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17 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a disappointment, November 23, 2005
With all the Mt. Whitney books out, there is little here that is new. And what does appear elsewhere, such as in the Thompson-Newbold or Richins books, is often covered better in those other sources.
There is unwarranted hyperbole: On Giardia and E. coli, "our streams and lakes are filled with these nasty bugs." And eyebrow-raising phraseology: "From late July to the end of September, technical climbing gear is generally not needed on the Whitney Trail" and "Bivy sacks slip right over a sleeping bag and are roomy enough to allow the user to cook a meal...."
An example of wrong information: "Diamox...helps flush lactic acid out of the body" purportedly explains why it helps prevent altitude sickness. But Diamox's actual mechanism of action is to inhibit carbonic anhydrase, which in turn counters the acid-base imbalance produced by altitude hyperventilation.
More attentive editing would have helped. For example, Croft's encounter with an enraged grouse is hilariously related on page 67. But it is repeated on page 94, and it's not needed in both places.
While there is more to fault, much in the book is correct and to the point. Unfortunately, the novice reader is not in a position to make the distinction.
The first third of the book covers history-both natural and mountaineering-and these are well done. A nice touch is the final chapter, a Norman Clyde narrative. And Glen Dawson's Foreword is a delight. Finally, a good bibliography is included-somewhat uncommon in mountaineering guidebooks.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book!, June 29, 2006
Croft & Benti's Climbing Mt. Whitney book was so helpful in planning our climb of Whitney via the Mountaineers Route. Instead of descending via the Whitney Trail back to the Portal, we used one of Croft's four loop routes and returned to the North Fork drainage via the John Muir Trail, pass Guitar & Arctic Lakes, then back to the North Fork drainage via Whitney/Russell Col. We found this new book to be a vast improvement over any other Whitney book just because of Croft's new take on challenging hikes in the region. Croft is a hilarious writer and his sense of humor was a great treat. His route additions make this book stand out above the competition.
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Whitney guide out there, July 1, 2006
I have both the 1997 and 2005 editions of this guide. How do you improve an already great guide? Ask climber Peter Croft to coauthor. Recommending any guide book with Croft as a coauthor is pretty much a no-brainer. So HIGH-FIVE for CLIMBING MT. WHITNEY.
It has all the standard routes from every other pass, east south, west, north. The new edition has routes not covered in any other Whitney guide including Croft's personal creations. Bored? Try one of Croft's circumnavigational routes. They aren't necessarily technical but just incredibly physically challenging. He's a North Face athlete and one of a handful of folks awarded the American Alpine Club's Underhill Award for Outstanding Achievement in Mountaineering. He knows what he is talking about.
The info on training for high-altitude with a route up White Mountain Peak, Whitney's 14,246' neighbor to the east and DIAMOX (also in the Benti/Wheelock 1997 edition) was very helpful especially for a friend. She's a great climber, but every time we go to altitude, she gets puking sick. Based on the advice in Climbing Mt. Whitney, she got a prescription for DIAMOX (Acetazolamide). She went from miserably sick and a potential liability on altitude climbs to practically running up routes and eating lunch on the summit of anything over 11,000-feet. Physical exertion/mountaineering = lactic acid. Flushing it out of the cells as fast as you can to keep from getting sick on a tight time schedule at elevation is what it's about. Any Physiology 101 student will tell you that. Our climbing crew was stunned by the change in our friend's performance. Climbing Mt. Whitney was the first Whitney guide to even talk about Diamox as an alternative to sleeping at elevation a few nights before, which just doesn't work for many folks who are usually coming up from sea level and just don't have the time.
This guide does emphasize the importance of drinking clean water so the warnings on giardia are key. Filtered water means the dif between puking up stomach lining on some hospital bed (been there, done that) and a successful trip in and out of the backcountry.
Climbing Mt. Whitney is still the best Whitney guide out there.
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