Customer Reviews

The Shameless Diary of an Explorer: A Story of Failure on Mt. McKinley

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If you've read Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" you can only come away from reading "The Shameless Diary...." thinking how it must have been the model for the frankness and criticism he wrote of himself and his fellow climbers in his blockbuster Everest disaster story. Besides the no holds bared frankness of the author's daily reflections of the events of this expedition the reader is let into the authors inner mind as well as the levels of, what can only be considered, animal brutality required to actually complete such a journey, and, which could have only been common, yet previously unexposed, to all such expeditions of it's age.

Throughout the reading I was constantly contemplating how I could have stood up to the rawness of nature that these men withstood. My own meager climbs of the major peaks of the White Mountains of Vermont, and the high peaks of the Adirondacks and Catskill Mountains of New York all paled in comparison to what these men accomplished during any one day of this expedition. A recent winter day hike to Windham High Peak, NY now seems like a child's day in the sun in reflection.

This is the sort of book that forces one to be constantly making those sorts of comparisons.

Dunn takes the cake from the grave! While the Crook Society scrambles to promote the old faker Dr. Cook, and Bryce tries to sue Washburn for his book about the McKinley fraud we have Dunn's magnificent work back in print.

Skip the modern intro (how ridiculous!) as Dunn's razor sharp writing needs nothing added. Was Cook a fake? Of course! And far worse than that - he is seen here as a sociopath, a failure, a miserable little worm who couldn't lead a horse to water.

It is wonderful that publishers are putting books back in print such as this one, or the Denali (Deception, etc.) triple reprint. In addition to this group we now have Washburn's brilliant images that say more in a few photos than Bryce did in 100 pages.

A fascinating study of an expedition gone to [junk], by the man who taught everyone else how to "tell it like it is".