Customer Reviews

To the Top of the Continent

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Originals of this rare book are expensive - $300 for a nice copy, so it is a public service to offer an affordable paperback. I first read the article Cook wrote in one of the magazines of the time; Century magazine I believe it was. Cook's fakery is well proven with Washburn's book The Dishonorable Dr. Cook, of course, but any book actually written by Dr. Cook is hilarious to read. That is why I bought this one after reading the article published in 1907.

Cook's writing is described as "flowery" or "dramatic", but knowing he's a faker makes it so much fun to read. His North Pole book, by comparison, is mean spirited because by then he'd been exposed - in this work he is trying to come off as a serious explorer. Anyone who knows real mountaineering will have a good laugh at Cook with his leather boots (on ice walls???), silk tent that fits in his pocket, tent pole that doubles as an ice axe, sleeping bag that you wear as a parka, and very scant climbing details. But then he suddenly reaches the top of a world-class mountain. How'd he do it? He just climbed and gritted his teeth, and climbed some more! When he got hungry he had bread he'd baked himself ahead of time with home made pemmican. Amazingly naive, but he fooled a lot of folks.

On a more bizarre note is the extra material from his trust-funded descendants who photographed Fred's earlier routes about McKinley on their camping trip in 1994. They must be something akin to the Flat Earth Society. Goes to show that if you never give up, even with a fake, you can get pretty far; although not to the top of Denali.

A great gift for anyone you know who is a rock climber.