Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life [Paperback]

Arlene Blum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2007

A legendary trailblazer, Arlene Blum defied the climbing establishment of the 1970s by leading the first all-female teams on successful ascents of Mount McKinley and Annapurna and by being the first American woman to attempt Mount Everest. At the same time, her groundbreaking scientific work challenged gender stereotypes in the academic community and led to important legislation banning carcinogens in children’s sleepwear. With candor and humor, Breaking Trail recounts Blum’s journey from an overprotected childhood in Chicago to the tops of some of the highest peaks on earth, and to a life lived on her own terms. Now with an index, additional photos, and a new afterword, this book is a moving testament to the power of taking risks and pursuing dreams.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In hiker's parlance, the person who "breaks trail" is one who leads others across difficult terrain, creating a path as they go. This aptly describes Blum's role, not only in her experiences as a climber, but also as a scientist doing innovative, groundbreaking work. Blum, whose previous book recounted the first women-only climb of Annapurna, here covers a cross section of her life as a climber, from her first experience, as a college student in 1964, to 1993, when she semiretired. Through climbing, she experiences a wide range of emotions, from exhilaration at success to grief over the death of friends. Interspersed between the climbing stories are scenes from her childhood that do much to explain the person she became. This is an engaging, well-written adventure that also serves as a social history of women's roles. It should be required reading for young women of today who haven't experienced the closed doors and closed minds that Blum conquered as a women student, scientist, and climber. Danise Hoover
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

PRAISE FOR BREAKING TRAIL

"Personal and disarmingly honest . . . [Blum] simply tells her nourishing and deserving story, quietly reminding us that a woman’s place is indeed on top." — THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"A book too engrossing to put down." — THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (March 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156031167
• ISBN-13: 978-0156031165
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #542,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Woman to Woman, July 31, 2006

By 

Ellen M. Gibb (Eureka, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life (Lisa Drew Books) (Hardcover)

Arlene Blum's new book, Breaking Trail, is a book for everyone interested in the experience of high peak mountaineering--plenty of thrills and chills for those who stayed up all night reading Into Thin Air or Touching the Void like I did. However, there is one huge difference with this book--its written with a tenderness of narratorial voice I have not seen in other, more macho mountaineering books. Here, the high peaks

become a metaphor for what all women face when they aspire to dreams outside the suburban marriage with freezer, soccer kids, and SUV. Her voice is intimate, modest, and honest. By the time I finished this book, I felt like we had been hiking together for days. This is not just a running account of a life spent in the highest peaks on earth--it is also the story of an accomplished scientist and social activist who is an inspiring role model for women of any age. She has lived a creative, adventurous, and

uniquely imagined life, rich in adventure, beauty, love, and tragedy. She is the embodiment of: "If you can dream it, you can do it." After I finished the book, I was able to go to her website, where there are twelve slide shows of the climbs she writes about in the book; seeing the color photos of many places and incidents mentioned in the book took my breath away and only deepened my appreciation of this remarkable woman. She was not afraid to follow the deepest currents of her own soul into the mountains at a time when there were virtually no women participating in serious mountaineering (except to cook and make the coffee or truck loads of gear from one base camp to another while the guys made the glamouress sprints up to the summit.) Even having lived through it (being a contemporary of Ms. Blum's)

I was indignant at the way she met with sexual bias at every turn. Its a great reminder of how different things were just forty years ago--and how they could be again. This is a book to read and pass to a woman friend or to a daughter. Its a great read and contains, through the recounting of incidents from the writer's childhood, a lot of insight into how someone ends up in

high peak climbing. Arlene Blum is a role model for women everywhere and her story is told woman to woman. This is THE summer read this year. I loved it!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WHAT A LIFE...WHAT A WOMAN...WHAT A MEMOIR..., March 31, 2006

By 

Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life (Lisa Drew Books) (Hardcover)

Having read and loved the author's other book, "A Woman's Place", I looked forward to reading this one, knowing that, at the very least, I could expect a well-written book. Well, it is that and much more. It is a memoir that kept me turning its pages, as it provides a peek as to how this highly intelligent and articulate, nice, Jewish girl became a mountaineer with which to contend.

In a macho arena, where women were considered to be mere appendages to the male of the species, when considered at all, the author is surely a trailblazer. With her world famous, women only, expedition to summit Annapurna, she put women on the mountaineering map, letting the world know that a woman's place is on top. Independent and singular in her desire to make her mark, the author has written a memoir that provides insight into her desire to climb mountains, as well as her development as both a person and a woman.

Set across the backdrop of women's changing roles in the social fabric, this memoir is an intimate and compelling look at a life well-lived and filled with achievement in a man's world, as the author is not only a mountaineer but a well-respected scientist known for some ground-breaking research that has had impact on the general public. Neither of these fields was initially receptive to the inclusion of woman, and the author's memoir details her travails in gaining acceptance as an equal, both as a mountaineer and a scientist.

Written with humor and insight, the author creates an intimate memoir that chronicles her development into the person that she became. This is a memoir that will keep the reader engaged and turning the pages of this wonderful book. Highly enjoyable, those who are interested in why one would climb mountains, as well as those who enjoy well-written, interesting memoirs, will love this book. Bravo!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring and personal memoir, January 8, 2006

By 

Paul Sas "Paul Whitmore Sas" (Berkeley) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life (Lisa Drew Books) (Hardcover)

I bought this book at an author reading in Berkeley, and it's taken me 3 months to finish. The stories are often quite fascinating. Blum covered an amazing amount of ground, since graduating from Reed in the 1960s. She successfully weaves together her research in physical chemistry with climbing, and reveals that her greatest insight into protein folding came to her while viewing a frozen pile of rocks on top of a mountain. This book documents her strength in the face of flagrant sexism on the part of many climbing teams. It is painful to read about her being excluded from the summit team after an exhausting slog to climb an 8K mountains. Her stories show how resilient and resourceful she was. Even if a trip results in the death of teammates, or the icky fights reminiscent of roommate squabbles, Arlene Blum would go back to the maps, and plan another amazing voyage around the planet. Besides her original Endless Winter, she also organized and carried out a trans-Himalayan hike, and managed to travel across the European Alps with her infant daughter and Aussie husband. The accounts of Berkeley were particularly interesting to me: Arlene records her experience carrying the Torah at a Beyt Chesed high holiday service, her success founding the Himalayan fair at Live Oak Park, and little nuggets about jogging in the hills.