A Tribute to Virginia Boucher

Sal Marino, Janet Robertson, Dave Robertson, and Virginia Boucher in the Minarets, 1956. Courtesy of the American Alpine Club Library

Virginia Boucher
May 26, 1929 – March 9, 2025

It is with great appreciation that the American Alpine Club honors and celebrates the life of Virginia (Ginnie) Boucher—an unsung hero in the Club’s history. 

Virginia Boucher climbing at the Garden of the Gods, 1948. Courtesy of the American Alpine Club Library

Virginia Boucher was the chair for the AAC Library Committee for a decade, and a driving force in introducing best practices to the AAC Library from the 1990s onward—including online access to the AAC’s library catalog, expansion of library staff, and implementing interlibrary loans in this highly niche space of mountaineering libraries and literature. Boucher was also instrumental in the physical move of the AAC Library from the AAC’s original Clubhouse in New York to its current location among the mountains of Golden, Colorado. 

Boucher received the 2005 Angelo Heilprin Citation from the AAC for exemplary service to the Club, thanks to her transformational leadership at the AAC Library. Not only did her leadership bring the full force of library science to bear on this now world-renowned library and archive, but she also helped steward the acquisition of many pieces of the John M. Boyle Himalayan Collection and the Nicholas B. Clinch Collection, two keystone collections in the AAC’s current holdings. 

In the notes announcing her award of the Heilprin Citation, the Award Committee shares some tidbits that suggest that Boucher wasn’t just the bookish type—she also had a flair for adventure. The committee notes that she and her husband, Stanley Boucher–a lifetime member of the AAC—were known for their unplanned night descents, and had a hilarious story about fighting off porcupines in the San Juans. She climbed the Grand Teton, Rainier, and many of Colorado’s mountains, and in her early years started off her climbing at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. 

Sal Marino, Virginia Boucher, and Janet Robertson in the Minarets, 1956. Courtesy of the American Alpine Club Library

Boucher’s extensive impact as a volunteer for the AAC’s Library Committee was fueled by her love for the mountains and her calling as a librarian. But by the time she was serving on the committee, she had left climbing behind her. In her autobiography, she writes of this part of herself: “I know a number of those who have ‘summited’ Mount Everest…those who are addicted to boulders, and a few such as myself who climb [only] in our memories.”

But even so, climbing was a part of her history and identity, and after shepherding the AAC Library into the world-class institution it is today, she recalls how her volunteer involvement with the AAC Library brought her full-circle in her career: “I have drawn upon my special library experience…to give the best advice I can to this emerging and unique library… And finally, I have returned to my beginnings; I shelve books once again.”

The Climb that Inspired the Novel that Inspired the Climbs: The Many Stories of the Brenva Face of Mont Blanc

From the AAC Library Collection.

By: Katie Ives 

Each book in the American Alpine Club Library is a portal to another world—of golden spires feathered with rime, fluted snow beneath indigo skies, or red-granite aiguilles above a sea of ice. Beyond these worlds, there are countless layers of other worlds encountered by readers inspired to seek their own adventures and return with their own tales. For climbing is an act of storytelling: we trace the arc of a narrative with our bodies and our minds, rising from the base of a mountain toward a climactic point and descending to a resolution. And the history of mountaineering is also the history of reading and imagination, of old dreams endlessly transforming into new ones.   

The Climb 

On July 15, 1865, English alpinist Adolphus Warburton Moore found himself on the edge of a ridge that looked like something from a fantasy novel. The slender crest of blue ice seemed to rise for an eternity. Sheer voids dropped off on either side. Neither the iron tips of their alpenstocks nor the hobnails of their boots stuck to its flawless surface.  

It was inconceivable to climb. No one had yet established a route on this aspect of Mont Blanc, where the Brenva Face rose for 1,400 meters in a chaos of cliffs, towers, and buttresses, fringed by unstable seracs and swept by avalanches and rockfall. 

From the AAC Library collection.

Still, the Swiss guide Jakob Anderegg kept going, and the rest of the team, including Moore, cautiously followed. As the crest narrowed, they shuffled along à cheval, one leg on either side, aware that any fall might be catastrophic [1].

Long after they finished the first ascent of the Brenva Spur and descended by a safer route, the ice crest lingered in the imaginations of those who read Moore’s memoir, The Alps in 1864. In 1906, British author A.E.W. Mason located the climactic scene of his crime novel Running Water on the Brenva Spur—a point of no return that appeared perfect for an attempted murder of one climber by another, “a line without breadth of cold blue ice” [2].

The Novel

Mason’s Running Water, like its author’s inspiration, begins with reading. Riding the train to Chamonix, his young protagonist Sylvia Thesiger becomes immersed in an old copy of the British Alpine Journal, published more than two decades prior to the novel. All night, she couldn’t sleep, remembering her first glimpse of the Mont Blanc massif beyond the curtain of a train window, recalling her sense of inchoate longing for its moonlit towers of ice and snow. 

Although women climbers had taken part in numerous firsts by the time of the novel’s plot, they weren’t permitted to publish in the Alpine Journal under their own bylines until 1889, when Margaret Jackson recounted her epic first winter traverse of the Jungfrau. And there’s no female author or character in the story Thesiger reads about the first ascent of an aiguille near Mont Blanc. Yet she longs to enter its world, and when she arrives in Chamonix, she hires guides to take her on her own first climb, up the Aiguille d’Argentière. As an ice slope tilts upward, sheer and smooth as a pane of glass, she rejoices, feeling as if she’s finally dreamed her way into a scene from mountain literature, “the place where no slip must be made.” Astounded at her fearlessness and intuitive skill, a guide tells her she bears an uncanny resemblance to a famous climber from the Alpine Journal story she’d just admired. 

“I felt something had happened to me which I had to recognize—a new thing,” she recalls. “Climbing that mountain...was just like hearing very beautiful music. All the vague longings which had ever stirred within me, longings for something beyond, and beyond.” Later, after she falls in love with a climber, the memory of that day suffuses their bond with a steadfast alpine glow—“ice-slope and rock-spire and the bright sun over all.”   

By the end, however, the novel shifts from her journey of self-discovery toward an outcome more conventional for its era. Newly wed, Thesiger is relegated to waiting below the Brenva Spur while the male hero and villain confront each other above that narrow blue crest. Readers don’t find out, for certain, whether she’ll climb any mountains again. A sense of incompleteness remains: the mysterious promise of her alpine epiphanies and of her suppressed and inmost self seem to flow beyond the narrative’s abrupt conclusion, like the recurring dreams she has of running water. 

The Next Climbs

After the publication of Running Water, the ice crest reemerged in a real climber’s recurring dreams. During World War I, Scottish physiologist Thomas Graham Brown took refuge in fantasies inspired by the novel. Night after night, in his sleep, he left behind the horrors of grim battles and shell-shocked men [3] for his own imagined version of the Brenva Face amid a wonderland of shining mountains. The geography seemed so “vivid,” he wrote in his memoir, Brenva, “that a map might be made of the country” [4].

After he recovered from the war, Brown sought the Brenva Face again and again, though its actual topography proved different from what he’d seen in his dreams. Between 1927 and 1933, he established three new routes there, some of the hardest of his day: the Sentinelle and the Major with fellow British climber Frank Smythe; and the Pear with Swiss guides Alexander Graven and Alfred Aufdenblatten. During the last climb, under the shadow of the full moon, Brown felt as if the Brenva had become, once more, “an unknown land,” a flood of dreams subsuming all the real lines he’d climbed. 

As they descended from the summit, light flashed along the running water of a stream, and like Thesiger, he heard an unearthly music cascade through his mind. In his sleep, long afterward, Brown continued to explore the dream version of the Brenva Face, its enigmas unresolved. And for the rest of his life, he kept Mason’s Running Water close by [5].

A Real-Life Sequel to the Novel

Meanwhile, currents of Sylvia Thesiger’s story flowed on through another real alpinist’s life. In 1920 a budding English climbing writer, Dorothey Pilley, strained to see the Alps through the window of a crowded train. She was so overwhelmed with long-held imaginings that her own first glimpse of the range seemed like a chaos of snow-reflected light. 

Since reading Running Water, Pilley had felt spellbound by the unearthly ice arête of the Brenva Spur, but also by the ice slope of the Aiguille d’Argentière, where Thesiger steps into the world of her dreams. The scenes blended in Pilley’s mind with those of other, mythic peaks into “a strange, now unrecapturable farrago of fantasies…perhaps a vague haunting background to all my mountain experiences” [6].        

Like Thesiger, Pilley felt a new self emerge when she climbed, free of the constraints of her society. As if echoing the novel, when she attempted her own early mountain writing, she found herself trying to capture images of running water over stone. Pilley, too, fell in love in the hills, and the awe and light of the mountains remained at the heart of her subsequent marriage [7].

From the AAC Library Collection.

Beyond that point, Pilley’s life story continued along one of many paths that Thesiger might have taken after the novel’s ending—if Thesiger’s author proved bold enough and feminist enough to compose such a sequel. Following a similar yearning for the mysterious, Pilley completed first ascents around the world, often with her husband, Ivor (I.A) Richards. On their most famous new route, the North Ridge of the Dent Blanche, with French guide Joseph Georges, the couple encountered a surreal crest of their own, “as though a dream had got out of place.” Its smooth and at times overhanging rock required “a leap into the void,” they recalled in the Alpine Journal [8].

Pilley also joined the early movement of women taking part in manless, guideless ascents, demonstrating they could be fully independent leaders. And she wrote down her adventures in a book of her own, Climbing Days, which became one of the great classics of literary alpine memoirs. In one of his poems, her husband I.A. Richards quoted her words, “Leaping crevasses in the dark, / That’s how to live!” [9].

The Next Novel?

Mason’s novel haunts me, too. I also fantasize of the imaginary and the real, at times obscuring each other like shadows and moonlight, cascading in unending, luminous streams from ascent to tale to ascent and tale again. Thesiger’s longings appear so vivid they seem to transcend fiction or illusion like the topography of Brown’s recurring dreams. And I wonder what she might accomplish if she were released from the pages of Running Water: Could she return to climb the Brenva Spur herself? Could her life unfold with the same wild audacity that Pilley’s had, taking leap after leap over the voids? Given the intensity of Thesiger’s love of the Alps and her inherent talent, could she, too, write down her own adventures instead of merely reading stories by men? Most of all, could she venture even deeper into the ecstatic communion with the mountains that she’d encountered on her first climb, amid the light, the stillness, and the ice? 

We live in a new era now, when alpine literature is expanding and diversifying, with the influence of new voices and new ideas. It seems past time for someone to write a new novel that could be a sequel to Running Water or else a complete reenvisioning—to find new possibilities within that “line without breadth of cold blue ice.” 

Perhaps one of the readers of my story, now, will write the next book, one that might inspire as yet unimaginable climbs and dreams. 

[I have also explored the story of the Brenva Face in a Sharp End column for Alpinist 75.—Author.] 

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More From Katie Ives

Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams

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This article was made possible with research assistance from AAC Library Director Katie Sauter.

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Endnotes

[1] Adolphus Warburton Moore, The Alps in 1864: A Private Journal (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1902). Although the book states “1864” in its title, the 1865 climb is included. 

[2]  A.E.W. Mason, Running Water and The Guide, with introduction and notes by Roberta Grandi (London Academic Publishing, 2021). 

[3] For a biography of Thomas Graham Brown, short-listed for the Boardman-Tasker Award, see Peter Foster’s The Uncrowned King of Mont Blanc (Langley, UK: Baton Wicks Publications, 2019). 

[4] Thomas Graham Brown, Brenva (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1944).

[5]  See Robin N. Campbell’s “Graham Brown’s Eulogy,” in the Edinburgh University Mountaineering Club Online Archives, eumarchives.files.wordpress.com, 1965. 

[6]  Climbing Days, Dorothy Pilley (London: Secker & Warburg, 1935). 

[7] As Pilley’s nephew, Dan Richards, wrote in his biography of her, also called Climbing Days (London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 2016), “Ivor and Dorothea were both, first and foremost, mountaineers. They met in the mountains on an equal footing and returned there whenever they could for the rest of their lives…. United climbing companions on a rope, their apparently eccentric union founded in the wild landscape of the mountains.”

[8] Dorothy Pilley and I.A. Richards, “The North Ridge of the Dent Blanche,” Alpine Journal 35 (1923). 

[9] As cited in Dan Richard’s biography of Pilley.

Cathedrals of Wilderness

Three First Ascents from the Historic Roots of Wilderness Climbing

By Hannah Provost

Photo by Sterling Boin.

“ Wilderness areas shall be devoted to the public purposes of recreational, scenic, scientific, educational, conservation, and historical use.”

— 4.3(b) of the Wilderness Act, 1964

With much ado about whether the NPS and USFS will prohibit fixed anchors in Wilderness areas, the AAC thought we’d lean into one of our strengths—the immense amount of climbing history at our fingertips, thanks to nearly 100 years of documenting climbing through the American Alpine Journal and the AAC Library. Climbers have been utilizing and advocating for the responsible and thoughtful use of fixed anchors (including pitons, slings, and bolts) in what are now designated Wilderness areas since before the passing of the Wilderness Act in 1964. These stories from before Wilderness as we know it shows that climbers were thinking with careful judgment about the wilderness experience, and sparingly using fixed gear—if it was in fact crucial for the ascent or descent at all. Since then, recreation, including climbing, has been a major tenet of what the Wilderness Act aims to protect. The question is: how do fixed anchors fit into that commitment moving forward? And how do Wilderness climbing’s roots inform that future?

Check out the climbs below to get a sense of the roots of Wilderness climbing.

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Check out this map, powered by onX, which features Mountain Project data in conjunction with Wilderness Area boundaries, to help visualize how climbing across the country is impacted by this discussion.

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Take Action: Share Your Voice on the Proposed Wilderness Fixed Anchor Guidelines

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From the 1963 American Alpine Journal. Photos by Tom Frost, courtesy of North American Climbing History Archive.

The Salathé Wall, Yosemite Valley

Designated Wilderness in 1984

3500 ft (1061 m), 35 pitches, VI 5.9 C2, Robbins-Pratt-Frost, 1961

One of  the longest routes on El Cap—and full of infamous wide cracks and ledges to bivvy on, The Salathé Wall is one of the iconic climbs in the world. The route has you balancing up the Free Blast, and shimmying up chimneys until you’re climbing the impressively steep headwall that makes everyone gape at El Cap. If you’re a badass, you can free it at .13b. But in 1961 Royal Robbins, Chuck Pratt, and Tom Frost were just excited to get up the thing, placing minimal fixed gear. 

From the 1963 American Alpine Journal. Photo by Tom Frost, courtesy of North American Climbing History Archive.

In Royal Robbins’ 1963 report for the American Alpine Journal (AAJ), in which he recounts the first ascent done in 1961 and the first continuous ascent done in 1962, Robbins grapples explicitly with the bolting choices he and his team made as first ascensionists. Reflecting on the first continuous ascent, Robbins writes: “Tom [Frost] skillfully led the difficult section of the blank area where we had placed thirteen bolts the previous year. The use of more bolts in this area had been originally avoided by some enterprising free climbing on two blank sections and some delicate and nerve-wracking piton work. It would take only a few bolts to turn this pitch, one of the most interesting on the route, into a ‘boring’ walk-up.” Robbins and his peers were invested in finding those moments of “enterprising free climbing,” where they had to get creative and grit their teeth. Throughout his career, Robbins would have a lot of ambivalence about bolts—Salathé is a perfect example of that careful balance.

Though not directly or explicitly linked with his stance on fixed gear, it’s notable that Royal’s account of the continuous ascent of Salathé is intertwined with soulful reminiscing about nature. Robbins and his team considered Yosemite a special kind of remote nature, well before El Cap got a Wilderness designation with a capital W. Robbins ended his Salathé report: ”We finished the climb in magnificent weather, surely the finest and most exhilaratingly beautiful Sierra day we had ever seen…All the high country was white with new snow and two or three inches had fallen along the rim of the Valley, on Half Dome, and on Clouds Rest. One could see for great distances and each peak was sharply etched against a dark blue sky. We were feeling spiritually very rich indeed as we hiked down through the grand Sierra forests to the Valley.” This experience of vastness—of feeling the smallness of humanity within the quietude of nature, and that such experiences are enriching to the soul—is at the heart of what the NPS and USFS are trying to preserve, and which climbers like Robbins and all those who have followed him up El Cap have deeply loved about these places. 

Layton Kor on the first ascent of The Diagonal, 1963. Photo from Kor’s book, Beyond the Vertical, photographer unknown.

The Diagonal, Black Canyon of the Gunnison 

Designated Wilderness in 1976

2000’ (606m), 8 pitches, V 5.9 A5, Kor-McCarthy-Bossier, 1963

The Diagonal is in some ways an odd route to include here, because although it was important at the time, and excellent tales have been told about this first ascent, this route is rarely climbed today. It has the distinction of half a star on Mountain Project, and is known for the boldness required—which is particularly important to note in an area that already favors the bold. But we’re including it here precisely because of the climb’s historic nature, and how the first ascensionists—the magic team of Layton Kor, Jim McCarthy, and Tex Bossier—have articulated their thoughts on fixed anchors. 

As a historic climb, The Diagonal contains multitudes. Layton Kor, who was the driving force behind the first ascent, was certainly known to be a singular kind of person. There was no one quite like him. In Climb!, his contemporaries describe this towering figure in awed terms: “Of his more forceful characteristics, those who knew Kor well during his climbing years say that he frequently exhibited the qualities of a man possessed. A driving inner tension gnawed at him. His way of escaping from this sensation was to be active in a way which totally occupied his mind and body. His climbs, pushed to the limit of the possible, served this function well.” When Kor legendarily quipped, staring up at the crux pitch on The Diagonal, that he wasn’t a married man, and perhaps he should take Jim McCarthy’s lead for that reason, behind the glint in his eye was that tension and drive. Kor did take the lead on the “horror pitch,” taking six and a half hours to complete it—and it’s still noted as one of Kor’s hardest leads in his career. After all, the team was trying for glory—attempting to find Colorado’s first grade VI, though it would turn out to be another grade V. It remains an iconic moment in climbing’s rich history of contemplating and pushing past our agreed upon limits. 

Bossier indicated, in Kor’s book Beyond the Vertical, that the boldness that would come to characterize the climb was due in part to an intentional philosophical stance that the team made about the restrained use of fixed gear. Bossier writes: “The two major ethical dilemmas of the day were expansion bolts, and siege vs. alpine style ascents. We had taken oaths that the first grade six in Colorado deserved our commitment to a classic ascent. Despite knowing that we would pass through bands of rotten rock, we planned not to degrade our attempt with unnecessary bolting or extensive bolting.”

This sense of committing to good ethics and terms of engagement with the landscape is the backbone of the American idea of Wilderness, and embedded in the Wilderness Act, which defines Wilderness as “untrammeled,” “primeval,” and “undeveloped” landscapes, in which humanity is just a visitor. Though Kor, McCarthy, and Bossier weren’t meditating on nature in those explicit terms, their ascent too is wrapped in high-minded reflection on immersion in natural landscapes. After their wet bivvy, nature brought about a brush with awe that is so often what we seek in great, vast, wild adventures: “Next morning, as light became perceptible, we were engulfed in a dramatic whirlwind of dancing clouds. Shafts of light shone vertically upwards from the depths of the Canyon, while other masses swirled and skipped in wave patterns. We sat on our perches awed as light beams and rainbows mingled with mist. They were below us. They were with us—we could reach out and touch them. The clouds died as the power of the sun burned through and we began to take stock.”

No doubt waking up to this kind of light show—their position in the midst of it only possible because of this unique terrain—was part of the transformative experience of this climb. Bossier’s reflections demonstrate again that just as climbers of this time period were grappling with the appropriate boundary for the responsible use of fixed anchors, they were likewise attuned to how the landscapes they were climbing in shaped their experience. 

Topo of D1, the first ascent of The Diamond, featured in the September 1960 issue of Trail and Timberline. AAC Library Collection.

D1, The Diamond, Rocky Mountain National Park

Designated Wilderness in 2009

1,010 ft (308 m), 8 pitches, V 5.7 A4, Kamps-Rearick, 1960

Though climbing lore often focuses on tales of breaking the rules and going against the grain, there has been a long history of climbers working within land agency regulations in order to gain sustainable access. The story of The Diamond of Longs Peak, one of the most sought-after walls in the country, is one such example. According to the recounting of the first ascent, published in the 1961 AAJ: “In 1953 a party organized by Dale Johnson of Boulder announced its intention of attempting an ascent of this wall, but was refused permission by the National Park. Since then the Diamond has been ‘off limits’ to climbers. Being thus restricted from the climbing activity going on elsewhere in the country, it gradually assumed the distinction of being the most famous unclimbed wall in the United States.” So when Robert Kamps and David Rearick received permission from RMNP to attempt to climb The Diamond in August of 1960, all eyes were on them. 

September 1960 issue of Trail and Timberline, featuring an image from the first ascent of The Diamond. Cover photo by Al Moldvay of The Denver Post. From the AAC Library Collection.

The draw of the Diamond was certainly a sense of ultimate challenge. The altitude and remoteness of this striking wall was a key part of the adventure. Today, D1 is often overlooked, with more accessible lines like The Casual Route and Pervertical Sanctuary getting the most mileage, and lines like Ariana getting the most attention at the 5.12 grade. However, Mountain Project whispers suggest that well-rounded Diamond climbers consider it the best route on the Diamond. So unlike Kor’s The Diagonal, it’s historic and good climbing. 

Rearick and Kamp’s three day ascent “was one more dent in the concept of the impossible.” Like many Diamond climbers even today, they battled the weather and a waterfall dripping on their belays and bivvy. But this encroachment of water seemed to be a reminder that though they may be conquering the wall, they were but a small creature in a wilderness that was ultimately untamable. Like so many other climbers recreating in such extreme natural environments, the ascent was inextricably linked to moments of sublime quiet. “The night was clear and we watched the shadows from the moon creep stealthily along the slope of Lady Washington below us and across the shimmering blackness of Chasm Lake. We both managed to doze for a few hours. Since the temperature stayed above freezing, the waterfall continued all night, occasionally splashing us. The altitude at this point was about 13,700 feet.”

 Rearick and Kamps placed 4 expansion bolts in total—by hand, of course, which continues to be a requirement for new or replaced bolts in Wilderness—when all other ways of securing a belay were exhausted. This method and their tools had been explicitly reviewed and approved by the National Park beforehand, as a condition of their permission to attempt this famous feature. This incredibly important ascent was just the beginning of a revolution in climbing, as Godfrey and Chelton recount: “the concept of the impossible was seized roughly by the scruff of the neck and shaken up so as to be unrecognizable.”

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As these three first ascents demonstrate, the roots of Wilderness climbing is often tied up with philosophies of restraint in use of fixed gear, spiritual connection with nature, pushing the limits of the sport, and prioritizing boldness without being unsafe.

That was Then…This is Now…

Much of the discussion around fixed anchors in Wilderness within the climbing community has simplified and erroneously associated the concept of fixed anchors with grid bolting or sport climbing. Some people are kicking around the idea that the only climbing that should happen in Wilderness is the purest kind, like “back in the day”—suggesting that absolutely no fixed gear was used “back in the day.” The history of these iconic Wilderness climbs shows that this narrative is full of misunderstandings. Even when the best climbers of the day refused to “degrade” their ascents with unnecessary bolting or fixed gear, they did apply these tools when necessary for safety. Evidently, Wilderness climbing’s roots lie in a philosophy of responsible and restrained use of fixed anchors to facilitate meaningful experiences and inspire advocates of Wilderness. Now the question is, what is Wilderness climbing’s future? 

You can help decide. Share your thoughts on the proposed fixed anchor guidance from the NPS and USFS before January 30, 2024. 

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Resources:

This article was only possible thanks to the depth of resources from the American Alpine Club Library and historic records from the American Alpine Journal. Want to delve into our extensive historic climbing archives and guidebook library? Check it out. 

“The Salathé Wall.” American Alpine Journal. 1963.

“Salathe Wall.” Mountain Project.

Beyond the Vertical by Layton Kor

“The Diagonal.” Mountain Project.

Climb! Rock Climbing in Colorado by Bob Godrey and Dudley Chelton

Royal Robbins: The American Climber by David Smart

The Black: A Comprehensive Climbing Guide to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park by Vic Zeilman

“The First Ascent of the Diamond, the East Face of Longs Peak.” American Alpine Journal. 1961.

“D1” Mountain Project.

Eleanor Davis, Humble Mountaineer

Eleanor Davis (sitting) and Eleanor Bartlett atop Sentinel Peak (part of Pikes Peak). Photo courtesy of the Bartlett Collection, AAC Library.

The First Female Ascent of the Grand Teton, and What It Means to Discover a Ghost in the Archives

By Hannah Provost

More than teaching me something revolutionary about climbing history, the archives that hide Eleanor Davis taught me about myself. 

Without knowing it, I went into this project wanting a particular story to unfold. I wanted Eleanor Davis, an objectively important woman to climbing history, to reveal her secrets, and for those secrets to justify the philosophical importance of climbing. I wanted to hear an echo of myself from a century ago—to confirm that there is some deeply meaningful reason to climb—and to hear it from a woman, a legacy I could make meaningful and specific to me. But not all climbing conversations are revolutionary. Similar to the mundane spray of beta and grade debate that we often come across today, Eleanor Davis recollections focused on memorable moments of snarkiness, on minor crises, on the character of her climbing partners—not a revolutionary narrative of what climbing means. 

Instead, they are simply memories of a personal relationship to climbing and the mountains. 

Eleanor Davis is largely a ghost in the archives. But we do know a few key things. August 27th, 2023, was the centennial of her ascent of the Grand Teton, the first female ascent of this iconic mountain. Davis was also the second half of the ascent team for the FA of the 50 Classic Climb Ellingwood Ledges—though you wouldn’t know it by the name. Other than these two proud ascents, and seemingly only one photo of her atop a summit sitting beside Albert Ellingwood, her story is largely unwritten and undocumented. As the centennial approached, and I heard about upcoming celebrations of this historic moment, I wanted to contribute to changing that. I wanted to uncover her story—and have it transform our understanding of female mountaineering, of course. 

From left to right: Albert Ellingwood, Barton Hoag, and Eleanor Davis on the summit of Pyramid Peak,1919, Courtesy of Hoag Family, Bueler Collection, AAC Library.

Through the American Alpine Club’s Library, I got access to two interviews with Eleanor Davis that rarely see the light of day. Researcher Jan Robertson had conducted a series of interviews with important female mountaineers for her book project, The Magnificent Mountain Women. When Robertson interviewed Eleanor, she was 99, and would live for 8 more years. I combined this interview with an oral history with Eleanor Davis, taken in 1983 for History Colorado. Though the audio for the interview was incomprehensible, the notes taken of the interview were very illuminating. 

The Dulfersitz method of rappelling. Photo Courtesy of the CMC Collection.

Weaving in and out of threads of conversation, the audio of the interview from 1985 is cluttered with historic nuggets. Davis was one of Albert Ellingwood’s main climbing partners for years, and her casual references to him belie the massive impact his climbing would have. Ellingwood is credited for being the first person to substantially utilize rope systems and other “proper rock climbing technique” in Colorado, and many times, Davis was in the rope party or repeated the difficult new routes that Ellingwood was putting up. Davis meandered through details of biking to the mountains when there was gas-rations during the Depression, and recounted that when Ellingwood first taught them how to rappel with the Dulfersitz method, that “we thought it was fun but sort of silly too,” what with how slow you had to go to avoid rope burns. I reveled in the details that put our modern world into perspective: apparently Davis didn’t enjoy climbing in a skirt, like most women of the day, and instead had her dressmaker turn her climbing skirt into knickerbockers, or baggy pants gathered at the knee. She didn’t use a sleeping bag but instead surplus army blankets and a tarp. She mentioned jello as a key food for such outings—I think we should bring this trend back. But it wasn’t all grit and toughness—Eleanor and Albert hated alpine starts and often got back in the dark, or slept on a rock ledge when they got benighted. 

Davis swore she never took a fall when climbing, and that the only climbing accident she ever witnessed was rockfall hitting her friend Jo Deutschbein in the head when a party climbing above dislodged some choss. Yet she was less interested in analyzing accidents that really did happen, and instead was more intrigued by the drama of a potentially tall tale. Her friend Eleanor Bartlett always insisted that Albert Ellingwood and Bee Rogers were struck by lightning when the group was climbing Blanca Peak, resulting in a fall—though the effects of the strike must have been temporary, because Davis, being the last member of the party, never was sure if Bartlett’s tale was true. 

Eleanor Davis climbed with Agnes Vaille and Betsy Cowles, two mountaineers who are hidden in the archives nearly as much as Davis. But rather than list their accomplishments together, what Davis remembered were their personalities—they were intellectual, wise, and Betsy threw great parties. Before Cowles got married, Davis remembers her saying “Oh Eleanor, I’m marrying a wonderful man. And he likes the mountains too, and that’s just frosting on the cake.” 

Despite her extensive experience, and her preference for Ellingwood as a partner, Davis occasionally had to fight to be taken seriously as a mountaineer. On a trip to the Arapaho Peaks, she was told that only a “very select group could go on the North Peak.” She responded, “Well I’m very select.” Her confidence must have won her some points, or perhaps our gear really does tell much about our experience or gumbiness—they looked at her shoes and her camping equipment, and determined that perhaps she was right. She summited Arapaho without a hitch. 

Photo Credit: Ben Farrar

Even when it came to reflecting on her ascent of the Grand Teton, in 1923, all she had for me was a minor crisis. She and Ellingwood had climbed out on a ridge on their stomachs, and Ellingwood needed a leg up. So Davis leaned over to give him a shoulder to stand up on, knocking her glasses off in the process, sending them skittering down clear to the glacier below. Thankfully, Davis mainly needed the glasses for reading, and could get along fine without them, as evidently they made the summit—and made history. 

When I first listened to these scattered stories, I was a little disappointed. But as I sifted through her stories, and read and listened to them again and again, I started to recognize a certain gleam to them. Eleanor Davis was a woman who did extraordinary things for her time, and yet she valued the ordinary—the humble minutia of what makes climbing so rich as a life experience. 

I am not a climber who does extraordinary things for my time. Most of us aren’t. Most of us think our climbing partners are funny, and have to stand up for ourselves occasionally to get taken seriously, and have minor-crises, not epics—just like Davis. Yet often, I am dissatisfied with that. 

Getting to know Eleanor Davis, from the few archives I could find, made me really like her—her spunk, her genuine glee when she mentioned the mountains, her care for her climbing partners. Getting to know Eleanor Davis also made me learn a lesson I’ve been needing to learn again and again from climbing: What gets us to the top of the pitch, or the mountain, is incomparable to someone else’s reasons. Perhaps that's why Davis was so humble about her accomplishments. She herself didn’t need anything grand to come from the Grand—because it was already there, in the minutia.

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Summit Magazine

Provided by Michael Levy

A story from the AAC Library

By: Sierra McGivney

Jean Crenshaw and Helen Kilness rode their motorcycle away from the US Coast Guard base in Georgia in 1946. They had just taught themselves how to ride the motorcycle in the bike dealership's parking lot. The two had become fast friends working as Radio Operators in the Coast Guard. With the war over, they were untethered, the future and road ahead of them. Both grew up out west, so they headed that way, the wind roaring around them.

Once in California, they worked in the publishing and editing industry, and on the weekends, they went out on trips with the Sierra Club. The two fell in love with rock climbing and playing outside. They were completely inseparable. With time they moved to Big Bear, CA, to an old Forest Service cabin. They wove their two favorite things together and started a climbing magazine, the first of its kind, in 1955.

Summit Magazine was edited, published, and produced in Crenshaw and Kilness's house. The basement contained a dark room for photo and print development.

The two were some of the original dirtbags. They would make enough money and write enough content for the magazine and then run away into the mountains and play. Their first magazine cost 25 cents.

In the post-WWII climate of the United States, they went against the grain. Though not against marriage or children, Kilness and Crenshaw were committed to expanding and redefining the purview of women. Alongside the complexities of their religious commitments and their vision for climbing journalism, they were also two women who wanted to throw out the kitchen sink and replace it with summits.

Provided by Michael Levy

Kilness and Crenshaw avoided letting it be known that they were women on the masthead of Summit Magazine. Jean became Jene, and Helen became H.V.J Kilness. Because of this, some men felt free to write letters to the editor, denigrating women. In response, Kilness and Crenshaw would publish these letters and those that would follow, opposing these sexist views. The comments section of Summit Magazine was like the Mountain Project forum of the 1950-70s.

Kurt Reynolds from Denver, Colorado, wrote, "A women's very presence can mean discord and defeat, for rare indeed is the climber who can forget ingrained patterns of chivalry and demand the same grueling performance from feminine teammates that he would from another man. In their mad rush to ape men, women have invaded every field of our endeavor. Let them return to their proper realm of kitchen, children, and church–and be there when we return from the mountains."

The comments section regulated itself, and both men and women expressed their views against this comment.

Elizabeth Knowlton, a famous mountaineer, countered, "But the fact is that to some individuals, of both sexes, mountains, and mountaineering have really important meanings and values—though to many individuals they do not … People vary enormously. If Mr. Reynolds expects half the human race to conform to one single type, strictly determined by their sex, I fear he will meet with disappointment. I speak as a woman who has always been interested in climbing."

Others said in defense of women, "Mr. Kurt Reynolds rather sickened my stomach with his opinions on the female of the human species. I'm sure that no registered nurse would appreciate his statement on women being 'emotionally unstable and notably unreliable in an emergency,'" responded Dick Skultin.

Kilness and Crenshaw probably laughed whenever they received letters addressed "Dear Sir" containing sexist views of the day. Little did the men writing in know that two mountain climbing women ran Summit Magazine.

Instead of outright confronting these individuals, they proved them wrong through every magazine they produced that empowered women.

Provided by Michael Levy

The letters to the editor weren't the only place these nuanced subjects were brought up. In the fictional story "The Lassie and the Gillikin" from the June 1956 edition of the magazine, the author writes about the undertones of sexism in climbing at the time and the expectation for a woman to make herself smaller. In the story, a male climber takes Jenny climbing for the first time. She starts with beginner climbs and every weekend works to climb harder. She persists and becomes better. At one point, when Jenny succeeds on a climb, the male climber does not, and he is suddenly cold towards Jenny. This male climber has lunch with another woman when he usually eats with Jenny. He weaponizes this woman to show Jenny further how much he distastes her success.

Provided by Michael Levy

The Gilikin, a little creature that climbers blame for tangled ropes or slick holds, suggests to Jenny that he push her off a climb to make the male climber interested in her again. Jenny agrees, and after she falls off a climb, his interest in her returns, underscoring the writer's point.

Jane Collard said it best in the July 1956 comments section of Summit: "Men need to feel superior to women, especially in outdoor, rugged, manly-type activities, and a woman mountain climber is liable to give 98% of the male population an inferiority complex because there are so few men who are mountain climbers and also society says mountain climbing isn't feminine."

The richness of Summit was that it was a proving ground for these kinds of hard conversations about equity, but the editors also insisted on doing so playfully.

Flipping through old Summit Magazines, you'll find various cartoons and articles. A person skiing off El Capitan is on the cover of their March 1972 issue. The cover was made to look real with a photo of El Cap and a drawing of a small person with a red parachute skiing off of it. On the inside of the magazine, a complete description: "In a well planned and skillful maneuver, Rick Sylvester skied off the top of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park at approximately 50 mph, then parachuted to the valley floor." You can tell that Kilness and Crenshaw were having fun. They didn't take themselves too seriously.

Oddly enough, an ad for Vasque boots is placed on the outside cover. The ad says, "Vasque…tough books built by men who've been there…Vasque the mountain man boot."

Provided by Michael Levy

The articles in Summit had an extensive range of topics, from challenging technical climbs to backpacking and ecology. The magazine had a news section called "Scree and Talus" which always included a poem. One addition of "Scree" includes a granola recipe next to the information about an unclimbed mountain in Nepal called Gauri Shankar.

The swirly fonts, playful cartoons, and various article topics blended feminine elements into an otherwise 'masculine' sport for its time. Kilness and Crenshaw were redefining climbing to include their vision—broadening and deepening what climbing could mean and who climbing was for.

Summit was about all aspects of climbing, not just climbing difficult grades and training, which are worthwhile stories to tell but do not encompass the soul of climbing, the why of climbing. Summit Magazine was about pursuing the outdoors and having fun while doing it. Summit's depth and earnest silliness came from Kilness and Crenshaw's ability to take a step back from climbing, see their complex role in it, and in turn, climbing's role in life. That philosophical distance certainly takes the edge off the grade-chasing.

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When magazines like Rock and Ice (1986) and Climbing (1970) came onto the scene, Summit fell off. Kilness and Crenshaw themselves ascribed this to their competitors' editorial focus on sending hard and putting up new technical routes. But whether cutting-edge climbing simply sells better or it was the usual story of big media winning by sheer resources, the project was no longer sustainable. Killness and Crenshaw sold the company in 1989, the same year the American Alpine Club recognized their contribution and lifetime service to the climbing community. Under new owners, Summit continued until 1996, after which it was discontinued.

You can still be transported to 1974 and look at old photos of beautiful landscapes worldwide. The AAC library holds all issues of Summit Magazine from 1955-1996. These magazines can be an excellent resource for planning trips or a looking glass into a past era of climbing.

Provided by Michael Levy

And Summit's journey continues. Through long-form print media, Summit Journal will be produced twice a year in large format to preserve the richness of climbing storytelling. In a world of clickbait articles, Summit is daring to produce quality climbing journalism and once again encompass the soul of climbing. Hopefully, they can capture Kilness and Crenshaw's playful essence even if someone isn't skiing off El Capitan on the cover. Returning to climbing journalism's roots just might take us to new places.

Carl Blaurock, A Voice from the AAC Archives

By Walter R. Borneman

Carl Blaurock performing a headstand with (left to right) unknown woman, Sally Rogers, and Agnes Vaille. Photo by Bill Ervin. Agnes Vaille Collection, American Alpine Club Library.

Reading the photo captions Carl Blaurock wrote in white ink on black album pages while in his 20s, one hears the same voice that in his 90s chortled about his long-ago exploits. Such antics included standing on his head atop mountains so that, in Carl’s words, “I would have my feet higher on that mountain than anybody else.” Archives are more than stacks of paper or piles of black and white photos. Look closer. Archives convey a sense of time but are also a reflection of individual personality.

Hermann & Elmina Buhl with Carl Blaurock (standing) and Albert Ellingwood at the Summit on Gannett—11 Aug 1924—Ellingwood Collection, American Alpine Club Library.

Carl Blaurock was born in Denver in 1894, attended Colorado School of Mines, and became a goldsmith like his father. Having climbed Pikes Peak as his first big mountain, Carl became an early member of the Colorado Mountain Club (CMC). A story circulates that Carl was a founding member of the club, but consult the archives. The signature page of the CMC charter from April 1912—a history of Denver society in and of itself—does not include Blaurock’s name among the twenty-five signers. Nonetheless, Carl and his climbing buddy, Bill Ervin, became Colorado Mountain Club mainstays and the first to climb all of Colorado’s fourteeners, the peaks above 14,000 feet, of which 46 were recognized in 1923. 

Carl’s exploits with pioneering woman mountaineer Agnes Vaille, college professor and roped climbing aficionado Albert Ellingwood, attorney and historian Stephen H. Hart and others were difficult for the time and sometimes challenged by mishaps just getting to the trailhead. On a 1924 trek into the Wind Rivers, Blaurock and Ellingwood were slowed by three tire blowouts in the first few miles between Denver and Longmont. Years later, the Wyoming State Geological Survey would find Carl’s photos from the trip a valuable record in studying glacial retreat.

A young Carl on the summit of Mount Evans. Blaurock Collection, AAC Library.

Carl on Grizzly Peak. Blaurock Collection, AAC Library.

“Every year I’d break a ski jumping off cornices or some darn thing.” - Quote from A Climber’s Climber: On the Trail with Carl Blaurock.

Photo from Blaurock Collection, AAC Library.

98-year old Carl heading to a family reunion with his 1912 bedroll (sleeping bag). Photo from the Trail & Timberline, November 1992.

This bedroll and a full set of Trail & Timberlines can be found in the AAC Library.

I first met Carl in 1983, when he was an energetic 89 years young. Thanks to the efforts of climber and attorney Barbara J. Euser, Cordillera Press was publishing “his” book, A Climber’s Climber, under Barbara’s steady hand. Carl and I sipped his homemade chokecherry brandy—he was quite proud of it—as we looked through his photo albums. It was like opening a time capsule. Not just decades but three-quarters of a century fell away as I read his impish photo captions and listened to his stories. 

Albert Ellingwood and Carl Blaurock on the Summit of Mt Harding on 10 Aug 1924—Ellingwood Collection.

Carl’s admiration for Albert Ellingwood as an early technical climber was rock solid and long-held. So, too, was Carl’s continuing disdain over many decades for Walter Kiener, Agnes Vaille’s “smart aleck” companion on her fatal Longs Peak climb. Agnes had wanted to be the first to climb its east face in winter. The three of them tried several times late in the fall of 1924, but when Agnes and Kiener set off without Carl on a January attempt, Carl warned her, “Don’t go, Agnes.” He called retrieving her body “one of the saddest events in my life.”

The Blaurock Collection in the AAC Library includes the photos from A Climber’s Climber, digital copies of 8mm films from climbs in the 1930s and 1940s, and Carl’s bedroll and tripod. You will also find the articles he wrote for Trail and Timberline. Many of the photographs Carl took—he was a talented and relentless photographer—are scattered throughout fifty years of the publication. Carl’s last major climb and photography quest was up Notch Mountain in 1973 to replicate William Henry Jackson’s famous photo of Mount of the Holy Cross on its 100th anniversary.

Carl’s favorite photo—labeled as such in one of his albums—was one he took of 14,197-foot Crestone Needle in 1920 from the northern slopes of Marble Mountain. The clouds are surreal, and plenty of late spring snow adorns the peaks. It should come as no surprise that a large print of this photograph, a gift from Carl, hangs in my home. I never look at it without hearing his voice.

Carl’s Favorite: Crestone Needle, 1920. CMC Collection, AAC Library.

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Walter R. Borneman co-authored A Climbing Guide to Colorado’s Fourteeners in 1978. His other books include Alaska, Iron Horses, The Admirals, and Brothers Down. He has spent a lot of time on mountains and in archives.

The Denali Damsels

Photo courtesy of Arlene Blum.

In 1970, Grace Hoeman, Margaret Young, Dana Isherwood, Arlene Blum, Margaret Clark, and Faye Kerr, set out on a journey to be the first-all female team to ascend and summit Denali. Although the sport had seen its small share of women climbers, climbing was traditionally a man’s sport, and many men of the time were content to keep it that way. Although the intention of the expedition was not to create a women’s liberation, their journey would push the door open for future female climber’s everywhere.

Explore this exhibit to learn about the expedition, the women who shaped it, and experience artifacts from the expedition, thanks to the AAC Library.

*This story is best told with the help of vibrant and dynamic photography. Dive into this Spark Exhibit to see these photos come alive alongside this story.

Rewind the Climb: Pete Schoening’s Miracle Belay on K2

by Grey Satterfield

artwork by James Adams

photos from the Dee Molenaar Collection

It happens every day, in every climbing gym across the country: the belay check. It can swell up a wave of anxiety for new climbers or a wave of frustration for more experienced ones, but no matter where you are in your climbing journey, you’ve done it. Everyone has demonstrated their ability to stop a falling climber. But what about stopping two climbers? What about stopping five? And what about stopping five without the convenience of a Gri-Gri, in a raging storm at 8,000 meters, hanging off the side of the second highest mountain in the world?

Pete Schoening checks all those boxes, and his miracle belay during an early attempt of K2 is one of the most famous in all of climbing history. It’s an awesome reminder that in climbing, much like in life, a lot of things change, but a lot of things don’t.

In 1953, during the third American expedition to K2, eight climbers funded by the American Alpine Club built their high camp at nearly 7,700m. The team consisted of Pete Schoening, Charles Houston, Robert Bates, George Bell, Robert Craig, Art Gilkey, Dee Molenaar, and Tony Streather.

On the seventh day of the ascent, climbing without oxygen, Schoening and his partners were within reach of the summit. With the first ascent of the long-sought peak tantalizingly close, the weather turned, trapping the climbers for10 days at nearly 8,000m. The storm raged on, destroying tents and dwindling supplies. Then Gilkey developed thrombophlebitis—a life-threatening condition of blood clots brought on by high altitude. If these clots made it into his lungs, he’d die. The team had no choice but to descend. Without hesitation, they abandoned the summit attempt and put themselves to work getting Gilkey to safety. With an 80mph blizzard compounding their effort, the climbing team bundled their injured comrade in a sleeping bag and a tent and, belayed by Schoening, began to lower him down the perilous walls of rock and ice.

After an exhausting day of descending, they had made it only 300m but were in sight of Camp VII, which was perched on a ledge another 180m further across the icy slope. Craig was the first to reach the site and began building camp. Then the real disaster struck.

As Bell was working his way across the steep face, he slipped and began to rocket down the side of the mountain. Bell was tied to Streather, who was also pulled off his feet and down the slope. The rope between the two climbers then became entangled with those connecting the team of Bates, Houston, and Molenaar, pulling them off in turn. The five climbers, along with the tethered Gilkey, began careening down the near vertical face, rag-dolling down the mountain over 100m and speeding towards the edge: a 2,000m fall to the glacier below.

At the last second—as the weight of six climbers slammed into him— Schoening thrust his ice axe into the snow behind a boulder and, with a hip belay, brought the climbers to a stop. The nylon rope (a relatively new piece of climbing gear at the time) went taught and shrank to half its diameter, but it did not snap. The hickory axe held the strain. Schoening, rope wrapped tightly around his shoulders, had performed what is considered one of the greatest saves in mountaineering history—known now and forever known as “The Belay.”

“When you get into something like mountain climbing,” Schoening said afterwards, “I’m sure you do things automatically. It’s a mechanical func- tion. You do it when necessary without giving it a thought of how or why.”

However, the incident was not without tragedy. As the team recovered from the fall and established a forced bivy, they discovered that Gilkey, bundled in sleeping bag and tent, had vanished. There is speculation that he cut himself free in order to save the lives of his friends above.

Schoening, always humble about the feat, was later awarded the David A. Sowles Memorial Award for his heroics by the American Alpine Club in 1981 as a “mountaineer who has distinguished himself, with unselfish devotion at personal risk or sacrifice of a major objective, in going to the assistance of fellow climbers imperiled in the mountains.”

Fifty-three years later, in 2006, 28 descendants of the surviving team gathered, calling themselves “The Children of ‘The Belay.’” All owed their lives to Schoening—and his ice axe—high on K2. The axe, which some have called the holy grail of mountaineering artifacts, is on permanent display at the American Mountaineering Museum in Golden, Colorado.

Much has changed in the world of climbing over the past 70 years. When Schoening headed up K2 in 1953, assisted-braking belay devices were yet to be invented. The AAC provided no rescue services as a benefit of membership. Nobody owned an InReach or a satellite phone. To survive in the mountains in that era was to rely solely on your team—on the trust that comes with tying in together and the knowledge that a friend is watching your back.

So we would do well to remember Pete Schoening and his belay—to hold the other end of the rope is a serious affair. The next time you go out climbing, don’t forget to give your belayer a high-five and a hug.

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Grey Satterfield is the digital marketing manager for the AAC. He has a decade of experience managing climbing gyms and loves to share his passion for climbing with anyone who will listen, be it through writing, photography, or swapping stories around the campfire.

Myths of the Alpine: An Interview with Author Katie Ives

Katie Ives, Editor in Chief at Alpinist, just published her first book, Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams. The AAC sat down with Katie Ives to explore her journey as a writer, her connection to climbing, and the inspiration for her book.

Explore the exhibit below that includes highlights from our interview and assets from the AAC Library that supplement Ives’ book.

*This story is best told with the help of vibrant and dynamic photography. Dive into this Spark Exhibit to see these photos come alive alongside this story.

New in the Library! Must-Adds to Your Reading List

Looking for a good book to read this season? Settling in for another round of Quarantine?

We have you covered. Here are some new titles that just arrived in the Library!

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“A family of climbers…”

“The Bark of the Cony is the story of one man's journey to overcome physical hardship and its resulting challenges. Before the age of four, George Nash Smith had a freak accident which impaired use of his right arm and hand. With the support of his parents and siblings he adapted to his circumstances and learned to approach life in a positive way.”

This is a delightful story of the life of a climbing father and his sons. Known as the “Climbing Smiths,” George & his four sons climbed 68 peaks over 14,000-ft in the United States in 48 days. They completed this feat in 1974.

The Bark of the Cony is an enjoyable read for all outdoor enthusiasts and has local history nuggets for Colorado history buffs like myself. You can checkout our circulating copy or grab your own by clicking this link here (all proceeds go to charity).

““The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
― St. Augustine”

“…a true foray into the unknown”

An avid reader, writer, and dedicated AAC Library advocate, here is what Pete Takeda has to say about Labyrinth of Ice:

“Labyrinth of Ice is a tale that rivals Endurance as a classic of polar exploration.

Adventures like this are hard to come by these days. The expedition, led by a man of unimpeachable character named Lieutenant Adolphus W. Greely, was purely scientific and exploratory. It was not adventure for its own sake. Second, it was a true foray into the unknown.

What started as a research expedition ended in a classic struggle for survival. In a traditionally male drama of Arctic exploration, a lady plays the key role in the ultimate outcome. Levy leaves no doubt that without the stalwart persistence and in-depth knowledge of Henrietta Greely (Adolphus’ wife), the expedition was doomed to perish.

Labyrinth is also a case study in leadership. This book would be a fine candidate for a film and a wonderful addition to high school curriculums.”

Click here to see a list of NEW books in the Library!

And if you are looking to own some climbing classics, take a gander at our selection in our online store linked here.

The Greatest Benefit to Membership

During this unprecedented time of self-quarantines and social distancing many of us have found that we have some extra free time. Time to read. Time to watch movies. Time to plan for the next big trip when things return to normal. The American Alpine Club Library is currently closed to the public indefinitely to limit person to person contact but we will still be doing our best to keep book mail going. If you don’t know about the book mail membership benefit now is the time to become acquainted.

As AAC members you have access to the Henry S. Hall American Alpine Club Library!

This benefit allows you to checkout up to 10 items at a time. We’ll ship the items to you for free! Your only cost is the return shipping. Checkout periods are 35 days and you just have to get the book in the mail heading back to us by the due date.

To checkout books log into your Library profile at: booksearch.americanalpineclub.org First time users will have to notify us to set up their Library account; the best way to do that is for you to send an email to [email protected] and we’ll be able to create your account with the information from the main AAC member database.

We will carry on with book mail as long as there is no link to transferring the virus through the mail and as long as we are able to make it into the Library to ship the materials. If the Denver metro area goes into a shelter in place protocol or another similar quarantine then we will not be able to continue shipping books.

For some ideas on what to read two of our librarians put a list together of some of their favorite books last year for the REI climbing blog which can be seen at https://www.rei.com/blog/climb/aac-librarians-top-favorite-climbing-books Be sure to look at the comments of the post for other great recommendations as well!

A few of our Utah guidebooks

To prepare for your next trip we have both the hiking and climbing guides you need for planning the trip, and we have the how-to-guides that can teach you the techniques you need to know.

Need to learn how to climb?

Not sure what to read or want to recommend a book? Leave a comment below.

Trip to the Library, January 4th 2019

by Ron Funderburke, AAC Education Manager

At the top of this new year, I was doing some research on behalf of the American Mountain Guides Association. A question about the history of American guides came across my desk earlier last year, and I began making regular trips to uncover the overlooked and often sad history of American mountain guides prior to the professionalization of the trade. Many native guides were conscripted, and their local knowledge of mountain passes and mountain ways was never credited by the “pioneers” that exploited them. Anyone interested can check out the AMGA’s Guide magazine later this year for an article that summarizes my findings.  

On January 4th, I was pursuing this little mystery:

The American Alpine Club trained and certified American mountain guides? When was that? Why did they start that program? Why did the program end? Did AMGA replace this program?

To find an answer, I started with the first editions of the American Alpine Journal, and I scanned the records of all the Club’s proceedings. Proceedings include minutes from board meetings, secretary reports, and reports from gatherings and dinners. They’re pretty thorough. I came across proceedings from the mid-1930s that disclosed the emergence of American guiding services in the Tetons and Mount Rainier and findings of the AAC board that unified training and certification would be of value for aspiring professionals and for Americans that needed the services of a guide.

The proceedings detail the formation of a ‘Guides’ Committee’ and that committee began reporting regularly on its work. By 1940, the Guides’ Committee had run several trainings and certification exams, it had designed and distributed diplomas, and it had used these initial successes to begin planning more trainings around the country. The ‘Guide’s Diploma’ artifact that is pictured above is one of few remaining relics from this program.

What happened, you might ask? It’s difficult to know what would have happened to the AAC Guide Committee, and its training and certification scheme, had World War II not taken the entire climbing world in a different direction. After 1941 all proceedings of the Guides’ Committee were replaced with new and pressing work being done to support the American war effort, including the training, recruitment, and deployment of mountain soldiers. All the expertise American climbers could muster, and all the able-bodied soldiers that might have become guides, were enlisted in the war effort.

After the war, the guides program was taken up again in sporadic fits and starts, including some early versions of the American Mountain Guides Association in 1970. In each case, the proceedings document trainings and certifications in isolated regions of the country, and an ultimate inability to create a program that would have unified American professionals.

Additionally, I perused the Fuhrerbuch (guides log) of one of the first certified mountain guides in North America. Ed Feuz Sr was a certified Swiss Bergfuhrer (mountain guide), and he was recruited by the Canadian Pacific railroad to offer guided climbing at the mountain hotel and rail-stops along the track through the Canadian Rockies. Feuz had many American clients, and his careful record of their climbs is documented and archived. Near the end of his career, Feuz described how guided climbing had become unfashionable. It’s one of many clues I could find as to why the AAC guides committee only achieved sporadic success training and certifying mountain guides after World War II.

When our library professionals saw the nature of my research, they asked if I had seen the AMGA archives. As a long time professional member of the AMGA, I was intrigued to know what might be in those archives. I was not disappointed. I found reams of correspondence between the American Alpine Club, members of the AAC Guides’ Committee, guides and guide service owners, sponsors and consultants from the Alpine Club of Canada, the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, and various representatives of European guides associations including the International Federation of Mountain Guides. I found lengthy treatises and pedagogical statements on the nature of American climbing instruction and education from the likes of Yvon Chouinard.

Together, the whole dossier chronicles a story about American guides that should resonate with any guide today. Guides had strong opinions about the standards to which they should be trained and certified. Guide services had strong opinions about how much certification schemes should cost and how relevant certifications would be to their operations. Climbers had strong opinions about the differentiation of guided ascents and non-guided ascents. Educators had strong opinions about how and why climbing instruction should distinguish itself from prevailing education systems of the times. With so many strong opinions and so many perspectives needed to create a system of professional guides education and certification, it’s no wonder the work of the AAC Guides’ Committee encountered so many obstacles. When strong personalities and strong opinions collide, consensus can be difficult to achieve.

Like many trips to the library, my quest to solve one little mystery unveiled new mysteries, and the questions I was pursuing are not generally of interest to climbers. It’s the kind of esoterica that you can’t uncover on Wikipedia. Thankfully, our library and our library professionals appreciate that little things will matter to someone, some day.  

Pitons

by Allison Albright

A set of pitons from the mid-20th century, including LEM, Charlet-Moser, Stubai and Chouinard

Pitons are one of the oldest types of rock protection and were invented by the Victorians in the late 19th century. Pitons are metal spikes which are inserted into cracks in the rock and secured by hammering them into place with a piton hammer.

Illustration of a climber using natural protection methods to rope down from Alpine Climbing on Foot and with Ski by Ernest Wedderburn, 1937

Mountaineering involved technical rock climbing only as a means to reach the top of the mountain, and not, in those days, for its own sake and by the turn of the 20th century, most mountain climbers favored “natural protection,” which was securing rope to rocks or other natural features that could be found along the route. They used pitons nearly exclusively for climbing down and only then when the route down had become unsafe due to the sun setting or ice forming on rocks.  This was especially true of UK mountaineers, who prided themselves on their ability to climb without the use of such aids.

Many mountaineers in those days believed that the use of artificial rock protection and aids, such as pitons, would lead to carelessness and were regarded as useless in the ascent of difficult routes. 

Early pitons were iron spikes and had rings attached to one end through which mountaineers would secure their rope. However, those rings sometimes bent or broke under the weight of a mountaineer. Hans Fiechtl invented the modern piton in 1910, made entirely of one piece of metal with a hole (called the eye) in one end. This reduced the number of moving parts in the tool and made them sturdier and more reliable.

Illustration of piton use and placement from the Handbook of American Mountaineering by Kenneth Henderson, 1942

“In such cases, pegs to hammer in and anchor to are a remedy for our failures, our failure to carry on, to adjust the climb to the day-length, or to watch the weather. Their use then is corrective, not auxiliary.”

— Mountain Craft by Geoffrey Winthrop Young, 1920

Angle piton with a ring

Illustration of proper piton technique from the Handbook of American Mountaineering by Kenneth Henderson, 1942

Pitons were mostly made of softer steel and iron that allowed them to conform to the shape of the crack when used, making it difficult or impossible to remove them from the rock when they were no longer needed. This method worked well in the softer rock of Europe and much of the US, and pitons were habitually left in place at the end of a climb.

However, leaving permanent marks on the landscape sat poorly with many climbers and soft pitons didn’t work well on longer routes where rock protection needed to be removed and used again. They also didn’t hold up well in the hard granite of places like the Yosemite Valley. In 1946 John Salathé, a climber and a blacksmith, used hardened steel to create pitons that could be removed from a crack and used again and again without getting bent or disfigured.

A lost arrow piton with sunburst design

The only problem with the harder pitons was that they often disfigured the rock. Since pitons are hammered into and out of rock cracks, and since the same cracks are often used over and over again, climbers were leaving their mark each time they inserted and removed a hard steel piton. The soft steel pitons weren’t much better at leaving a route unaltered, since they often had to be left in place. They can still be found in some routes.

 “There is a word for it, and the word is clean.” – Doug Robinson, The Whole Natural Art of Protection, 1972

Yvon Chouinard, who had been making pitons through his Chouinard Equipment brand for several years by then, introduced the aluminum chocks in his 1972 Chouinard Equipment/Great Pacific Iron Works catalog. The catalog included two seminal essays on clean climbing; A Word by Yvon Chouinard and Tom Frost, and The Whole Natural Art of Protection by Doug Robinson. You can read them online here. This ethos changed American climbing forever and the piton was quickly replaced by equipment that could be easily removed and reused without damaging or altering the rock, first slings, nuts and chocks and later cams.

Pitons manufactured by Yvon Chouinard, arranged in order of their evolution.

Clean climbing methods proved to be much safer and easier to use than pitons, since pounding a spike into a crack with a hammer is time and energy consuming. Pitons are still used in some places where other types of protection aren’t an option, but these situations are rare.

You can check out some examples of pitons from our archival gear collection in the slideshow below.

Knifeblade

Pitons from the 1920s

A CMI crack tack

A piton bent by use

Bolt and washer piton

A broken lost arrow

Angle piton

Knifeblade piton

Piton found in the Tetons

Home made knifeblade pitons

Chouinard angle piton

Piton hammer

Gongga Shan (Minya Konka) 1932

by Eric Rueth

The Sikong Expedition in 1932 has to be one of the more unique mountaineering tales to have ever occurred. I and maybe others would argue that if there ever was a mountaineering expedition that should be turned into 1990’s style action-adventure movie starring Brendan Fraiser, this one would be it. There are too many interesting details to this expedition to fully capture in a blog post like this, so instead I’m going to give you a bare bones description and show you some of Terris Moore’s slides in an attempt to get you to read the American Alpine Club Journal articles about the expedition (linked below), and/or to read the entire book of the expedition (prologue through the epilogue), Men Against the Clouds. The pieces written by the expedition members themselves are really the only pieces of writing that do this expedition justice.

The Sikong Expedition consisted of four Americans, Jack Young, Terris Moore, Arthur Emmons, and Richard Burdsall. These were the four remaining members of a larger Explorers Club expedition that was meant to take place but dissolved due to various delays and complications created by global events. One of the global events was the Japanese invasion of Shanghai which led Young, Moore, Emmons, and Burdsall to briefly become a part of the American Company of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps.

After the dissolution Lamb Expedition to Northern Tibet, the first step of the newly formed Sikong Expedition was a twenty day journey up the Yangste River that featured rough waters, beautiful gorges and potential for pot shots from bandits on the river banks.

The Sikong-Szechuan region was still relatively unknown to the west and the purpose of the original expedition was to explore survey the region and gather samples of flora and fauna along with an attempt on Gongga Shan. The explorer’s spirit lived on in the Sikong Expedition. Thirty pages of appendices and one AAJ Article document their efforts. Below are two slides that not only shows the expedition doing some survey work but also shows how photographs and slides can degrade over time! If your interested in degrading photographs check out this previous library blog post.

Part of the reason for surveying the region and the mountain specifically was that at the time calculations of its height ranged anywhere from 16,500’ to 30,000’. The Sikong Expedition measured Gongga Shan’s height to be 24,891’ which is only 100’ off of the mountain’s current measured height of 24,790’.

Camp I, Nochma Peak

Cloud Camp-note avalanche track on right

Solitude

A "back and a knee": Emmons

The Hump, looking back across gap: Emmons

After weeks of acclimatization, moving supplies, and setting up camps, no high-altitude porters and with crevasse falls along the way; Moore and Burdsall attained the summit on October 28, 1932. Below are two of the dozens of photos taking while on the summit. Photographs were taken with the Chinese flag and the American flag. The American flag (48 stars) carried to the summit currently resides here at the American Alpine Club Library. Due to wind, an ice axe had to be pushed through the flags to keep them attached and flying for the summit photos.

What makes this expedition such an amazing feat is the twists and turns that take place in the story. The expedition in a sense never should have happened after the Lamb Expedition dissolved. Under normal circumstances it is likely that everyone would have headed home and planned to try again at a different time. Instead, four members remained in large part due to the Great Depression and being told that their money would fair them better in China and that there likely wouldn’t be work for them if they returned to the States. The style that the mountain was summited was more akin to modern expeditions than it was to the siege the mountain strategy that tended to be the norm for the day. Despite not receiving much plaudits at the time, Gongga Shan was the highest summit reached by Americans at the time but the expedition was able to help fill in one of the few remaining blanks on the map.

If you’re an American Alpine Club member you can checkout Men against the clouds by logging into the AAC Library Catalog.

And regardless of if you’re an AAC member, you can find AAJ articles written about the expedition by following the links below:

Terris Moore’s AAJ article about the climb

Arthur Emmon’s AAJ article about the survey work

A short article by Nick Clinch that concisely summarizes the expedition

The Andrew J. Gilmour Collection

by Allison Albright

At the American Alpine Club Library, we’re very fortunate to have quite a few collections of photographs of climbing and mountaineering from the early 20th century. One of these, a collection of roughly 3000 photographic negatives dating from 1900 to about 1930, has been digitized in its entirety and made available to everyone.

It’s a great feeling to complete a project.

We’re excited to be able to increase access to this collection through digitization, which also reduces wear and tear on the original negatives and adds an additional layer of preservation.

This collection of photos belonged to Andrew J. Gilmour, a dermatologist living and working in New York who was an avid climber and active member of the American Alpine Club during the 1920s and 1930s. He did a number of ascents in the Alps, the Canadian Rockies, the Cascades and the Western U.S., as well as Wales and the Lake District in the UK. His photos show us a lot about climbing at that time, the techniques, equipment, conditions and the people and places involved. It also provides us with a glimpse of what the world was like about 100 years ago.

We’ve gathered some of our favorite images from this collection in the slideshows below. Enjoy!

To see more of these images, check out our Andrew J. Gilmour album on Flickr.

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Climbing and Mountaineering

Photos of climbing parties and mountaineering expeditions from about 1910 to the mid 1930’s.

Climbers on Odaray Mountain

Climbers in a crack near the top of Mumm Peak, Canada

A climber on Mount Sir Donald in Glacier National Park of Canada. Note the use of hobnail boots.

A woman makes her way up a rock face

A climber in the Alps

Three men pause for refreshment while climbing in the Alps. The Matterhorn in the background.

A man making his way through a crevasse on Robson Glacier, Mount Robson

Pausing to admire the view in the Selkirks

A woman roped off and ready to climb

A mountaineer crossing on the ice

A mountaineer on a glacier

A group of climbers setting out for Mount Robson from an Alpine Club of Canada camp

A woman resting against a climbing companion

Climbing group on Resplendent Mountain in Canada

Climbing party before setting out for Mount Rainier, Washington

Climbing group on Mount Odaray

Equipment

Hobnail boots, hemp rope, canvas and silk tents and men’s and women’s climbing attire.

Hemp rope, ice axes and other gear spread out on a glacial table.

Hemp rope, ice axes and glacier goggles. These two climbers are also wearing puttees (leg wraps).

A. J. Gilmour models his sleeping bag

Ice axes and women’s pre-1925 climbing attire.

A striped canvas tent

Men’s climbing outfit.

Tricouni nails - a type of hobnails developed in the 1920’s

Hobnailed boots

Hobnails

Summits

Men and women on top

A woman summits in the Alps

The summit of Mount Sir Donald

A climbing group summiting Victoria Ridge in Alberta.

Men and women on the summit of Mount Victoria

The summit of Mount Edith Cavell

Men and women celebrating at the summit of Resplendent Mountain

A man and woman celebrating on a summit.

Men and women on the summit

Camps and Huts

Huge camps for gatherings with the Alpine Club of Canada, tents and lean-tos in the woods, Swiss Alpine Club huts - many of which are still in use today.

Dossenhütte and Gstellihorn in the background in the Swiss Alps

The steps of an Alpine hut

A hut in the Alps

A lean-to in the forest

Camp in the woods - it was common to use small trees and logs as tent poles

Camp near Cathedral Peak - the large open tent is a mess tent

A trapper’s cabin

Campers gathering in a mess tent

A camp in the Canadian Rockies

A mess tent and a large group of people around a campfire under US and Canadian flags

Morning in camp

Travel

It was harder in those days to get to some of these remote locations. There were far fewer roads, almost no highways and air travel was still in its infancy. Trains, ships and horses were commonly used.

Miss Candace Hewitt arrives in Jasper to climb Resplendent Mountain.

Before the invention of traffic lights, you might have seen men with a sign at busy intersections

The climbing party fording a river on horses, there were fewer roads and cars were less reliable, so travel by horse was common

On horseback in the Tonquin Valley, Canada

Collision between a train and a car

In the first decades of the 20th century, highways were still very new. Most long distance travel was done by train.

A photo taken from the roof of a train car

Early automobiles

Travel by airplane was uncommon before the 1930’s and only a few very wealthy people flew commercially. Most international travel was done by ship.

A crowd on Pier 59 in New York City where ships arrived or left

A cable ferry taking packages across a river

Life and Times

The world has changed a lot since 1900 - these photos illustrate just a few of the differences.

The Margate Cutting in the UK - ladies in corsets and with parasols were the norm

Turn of the last century men’s fashion

Bathing machines at Margate Beach - these carts were rolled into the sea with horses and served to allow women to preserve their modesty when swimming

No cars drive on this road, instead it’s only horse-drawn carriages at the Margate clock tower.

A man winding an armature

An epic moustache photographed through a huge spool of wire

Sledding accident

The Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris - very similar to a World’s Fair, but art nouveau themed.

A barbecue in Cody Wyoming

As we’ve mentioned before, women climbed in their dresses.

Places

Some gorgeous photos of some famous locations as they used to be.

A view of the Matterhorn from the Kulmhotel Gornergrat prior to observatories being installed.

Zermatt, Switzerland and the Matterhorn

The Matterhorn, photographed from the North

Mont Blanc from the Aosta Valley, Italy

A hotel in the Alps

Mount Robson

Totem poles at Hazelton, British Columbia

Old Faithful, Yellowstone WY

Check out our Flickr account for more! Or, to view all the photos, head to our archival collections site and scroll down to Collection Tree.

Suggested reading:

For details of mountaineering and climbing in the first decades of the 20th century, check out the handbook Mountain Craft by Geoffrey Winthrop Young.

For more about some of the places depicted in these photos:
Mount Rainier a Climbing Guide by Mike Gauthier
Cascades Rock the 160 Best Multipitch Climbs of all Grades by Blake Herrington
The North Cascades by William Dietrich
Mont Blanc the Finest Routes: rock, snow, ice and mixed by Philippe Batoux
Mont Blanc: 5 routes to the summit by Franȯis Damilano
Swiss Rock Granite Bregaglia: a selected rock climbing guide by Chris Mellor
Canadian Rock select climbs of the west by Kevin McLane
Sport climbs in the Canadian Rockies by John Marin and Jon Jones
Mixed Climbs in the Canadian Rockies by Sean Isaac

For more information about the person who took these photos, you can read Gilmour’s obituary in the American Alpine Journal.