Classic Climbs in the Caucasus [Paperback]

Friedrich Bender (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1992

The Caucasus Range, east of the Black Sea on the boundary between Europe and Asia, contains fourteen of the highest mountains in Europe - all higher than Mont Blanc. With over one hundred peaks and tops above 400m, there is unlimited interest for alpinists with principal peaks including Elbrus, Shkhara, Dych-Tau, Koshtan-Tau, Kazbek and the lower but charismatic Ushba. British climbers with their Swiss guides conducted the initial exploration during the second half of the nineteenth century. In the years before and after the First World War continental mountaineers were the driving force but from the late thirties onwards Soviet climbers contributed the bulk of activity

In this new selected guide Friedrich Bender has chosen eighty of the finest routes from his five definitive guides. The climbing is much like the Alps but generally pitched at a higher altitude with longer itineraries. The mountains offer a full range of difficulty and type with high-altitude excursions on snow up peaks Elbrus and Kazbek, classic ridge traverses, and grandes courses on rock and ice on challenging peaks like Ushba, Pik Shchurovsky, Shkhelda and those of the Bezingi Wall. The Caucasus is now ripe for rediscovery by western climbers seeking an alternative to the overcrowded Alps. The range still offers the pioneering quality of the Alps before the development of huts and cable-ways. The guide, illustrated with many maps, topos and photographs, gives information on the best approaches, bivouac sites, character of peaks and difficulty of ascents. It is the first source of detailed mountaineering information to be published in English for many years.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

From the Back Cover

The Caucasus Range, east of the Black Sea on the boundary between Europe and Asia, contains fourteen of the highest mountains in Europe - all higher than Mont Blanc. With over one hundred peaks and tops above 4000m, there is unlimited interest for alpinists with principal peaks including Elbrus, Shkhara, Dych-Tau, Koshtan-Tau, Kazbek and the lower but charismatic Ushba. In this new selected guide Friedrich Bender has chosen eighty of the finest routes from his five definitive guides. The mountains offer a full range of difficulty and type with high-altitude excursions on snow up peaks Elbrus and Kazbek, classic ridge traverses, and grandes courses on rock and ice on challenging peaks like Ushba, Pik Shchurovsky, Shkhelda and those of the Bezingi Wall. The guide, illustrated with many maps, topos and photographs, gives information on the best approaches, bivouac sites, character of peaks and difficulty of ascents. It is the first source of detailed Caucasus mountaineering information to be published in English for many years. (4 3/4 x 7 3/4, 324 pages, maps, b&w photos, color photos)

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Menasha Ridge Press; 1st edition (September 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0897321162
• ISBN-13: 978-0897321167
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,577,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Better no guidebook at all than this area "guide"!, January 22, 2002

By 

Roman Potapov (St. Louis Park, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Classic Climbs in the Caucasus (Paperback)

I am the native of the area described, I climbed for some time there and I live in the USA now. First of all it's a joke to try to try compressing the North Caucasus' climbs in 200 or so pages. The book contains astonishing number of errors in places' names, misspellings and incorrect captions, that ruin any confidence. The most terrible mistake is in the very name of the book where author calls the Balkar portion of the Range "The Svanetian Range". That is a huge misnomer because the real Svanetian Range separates Upper Svanetia from Lower Svanetia with Mt. Laila being its highest point. Author probably used very old, perhaps the World War II maps of the area used by the German "Edelweiss" division when fighting the Russians there. One of few color photographs clearly shows the Adyl-su valley while the caption states "Nakra valley" or something like that. The book is poorly translated from German, with some puzzling phrases for example, the Split Glacier is called Abgezweigert Glacier, the name that doesn't even distantly resemble the local tongue.
Actual route descriptions are VERY OUT OF DATE! For example if you follow the advise and climb Mt. Ortokara, you will be probably killed by a rockfall, since nobody climbs that side of the Bezingi valley for many years, due to the Global Warming and glacier melting. Route schemes are very detailless and shabby! The routes numbering is a mess! Grades are simply stated in Russian system where a 250-meter rock climb in Crimea and The Russian route on Mt. Everest have the same 5 A grade! There is absolutely no useful practical information in this brochure. On the contrary the book is often misleading even in safety issues. For instance it doesn't even mention the dangers of crossing into or even getting close to the southern slopes of the Range (Shkhelda valley in summer) , lest being robbed or murdered by the Svans, whose land descended into a complete lawlessness in the recent years.
Feel free to reach me with any questions on DETAILS of REAL, CURRENT CONDITIONS of climbing in the North Caucasus at [e-mail]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Better no guidebook at all than this area "guide"!, January 22, 2002

By 

Roman Potapov (St. Louis Park, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Classic Climbs in the Caucasus (Paperback)

I am the native of the area described, I climbed for some time there and I live in the USA now. First of all it's a joke to try to try compressing the North Caucasus' climbs in 200 or so pages. The book contains astonishing number of errors in places' names, misspellings and incorrect captions, that ruin any confidence. The most terrible mistake is in the very name of the book where author calls the Balkar portion of the Range "The Svanetian Range". That is a huge misnomer because the real Svanetian Range separates Upper Svanetia from Lower Svanetia with Mt. Laila being its highest point. Author probably used very old, perhaps the World War II maps of the area used by the German "Edelweiss" division when fighting the Russians there. One of few color photographs clearly shows the Adyl-su valley while the caption states "Nakra valley" or something like that. The book is poorly translated from German, with some puzzling phrases for example, the Split Glacier is called Abgezweigert Glacier, the name that doesn't even distantly resemble the local tongue.
Actual route descriptions are VERY OUT OF DATE! For example if you follow the advise and climb Mt. Ortokara, you will be probably killed by a rockfall, since nobody climbs that side of the Bezingi valley for many years, due to the Global Warming and glacier melting. Route schemes are very detailless and shabby! The routes numbering is a mess! Grades are simply stated in Russian system where a 250-meter rock climb in Crimea and The Russian route on Mt. Everest have the same 5 A grade! There is absolutely no useful practical information in this brochure. On the contrary the book is often misleading even in safety issues. For instance it doesn't even mention the dangers of crossing into or even getting close to the southern slopes of the Range (Shkhelda valley in summer) , lest being robbed or murdered by the Svans, whose land descended into a complete lawlessness in the recent years...