Customer Reviews

Climbing in North America

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First published in 1975, this book really should be titled `Mountaineering in Western North American.' The book does cover technical climbing, but it seems to be mainly concerned with how it affected mountaineering. The East coast is almost completely ignored. It mentions Seneca Rocks in passing, has a short chapter on the Vulgarians and mostly covers the Eastern climbers only when they visited the West. It neglects climbing in New Hampshire which is odd considering the state's role in ice climbing advances, that is central to mountaineering. In light of the large geographic area that Jones tries to cover, there is not a great deal of material. The time period he covers is from about 1900's to 1970. The topics he chooses to include seem a little random at times. He has great chapters on John Salathé, Yosemite and Tahquitz climbing that complements well with Roper's `Camp 4.' These chapters in themselves make the book worth it. Overall, a good read for people interested in mountaineering and climbing in the West. If you're interested in a history of East coast climbing, read `Yankee Rock and Ice.' It's the best climbing history I have ever read and I've read a lot of them.

This book is hard to put down. Although I am more interested in rock climbing and skipped a few chapters initially, this covers both mountaineering and rock climbing, east and west, very well. While Steve Roper's "Camp 4: Reflections of a Yosemite Rockclimber" might be THE single best history of that center of development, Jones' chapters such as "Hard Rock, Hard Steel," "El Capitan," and "The Granite Crucible" are worth the price alone. A must for the serious collector