Customer Reviews

Summit Fever: An Armchair Climber's Init(i)Ation to Glencoe, Mortal Terror and 'The Himalayan Matterhorn'

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The idea behind Summit Fever sounds promising - a writer with no climbing experience is invited to join a Himalayan expedition. Andrew Greig is given a few lessons on winter technique in Scotland and then it's off to the Karakoram with a motley crew of climbers and trekkers to tackle the Mustagh Tower, but money problems and discord nearly wreck the trip. There's enough here for a really good book, but the author quickly loses his writer's perspective in a growing desire to fit in with the 'bin-men'. I found the endless use of mid-80's British climbing scene slang tiresome (it's in almost every conversation once Andrew Greig reaches base camp), and instead of observing the climbers, Greig tries to think and feel the way they do, which tends to defeat the whole point of having a non-climber write about climbing. There are some highlights though, especially early on in the book when everything is a fresh experience for the author, and he sees the climbers through the eyes of a sympathetic and observant outsider.

Imagine yourself, arm chair climber that you invariably are, being invited by a well respected mountaineer to join an expedition to the Karakoram Himalayas to write a book about the experience. What would you do?

Well, if you are like Andrew Greig, notwithstanding lack of climbing experience, you find the invitation hard to resist, especially since the mountaineer who invites you, Mal Duff, is personally willing to put you through the paces on some of the local peaks to help you get into the groove of climbing. Before you know it, you find yourself on expedition in the Karakoram Himalayas headed to the Mustagh Tower.

This book is the author's account of how he found himself on a high altitude climbing expedition, what he did to train and get in shape for it, what he did when he got there, and what his perceptions were, as a former arm chair climber, of the expedition experience and climbing at high altitude.

His account is gritty, realistic, and he tells it the way he sees it, warts and all. Well written, it celebrates the roller coaster existence of being on a real live adventure ride that is the lot of expeditioners everywhere.

A wonderfull account of all the different perspectives on climbing by different people. Beautifully written, witty and a story that takes you right there. One feels part of the whole expedition, just as if sitting by the radio. As a reader you feel that you know the climbers and get to care about all of them. A moving introduction by Joe Simpson also adds to the book. It made me all feel alive.