Mountain Books

John Muir
Mountains of California Mountain Books
Edited by Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

Sir Edmund Hillary
View from the Summit

Paul Tapponnier,
Mountains: Masterworks
of the Living Earth (2006)
Abrams, New York Paul Tapponnier, Mountains: Masterworks of the Living Earth (2006) (551.432Tapponn)

Keepers of legend and witness to nature's greatest movement, mountains
are regarded with awe and admiration by every culture that has these
staggering wonders in its midst. In this stunning book, a geologist and
a nature photographer provide a tour of the world's most spectacular
mountain ranges, revealing their fascinating scientific origins and tracing
their natural histories. Studying closely the young mountains found in the
Himalayas and Andes ranges, and explaining how ranges like the Rockies
are dying, the book's incisive text reveals the secrets of a mountain's
birth, its endurance against erosive elements, and its march towards an
inevitable demise. Illustrated throughout with breathtaking photographs,
Mountains shows how the living earth creates these natural wonders.

The Geologist's Eye

Contrary to what the geographer wanted the Little Prince to believe in
Antoine de St. Exupery's classic tale, mountains are not eternal, unchanging
in their majesty. Far from being immutable landmarks, mountains like all
living things, are born, then grow and mature until, finally they succumb
to time's onslaught. Earth creates them in the course of endlessly repeating
cycles. There are young mountains and old ones. Some are steep, others
smooth. Just like in the biological world, there are different species and
breeds of mountains. One can even speak of "real" and "false" mountains.
Their originality, and their beauty, too, lies in the fact that they bring vertical
dimension to an otherwise flat world. To fully perceive the dynamic nature
of mountains, one needs to look through a set of eyes different from that of
a climber or hiker. A third eye must be developed that of the geologist.

How do mountains form and change? How long does that take? Why do they
rise up in one place as opposed to another? What is their destiny? To find the
answer, we must first train the eye. Contemplate the natural workshops that
Earth presents to us. Learn to decipher the landscapes that Earth so tirelessly
sculpts. Roam all over this planet of mountains. The Himalayas and Tibet,
whose flamboyant young peaks stretch for thousands of miles. The Pamir,
the Celestial Mountains, and the Altai, little-known mountain ranges of
Central Asia, still in their infancy. Still others, in Africa, or like the Andes,
along the ocean. All are vertiginous and inspire devotion and legend. All are
sources of life, and sometimes, of death. But how do we unravel their story?
That is the Ariadne's Thread we shall presently trace.

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Robert MacFarlane
Mountains of the Mind (2003)
Pantheon Books, New York Robert MacFarlane, Mountains of the Mind (2003) (796.522Macfarl)

And certainly, Mallory' story has a purity of form or plot about it, which
has contributed to its survival in the imagination. It isstructurally, a myth or
legend. Three times the beautiful Mallory— brave Sir Galahad— ventures
into the unknown at the risk of his life, leaving behind the woman he loves.
Twice he is repelled, and the third time, returning despite his better judgment,
he disappears into a cloud of unknowing. (page 271)

Since his death, Mallory has become a new and potent element of the
mountain worship which cost him his life. He stands in history as a diffuse,
dispersing and proliferating the spell of the mountains, casting it even wider.
The fact that he, like so many before and after him, died out of love for high
mountains has not weakened their strange attractive gravity; it has fortified it.
Posthumously, Mallory has perpetuated the very feelings which killed him— he has made even more glorious the mountains of the mind. (page 273)

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George Lowe
Conquest of Everest (2013)
Thames & Hudson, London George Lowe, The Conquest of Everest (2013) (796.522Lowe)

"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves."
— Sir Edmund Hillary, 1989

"What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?... If you cannot understand
that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this
mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life
itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What
we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end
of life." — George Mallory, 1922

Mount Everest, highest mountain in the world, attracts attention like no
other. From its southern approaches it dominates the Khumbu region of
Nepal, far to the north-east of Kathmandu. Triangulated as Peak XV in
1856, the mountain was named in honour of Sir George Everest, a former Surveyor General of India, though it had bee known about for centuries.

To the Nepalese she is Sagarmatha, to the Tibetans Chomohungma—
Goddess Mother of the Earth— the jewel of the Himalayas, a range that
stretches for over 1500 miles (2400 km) from Kashmir to Assam. Its
summit is a formidable 29,029 ft. or 8848 m. though the mountain is
slowly growing taller each year— by some 5 mm, scientist suggest— uplifted as the Indian tectonic plate pushes northward into Asia.

First seen by a non-native in 1849, the earliest attempt to climb Everest
followed over 70 years later. The successful 1953 expedition was the ninth
attempt on the mountain. By end of 2011, there had been 5640 successful
ascents by 3450 individual climbers. At the beginning of 1953 there had
been none. Some 223 people have now died in pursuit of the summit.
Despite this, the mountain seems to have lost none of its allure. (p. 20)

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Richard Sale & John Cleare,
Climbing the World's
14 Highest Mountains (2000)
Mountaineers Books, Seattle Richard Sale & John Cleare,
Climbing the World's 14 Highest Mountains (2000) (796.522Sale)

Annapurna 8047 m (26,545 ft), Everest 8848 m (29,029 ft), Nanga Parbat 8125 m (26,660 ft), K2 8611 m (28,251 ft), Cho Oyu 8201 m (26,906 ft), Makalu 8463 m (27,836 ft), Kangchenjunga 8586 m (28,169 ft), Manaslu 8163 m (26,781 ft), Lhotse 8516 m (27,940 ft), Gasherbrum II 8035 m (26,362 ft), Broad Peak 8047 m (26,414 ft), Gasherbrum I 8068 m (26,444 ft), Dhaulagiri 8167 m (26,795 ft), Shisha Pangma 8046 m (26,335 ft).

At altitudes above 8000 m (26,247 ft), the survival time for a human being reduces dramatically. A well-acclimatized climber at 8000 m in warm conditions with an adequate supply of food and drink will die in a few days... heights above 8000 m is referred to as the "Death Zone". Why would anyone should want to. George Leigh Mallory who, when asked why he wanted to climb Everest, on which he was killed in 1924, replied "because it's there"...

Jerry Kukuczka, the second man to climb all 14 8000ers, stated "There is no answer... to the endless question about the point of expeditions to the Himalayan giants. I never found a need to explain this. I went to the mountains and climbed the. That is all." (p. 7)

Note: Reinhold Messner was the first climber to ascend all fourteen peaks
over 8,000 metres. Eight-thousander are the 14 independent mountains on
Earth that are more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) high.

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Graham White (Editor),
Sacred Summits:
John Muir's Greatest Climbs
Canongate, Edinburgh (1999)

Sacred Summits:
John Muir's Greatest Climbs
François Cheng,
Empty and Full
Shambhala, Boston (1994)
Shi-Tao's Paintings

Empty and Full:
Language of Chinese Painting