipping the pages of FLYING NORTH, and laughing at the same time as Captain Terry Reece takes you on one harrowing adventure after another. From the wrecked airplane he first bought for $1200, to ferrying men, supplies, even dog teams to the North Slope and the North Pole to hauling "First Aid Supplies, (read weapons) into the war torn Middle East, FLYING NORTH is a true record of civilian aviation heros who toiled and often died living thier dream of flying anything, anywhere at anytime--provided they've got an airplane with two wings, engine and tail, a fifty gallon barrel of fuel, cargo and just a rough idea of thier destination.



2. This book is such a treat, it took me back to my days in Alaska. Well written, loved the humor and by the seat of your pants adventures. A must read!



3. This is one of the best aviation books to come down the line in quite a while. Written with humor and compassion, Flying North South East and West, covers the whole range of aviation from bush flying, worldwide cargo flying, to flying Boeing jets in the north country. It is also a great book about a young couples struggles to start their life in Alaska in the early sixties in an era long gone. It brought many memories of living in Alaska. A must book for anyone interested in aviation of Alaska and worldwide cargo flying.
   
   I also highly recommend The Flying North by Jean Potter, a must for your book shelf.
   The Flying North



4. A great read for anyone interested in aviation, Alaska, and adventure, or any combination of the three! Filled with humor and excitement, a round-the-world journey that any flying enthusiast will enjoy. Highly recommended!



5. Captain Reece writes an exciting book about a time of "lost" Alaska aviation history. He describes a personal adventure from his time as an entry level forest fire smokejumper, to his rise to Chief Pilot for Alaska International Air's successor, Markair. His book also describes flying in the gritty world of Africa transporting "supplies" into war torn countries for "certain government agencies."
   
   Well written and fast paced, this book was a joy to read, especially for those of us that lived part of it with him...
   
   Guy Goodboe
   Former Pilot, Alaska International Air

3 comments about William Dunbar: Scientific Pioneer of the Old Southwest.

1. Without DeRosier's work Dunbar would have been lost. This is a most engaging and remarkable book about a fascinating figure in American history. Highly recommend this text!



2. William Dunbar was a talented man whose accomplishments have long been in need of professional assessment. Arthur DeRosier has responded to this need in the first full-scale investigation of available sources, beginning in Scotland, where Dunbar was born. The author's effort has cleared up numerous misunderstandings--such as whether William Dunbar inherited his father's title--and has detailed some of William Dunbar's accomplishments in the New World, the best known of which was his 1804-05 expedition with George Hunter to explore the land drained by the Red and Ouachita Rivers as far as the Hot Springs in what became central Arkansas. This exploration was followed by another Red River expedition in 1806, which Dunbar ably coordinated. Eclipsed in public interest by the 1804-06 Lewis and Clark expedition whose route lay to the north, Dunbar's first attempt to ascertain what the nation had gained by the Louisiana Purchase has now been given the attention it deserves.
   
   Among other national contributions was Dunbar's collaboration with the astronomer Andrew Ellicott to survey the boundary between Spanish West Florida and the United States. Through Ellicott he became known to prominent members of the American Philosophical Society, who welcomed for publication his astronomical and meteorological observations. These in turn had been made possible by the scientific instruments he was able to import as a result of his financial success in growing indigo and cotton. He contributed to the rise of cotton culture in the South by experimenting with improved seeds and by improvements on the cotton gin and on methods of baling cotton for shipment.
   
   Despite the book's subtitle it scants Dunbar's scientific work, however, and has little to say about such pioneering investigations as his study of Indian sign language, his attempt to solve the problem of finding longitude by astronomical methods, his contributions to meteorological record-keeping at a time when the nation lacked a weather bureau, his use of chemical analysis in geology, his good fortune in being the southernmost observer to study the 1806 solar eclipse, etc. These shortcomings may result from the author's heavy reliance on the printed Dunbar letters and papers edited by Eron Rowland and published in 1930--a book notorious for the editor's misreading of the manuscripts and an editor having little understanding of things scientific.
   
   DeRosier says that he hopes his book will "challenge" other scholars to take up aspects of Dunbar's career "that deserve further study and reflection." Perhaps it will.



3. Finally a history book that is more than a never ending sequence of historical facts. I was pleasantly surprised by the way DeRosier was able to weave together historical facts into a delightful novel about a facinating, historically important figure. I felt history come alive as I read Dunbar. Thank you.

5 comments about Transcendent Summits: One Climber's Route to Self-Discovery.

1. I am a climber. I can understand the gap between the 1's and the 5's. This is a climbers book. It does not have wide appeal to general readers.
   
   Blazak's review criticizing a (possible) non-climber for not understanding the book only emphasizes the point that this is written for climbers alone. It is also apparent that Mr. Blazak is a friend of Mr. Roach (Gerr) as most of the 5's seem to be. Maybe saying this is a climbers book is too broad, it is a Boulder Climber's book, or the friend's of Gerr's book.



2. Gerry Roach's new book Transcendent Summits is filled with youthful enthusiasm, yet tinged with the experience of his many years of climbing and mountaineering. The climbing stories of his youth, set in the 1950s and 60s, are brought to life by his great narrative writing style. The title cannot be easily explained; one must read the book to completely understand the significance of it to the author. When I reached the end of the book, I finally understood the meaning of the title and realized that I have had a few transcendent summits in my own mountaineering experiences.
   
   The overriding structure of the book is revealed in the foreword written by Rick Ridgeway. Gerry Roach had always learned an important climbing lesson from each of his transcendent summits. Each lesson learned is concisely summarized down to one word. He assembles the first letter of each word to form the acronym "WHO CLIMBS UP." From there we are off reading the adventures of a young boy with his head in the clouds. There is an obvious correlation between the climbing lessons and applying those lessons to everyday life.
   
   At an early age he finds his parents "Life" magazine from July 1953 with a picture of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on the cover. Reading the article about the famous first ascent of Mt. Everest, he is captivated by the controversy over which man first set foot on the summit. The explanation that the two climbers can be as one when connected by a piece of climbing rope is a puzzling concept for a boy. He then questions the authenticity of their claim of climbing Mt. Everest. His mother tells him, "Mountaineers are men of honor." Honor is a transcendent summit lesson that Gerry Roach learns on Mt. Rainier a decade later.
   
   One of the fascinating aspects of the book for me was his description of climbs that I have also experienced in Colorado, Washington, Mexico and Alaska. However, he puts them in the context of the late 50s and early 60s by writing about the transportation methods to get to the trailhead and the descriptions of the gear he used. There are also descriptions of a couple of climbs he did that are no longer legal to do, one climb that became legal in the time context of the book, and a mountaineering hut that no longer exists.
   
   Another time context writing technique he employs is to include world events that shaped his life. For instance, his father was a member of the scientific community in WW II and had some part in developing the atomic bomb. Gerry would do some Hindu chanting while climbing and when the Chinese invaded Tibet, he was saddened that the Dalai Lama left his homeland. He mentioned the scene of the Russian Prime Minister, Kruschev, pounding his shoe on the table at the United Nations. The escalation of the Vietnam War affects his research on top of an isolated Alaskan volcano in the summer of 1964. At the end of the book he joins the newly formed Peace Corps to go to work in India.
   
   The book is also a coming of age story of a boy transforming into a man, and his experiences with women. As a young teenager, he lived in Paris with his family and encountered prostitutes while wandering the streets in search of stone masonry walls to climb in the old city. He mentions the difficulties of high school dating while attending Boulder High School. On a family trip to Norway one summer during high school, he is amazed how forward the young women are that he meets while peak bagging the country's high points. The young Scandinavian women are out to party in the land of the midnight sun. The summer after his high school graduation, while building an observatory on top of Maui, he meets and falls in love with a woman and intends to marry her but never does. Then there was that mysterious older woman with the psychic connection he met the day before climbing Ship Rock when it was still legal to climb.
   
   I was particularly interested in the background information of the native people's legends surrounding some of his climbs. The Native American legend of the creation of Ship Rock is fascinating. He was emotionally touched at the crux of the climb when he recognized the location of a legendary battle. He also writes of the Aztec legend of the Mexican Volcanoes, known now as Orizaba, Popo and Izta. From Hawaii he writes of the legendary struggle between the demigod Maui to capture the sun in the Haleakala Crater. In the chapter on his Mt. McKinley climb, he writes of his affection for "Denali's queen", Sultana (Mt. Foraker) from the Indian legend and of their child, Begguya, known as Mt. Hunter. The telling of these legends helps bring a much larger context to the book.
   
   The mountains have been a place of joy as well as an educational forum for Gerry Roach that he applied to his everyday life. For example, as a result of an incident on Little Bear at age 14, he learned how a person's ego could compromise one's safety. While still a teenager, Gerry Roach learned to do risk assessment from climbing at an earlier age than his non-climbing peers. He writes of risk assessment in conjunction with the death of several of his climber friends. He believes in the importance of safety to live a long life to create and spread joy to others. As an instructor with the CMC, I was interested to read his statements on safety, risk, and mortality in the mountains.
   
   A strong theme throughout his stories is the human bonds that develop from climbing with a trusted team. Gerry Roach's first climbing partner was his high school classmate, Geoff. Together they formed "The Summit Club" and climbed together for many years. He writes about the fellowship with the guys on the drive to the Mexican Volcanoes in the old milk truck they fixed up. He develops a close trust with Layton Kor on the first ever climb of T2 in Eldorado Canyon. During a fierce storm at the summit on Mt. Rainier, one rope mate drops in exhaustion. It crossed Gerry's mind to leave him, but his honor would not let him leave someone to die. The four men on his Denali team had developed a positive attitude and a special relationship to overcome many difficulties near the summit. My favorite quote in the book came from the chapter on Denali. He wrote, "One of life's extant experiences is to be on an expedition where the energy is positive and the momentum is always accelerating toward the summit."
   
   "Transcendent Summits" is much more than a collection of an old climber's stories; it is about life. It is about the human connections we make, keep and treasure through climbing. I recommend this book to all climbers interested in discovering the lessons Gerry Roach has written about and comparing them to their own life lessons.
   
   Kurt Wibbenmeyer (kawibbenmeyer@yahoo.com)



3. In Transcendent Summits, Mr. Roach has accomplished the nearly unthinkable: in some of the most artistically effective words ever written on the subject, he has communicated how several critical experiences in his life have generated the motivation, preparation and skills required to achieve at a world-class level in his chosen field of endeavor for more decades than many of us have been alive.
   
   In a very real sense, this book is not a climbers' book, but a book of and for the human species. The details of climbing form only the backdrop for the real story of Transcendent Summits: the development of character through consistent self-challenge and accomplishment at a level beyond what most of us can imagine.
   
   If you count yourself among those who seek out challenges rather than shrink from them, then this book is for you. If you find nothing of interest here, count yourself among those from whom I personally have nothing to learn.



4. Those are some great reviews. Reality s**** though... not worth the time or money.



5. Reprinted from the Colorado Springs Gazette
   
   When Gerry Roach was in high school in the late 1950s he listened to opera records over and over until he boiled down the grand operatic tradition to its essence.
   
   "Act one: profess undying love," the Colorado author and mountaineer told a crowd gathered recently to hear a few stories from his early days. "Act two: many complications. Act three: everybody dies."
   
   The young Roach could not have known that his life would follow a similar dramatic arc of love, struggle and death.
   
   By age 15, he had essentially professed undying love to climbing mountains. The complications of difficult climbs and the deaths of fellow climbers came later.
   
   Now, as Roach celebrates his 50th year of climbing, he is giving a show in Colorado Springs that revisits some of his earliest alpine arias.
   
   Roach, 61, best known regionally for his yellowspined guidebook, "Colorado's Fourteeners: From Hikes to Climbs," is one of the state's most accomplished mountaineers. He has scaled every Colorado fourteener at least twice, and summited 2,000 more peaks in the state. He was the second person ever to climb the highest point of every continent, and the first to bag the 10 highest summits in North America. Along the way he has written nine books, including his 2004 foray into narrative, "Transcendent Summits."
   
   Most people with a repertoire like that might be ready to take a bow. But as opera fans know, a show is only as good as its last act, and it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings. Roach has no plans to stop climbing or writing.
   
   "Of course I'm getting less strong and less fast as I get older. That might be a problem if I was trying to set a speed record on K2, but for my purposes, it doesn't make much of a difference. I can still climb in Alaska every year.
   
   "Right now I'm working on climbing the highest point in every national park," he said on a recent afternoon after a yoga class near his Boulder home. "Plus, as soon as I turn 62, I can get a lifetime senior pass to the national parks. That will be amazing."
   
   Roach's prelude to mountain expeditions came in 1956 when he and a friend used their paper route money to buy a few pitons and carabiners, stole his dad's hammer and headed up to a set of sandstone slabs above town called the Flatirons.
   
   "Back then, climbing was a counter-culture activity," he said. "Not many people did it, and people thought the ones who did were nuts. We didn't have any real gear. We climbed in our school shoes."
   
   Gear or no gear, Roach had the desire and drive to learn the budding sport and soon hooked up with a ragtag chorus of climbers
   at the University of Colorado who taught him the ropes. He was so dedicated to becoming a mountaineer that he would practice tying and re-tying knots while dousing himself with cold water in the shower.
   
   "It was the mystery that drew me. The sense of adventure. At the time, parts of Colorado seemed as remote as the Himalayas," he said.
   
   COLORADO TO KATHMANDU
   
   The Rockies were a resounding rehearsal range for Roach. Every lesson learned could be applied on mountains around the world.
   
   One lesson he learned early on, while trying to scramble up Crestone Needle in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, was that Thanksgiving is a rotten time to climb.
   
   "We quickly turned back. Oh, November's the worst. It's cold, but the snow hasn't set up yet. Why can't we get those days off in May instead?" he said.
   
   To this day he resents the holiday's poor timing, but it taught him that weather will always win, and a good climber must wait patiently for the right conditions.
   
   After climbing some of the state's classic alpine routes, he headed off to bigger adventures. In high school, Roach and a few climbing buddies bought a used milk truck and made two trips in it to climb Mexican volcanoes "with enticing, unpronounceable names," such as 17,343-foot Iztaccihuatl.
   
   "It was fantastic how much adventure could be had for so little. Our first trip only cost us $40. The second time it cost us $60," he said with a gruff laugh.
   
   His climbing career continued to crescendo in college. He organized an expedition to Denali in Alaska and, later, one to Mount Rainier in Washington.
   
   Today, visitors to Roach's climbing résumé at his Web site, www.climb.mountains.com, will scroll for a long time before reaching the end. He has been on 19 Alaskan expeditions, 10 Andean expeditions and seven Himalayan expeditions.
   
   Like his opera records, those acts were filled with complications and deaths.
   
   Roach was still in high school when his first climbing friend died. In college he was trapped in a blizzard on Mount Rainier and had to wait out the gale in a cramped ice cave formed by steam coming off the volcanic mountain's top.
   
   Later, on a peak in South America, one of his climbing partners was knocked unconscious when the snow they were on collapsed. In an epic effort, Roach and his partners got the injured man to a hospital, only to watch him die from brain damage.
   
   Today, Roach still has all his fingers and toes, but it is a rare presentation when he doesn't mention, off-handedly, that one climber or another from an expedition is no longer around.
   
   "A gruesome number of them have died," he said. "I almost feel like I keep climbing to carry the flag for them."
   
   ROACHISMS
   
   Roach is best known among casual peak baggers for his guidebooks, not his climbing feats, but he rarely reads guidebooks himself. It would be like staring at subtitles during a live performance of "Madame Butterfly" instead of just getting wrapped up in the music.
   
   "I don't like to know too much about where I'm going. Figuring it out is part of the challenge. I usually read the book after the climb, just to see how I did," he said.
   
   But not reading books has never translated into not writing them. Roach has a guide for everything from popular Front Range hikes to obscure technical thirteeners.
   
   Anyone flipping through a Roach guide will find detailed descriptions, maps and photos, and stumble across a liberal sprinkling of almost philosophical one-liners, such as "physics always wins."
   
   Fans have deemed these little gems "Roachisms."
   
   A particularly poignant Roachism shows up in Aron Ralston's best-seller "Between a Rock and a Hard Place." The young explorer is best known for cutting off his hand and forearm to escape from a dislodged boulder in a Utah slot canyon.
   
   After realizing he was stuck, Ralston took out his knife and scratched a line he remembered from Roach's thirteener guide into the stone: "GEOLOGIC TIME INCLUDES NOW."
   
   Along with fans, the maestro has critics who blame guidebook authors for the swelling numbers of hikers on some Colorado summits.
   
   He shrugs off such grumbling as "ridiculous." "Guidebooks don't create a demand," he said. "They just keep people from making wrong turns."
   
   A guidebook, like a scratchy recording of "Carmen," can easily be left on the shelf by anyone who would rather experience the real thing without a middleman.
   
   "There are so many mountains out there with no one on them, especially the thirteeners," Roach said. "You can still have the same adventure that I had 50 years ago by leaving the guidebook at home."
   
   Dave Philipps (dphilipps@gazette.com)

5 comments about The Second Death of George Mallory: The Enigma and Spirit of Mount Everest.

1. I thought this book was terrible, and I was glad I checked it out at the library and hadn't wasted any money buying it. Messner publishes selected journal entries of Mallory's, strings them together in a barely coherent fashion and calls it a book. To that he adds his own fantasies about what Mallory might have been thinking at given points in time.

   It doesn't work. So many of Mallory's entries are left out that one misses the sense of having heard the whole story. Messner's additions do not really help to complete the story. In fact, if I hadn't already read a lot about Everest expeditions and Mallory's in particular in other books I would have had trouble following Messner's.

   In addition, Messner does not really give the reader very much added information that might be useful. How about an in depth comparison of climbing clothing today versus then, altitude sickness and it's effects, dehydration issues at altitude, etc. Instead, he includes an entire chapter on the Chinese ascents of Everest which he fails to make even remotely interesting.

   I'm sorry I wasted my time reading this, and am only happy I didn't waste my money too.




2. There is no doubt Reinhold Messner knows mountains.
   Despite losing his younger brother on his first notable Himalayan ascent, Messner went on to become the first man to scale all 14 of the world's mountains exceeding 8000 metres.
   In 1980, he made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without the use of bottled oxygen, and his feats in crossing Greenland and Antarctica on foot have made him the stuff of modern adventuring legend.
   Yet he draws his inspiration from the man most notable for not making the summit of the world's highest mountain - English mountaineer George Mallory.
   But did Mallory actually die on way down? It's a question that has fired the imagination of climbers worldwide, particularly since Mallory's body was found by an American expedition in May 1999.
   Only the discovery of Mallory's camera will settle the argument, but Messner has made a quite extraordinary step toward solving the mystery himself in THE SECOND DEATH OF GEORGE MALLORY.
   Using Mallory's own journals and letters, Messner recreates his two reconnaissance climbs, and his final, fatal 1924 assault on Everest.
   But fans of Hollywood mountaineering blockbusters should not expect an adrenaline-fuelled page-turner filled with crumbling crevasses and rumbling avalanches - this is a nostalgic, bittersweet recreation of the mental challenge and constant heartbreak that are as much a hurdle for climbers as the mountains themselves.
   In tracing Mallory's journey, Messner pays homage to the forgotten glory days of ``amateur'' climbing - when men challenged the mountain armed with little more than a pick, a sturdy pair of hobnailed boots and seven jumpers.
   He also takes a quite extraordinary step in assuming the dead voice of Mallory himself, to give a personal account of his own fateful attempt, as well as pass judgement on the efforts of those climbers who followed after him.
   It doesn't always work - ``Mallory's'' criticism of the Chinese attempts is more than a little irresponsible - but after 14 mountaineering books, Messner cannot be blamed for wanting to mix it up a bit.
   Nevertheless, THE SECOND DEATH OF GEORGE MALLORY is still an inspiring and moving read, which also goes a long way toward helping those less-adventurous among us understand what drives people to risk their lives for a good view.



3. Quick. Who was the first to climb Mt. Everest? If you answered Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953 then you stayed awake in class. But what your teachers did not tell you was that Mt. Everest may have been climbed in 1924 by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine during the last of the three British pre war expeditions. Last seen about 800 feet from the top they disappeared into the mist and into legend. Mallory was considered the finest British climber of his day and Mt. Everest was seen as his mountain. No climber has personified Mt. Everest as Mallory and his desire to conquer the summit is legendary. The mystery of whether Mallory and Irvine summited Everest in 1924 has endured for over 75 years and reached a climax when in 1999, Mallory's body was found at about 27,000 feet on the north side of Everest. This find and the ensuing speculation as to his and Irvine's fate has fueled countless books by everyone involved and some not so involved. The find has not solved the mystery and the debate still rages on. As I write this review there is now an expedition on Everest to find Irvine and the camera they were known to have taken with them. Images found in the camera could prove the pair made the summit before perishing.
   Reinhold Messner was the first person to scale Mt. Everest solo and without oxygen giving him a place as one of the greatest mountaineers ever and a unique insight into the feelings that drove Mallory to fight to the end to summit Mt. Everest. It is with his new book " The Second Death of George Mallory" that Messner intends to pay tribute to the high ideals of Mallory and the death of those ideals in respect to today's mountain climbers. Unfortunately his attempt falls completely flat on it's face in a way that make's Conrad Anker's book "The Lost Explorer" look positively groundbreaking. Messner almost entirely fills the book with journal entries by Mallory w/ little to no insight from Messner. Anybody reading this article could have done that. The book should have co-author credit to Mallory. The book is a bland retelling of the well known story of Mallory's two Everest attempts in 1921, 1922 and ultimately, the fatal final climb of 1924 w/ Andrew Irvine. There are many fine books that do a much better job of detailing Mallory's expeditions to Everest, most notably: "The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine" by Tom Holzel and Audrey Salkeld. If this review in any way piques your interest in the mystery this book is the place to start. When Messner does attempt to throw out a theory or idea it is unconvincing and tinged by the attitude prevalent of today's climbers that "we could have done it but not those poor old chaps." Messner may be forgiven for maybe not being as talented a writer as a climber but I became absolutely sick to my stomach when I noticed he provided commentary from "Mallory" as if from beyond the grave!! And who would have guessed Mallory has something bad to say about everyone except Messner. Mallory from beyond earth's mortal plane bad mouths everyone from the men who discovered his body to the Chinese climbers and others. And wouldn't you know that's exactly how Messner feels as well? I still can't believe anyone would include this utter nonsense in their book. George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made their final attempt on the summit in tweed jackets and leather hobnailed boots. They were fully aware if they faltered they would die. With little resources but unimaginable courage they walked off the map into the unknown. Maybe it is better that we never know if they conquered the summit. Maybe their story is more compelling that way. But it is a story that deserves better than Reinhold Messner was able to deliver. One thing he did get right was his admitting no matter what Mallory and Irvine did accomplish on Everest, it eclipses every other mountaineering achievements including his own. Personally I believe Mallory and Irvine did summit Everest in 1924. It was a Mallory family belief that George carried a picture of his beloved wife Ruth to place on the summit. Articles found on his body included letters from relatives and friends but no picture or letter from his wife. Where are they if not buried in the summit snow?



4. Reinhold Messner is universally considered one of the greatest climbers who ever lived if not the greatest. When I asked for a copy of this book at the bookstore I was in, the clerk behind the counter replied to me "You know, Messner is God!" I was not taken aback. I have always been amazed at his abilities and determination. His sheer determinations are awe-inspiring. These qualities are not lost in his writings. I found this book to be very interesting and probing. Messner always raises the bar. I believe he did so in this book. Messner's talents do not restrict themselves to climbing. He is an excellent writer. This book is necessary read for anyone interested in George Mallory and Sandy Irvine. Sadly, I do not believe they reached the summit. I am sorry that they did not. However, that is an unpleasant fact. Until proven otherwise. Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary (not Sir Edmund Hillary alone) reached the summit together. This does not take away from George Mallory by any means. He, if truth be told, was a noble but inconsistent man. His inconsistency is generally considered to be his choice of Sandy Irvine who in time had he lived might have conquered the mountain. However, his experience was inadequate for the task. However, we may never really know what happened. Did Mr. Mallory fall or did Mr. Irvine? At this point, most evidence points to Mr. Mallory falling on the mountain. However, no one knows why. In my opinion, Mr. Messner's book is a real page-turner.



5. Messner's book on Mallory's attempts to climb Everest and his death on the mountain in 1924 takes a unique approach. He combines Mallory's journal entries, writings of Mallory's contemporaries, Messner's own analysis of events, and reconstructions of Mallory's thoughts and post-mortem reactions to trends in mountaineering.

   If you already know the history of Everest and the early British expeditions, this is an interesting book, as it discusses the context of Mallory and Everest. Of course, you get Messner's views on the matter, but it seems to me that in such a book, he is entitled to do this. If you want to know the history itself, read The Lost Explorer by C. Anker and D. Roberts or Everest by W. Unsworth (get the latest edition with many updates).

   The writing/translation is crisp and interesting as well.