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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating document, January 9, 2001
This book is a bit of an oddity. Mt. Rainer is such a presence, both on the horizon and in the coffee table book market, in the Northwest, that it's surprising that the writing in this book, treating a very large but so far as I know otherwise untouched topic, the early ascents of the mountain, is so unpolished. The original text was published some forty years ago, though, and writing styles have changed somewhat. I found the first chapter especially difficult, where you have to read pretty closely to keep track of which apocryphal climb is being discussed. I would have liked a bit more authorial opinion on how much validity to give the accounts of the pre-Stevens climbs. Dee Molenauer gives credence to the account of the two climbers guided by Saluskin, and it would be nice to hear Haines' opinions.The book is laid out pretty strictly chronologically, which makes it a little difficult to follow the different threads of narrative: the story of the establishment of the national park, and the stories of the formation and collapse of the various climbing clubs, appear and disappear through the book. The book is heavily footnoted, and the footnotes are pretty strange. Sometimes they contain information that really belongs in the text, other times they are the bibliographic references that you'd expect, other times, they are just odd. In some places, Indian guides' words are printed in their native language, and the English translation is saved for the footnote. In another place, a passage involving an uncomfortable bivouac around Camp Misery is footnoted with a passage from The Bible. There is a lot of quite interesting information in here. Over the course of the book, we see climbs evolving from two-week expeditions into the unknown to comfortable travel along well-maintained roads up to the trailhead, followed by a predictable (often guided) ascent to a summit increasingly littered with artifacts of previous ascents. The story of the "first ascent" of Stevens and Van Trump is well known, of course, including the fact that they had to take refuge in a summit steam cave to survive the night. But I had no idea that overnighting on the summit was a normal part of the climb for decades after. Another aspect that emerges is the glaring difference between the physical fitness of everyday people then and now. The folks who climb Mt. Rainier these days are athletes. RMI and the park climbing rangers emphasize the difficulty and the need to work long and hard to get into first-class shape before attempting the climb. But the climbers of a century ago were apparently just everyday folks. There was an early climb by a group of newspaper reporters, there were climbs by doctors, and soldiers, and there is no indication that people spent six months at the gym working on the stairmaster to prepare for their climb, they just hiked in there, slogging up much more altitude than today's climber with much heavier and poorer quality gear. Imagine a climber of today hauling firewood up to Camp Muir! You're left with the impression that in a world without elevators and cars and power lawnmowers, climbing a 14,411 foot mountain isn't a tremendous feat of athleticism, it's just a slightly eccentric pursuit for people with some free time and a taste for adventure. I enjoyed the book immensely, on balance. If you're interested in climbing Mt. Rainier, or have already climbed it, this is a book that will greatly enrich your experience.
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