Climbing Books

You can tell Brad Singer is an avid climber from the San Bernardino mountain area. There are few if any other books covering this area. Most of the climbs are single pitch and few areas offer more than three routes on a face. However, that has nothing to do with quality of the book. Brad has found and cataloged all the climbs in the area and introduced me to a great new area to climb. Brad does a great job with "directions to" the climbs and what gear is needed and where. There are abundant photos and information on the best anchors. This is a must have book for exploring the area. Will work well for beginners and experienced climbers.

I bought this book after my first canyoneering one day course. I wanted to have a book handy to review what I had learnt, and this was the only one I could find of the sort.

Overall, it is a very good book that goes through all the steps of rappelling, with many good pictures throughout. There is a high emphasis on safety, and it was interesting to read about some things that had not been mentioned in the course (such as why the "American Triangle" is such a bad setup)

Still, I would not use it alone to learn how to rappel. Besides the obvious value of having an instructor, the book was also very short, and left some things out, such as how to use a Piranha device (popular with canyoneers) and modern mechanical descender backups, like the Petzl Shunt.

As tools are always evolving, this book will not give you the complete picture both in terms of technology, and also what techniques might be considered better form today.

It is a very good book for beginners but guys who can good climb, who have a teacher are not so much with this book. But this book is very interesting for everybody but for the good guys not so much

This is the best book in english on hiking/trekking in the Stubai Alps. It's the kind of book I would have written. Unfortunately the maps are rudimentary but that's copyright. You will need to supplement this book (like most other similar books) with real maps. The descriptions are accurate and very useful. I have been into the Stubai in 4 of the last 5 European summers.

(Australian hiker.)

It's a complete story of Bonington's first years, beginning from novice winters in Scotland to the first English ascent of Eiger.

You can see the whole evolution and development through the book, and the classical dilemma between career and climbing, which is solved by the choice of the latter.

If you are interested in being a climber/mountaineer, this is a remarkable biography.

Or numerous other natural phenomena? Come browse Muir's collection of books. Yes, browse the 1,030 pages which comprise his writings. This book is excellent for the student of nature because his descriptive writing takes you to the high Sierra, the redwood forests, the 1,000 mile trek through Florida to the Gulf of Mexico. You are there and you want to be THERE! While much of the description was written over 100 years ago, the magnificence of a Sequoia, the humidity of a Florida swamp and the curiosity of a Douglas squirrel is still REAL today. A true travelogue for nature lovers and mountainmen wannabes alike

February 1994, a team of 7 British soldiers and 3 of their Hongkong counterparts embarked on an expedition to climb 4,095m Mt Kinabalu and then abseil into Low's Gully, a sheer 1.6km drop to a virtually unexplored forest floor. The members in the team were:

LTC Robert Neill
MAJ Ron Foster
SGT Bob Mann
CPL Hugh Brittan
LCP Kelvin Cheung (HK)
LCP Richard Mayfield
LCP Pete Shearer
LCP Steve Page
PTE Victor Lam (HK)
PTE Chow (HK)
From the very beginning, the two officers have greatly underestimated Low's Gully. They only had one day's training in abseiling and only one member of the team was skilled enough to do multiple pitch abseils and that is LCP Richard Mayfield, a qualified rock climbing instructor.

When the 7 member British team met up with their HK counterparts in Sabah, Mayfield realised that the men from HK were not even aware of the great challenges they were going to face. With no signal devices and no porters, the team marched up the tourist trail only to find themselves exhausted at Panar Laban.

At Gunting Lagadan Hut, LCP Mayfield tried to persuade the colonel to abort Exercise Gully Heights. They didn't have enough food and there were too many novices amongst them. LCP Mayfield's advice was met with strong objection and insistence from LTC Neill.

After the climb to the summit, the team had to get down to Commando Cauldron (start of Low's Gully), Easy Valley and Alphabet Rock. Mayfield brought Pete, Britt and Steve down to Easy Valley and started clearing the forest. Unfortunately, their task took longer than expected. The officers and the HK soldiers waited for them at the col but they did not return for the night. SGT Bob Mann was with the officers. That night, Bob reported spotting a large, ape-like creature at that altitude.

Then, the colonel ordered his group to take half the kit down to the front group, go back up and take the rest down the next day. By now, SGT Bob was certain that the colonel was no longer capable of commanding the expedition. He went down Easy Valley with the officers who turned back 2 hours before dusk. SGT Bob carried on to meet up with the front group. Bob got lost, then bumped into LCP Mayfield and the rest of the front group who have already set up the first abseils.

Next day, the colonel and his group arrived at Alphabet Rock, but the expedition leader was clearly unwell. LCP Mayfield who had gone down to check out the route of descent reported that he sees at least 6 abseils down, but that would still not bring them anywhere close to the bottom. LCP Mayfield explained that there would be no return possible once they started descending into the abyss. He made a last attempt to convince the colonel to abort the exercise. The colonel said that he would see him at the bottom.

Mayfield proceeded to descend, leading the front group which consisted of everybody except the officers and the HK soldiers. It took them 5 hours to descend 1800ft to the gully floor in 12 pitches. As expected, the rear group never showed up. The group debated on what to do. The leader made a terrible mistake of not bringing radio sets. Britt suspected the rear group might have retreated back to the hut. Bob warned that their supplies were low and they had to get out of the Gully fast. They made the collective decision to leave. They group climbed out of the east face of the gully and encountered thick forests, fast flowing streams and rapids. The group split up again. Pete and others were in one group and the Bob was with Mayfield.

The two of them found a river and decided to follow it downstream. Both men were starving. They finally arrived at Melangkap Tamis village, 3 weeks after they had left Park HQ. Pete and company had also arrived at that village. The kind villages took them in and provided them with much needed food and first aid in the form of folk medicine which included snakes and insects.

Back in Kota Kinabalu, they contacted their units and soon, a massive search was launched. A Malaysian helicopter spotted the rear group and rescued them. All 10 members of the expedition had survived.

Back in the UK, LCP Mayfield faced a Board of Enquiry in which the colonel accused him of disobeying orders and abandoning the rear group. LCP Mayfield was cleared of all charges but his military career was over.

This is a very accessible account of a second British attempt to summit Everest via the North East ridge organized by Malcolm Duff in 1985. A previous attempt in 1982 led by Chris Bonington (see Everest: The Unclimbed Ridge by Chris Bonington for more information about that attempt) had resulted in the tragic loss of two climbers, Joe Tasker and Peter Boardman. Since the author of the book, Andrew Greig, had only recently begun climbing, we are intiated into the inner world of the British mountaineering society at almost the same time that he is being initiated. This account focuses on the inter-relations among the diverse personalities of the climbers recruited for this attempt. In addition, to the authors first hand accounts and summaries of the various stages involved in organizing an expedition of this magnitude, we are given numerous journal entries from the other participants. I feel that this is an important dimension that is not always found in other books of this type. Typically, books on mountaineering are written by a single author even though numerous individuals have been involved in the climb. In this book, we are not limited to the author's opinion of how some of the other members were affected. Rather we can understand how they responded to the demands being placed on them in their own words. Another interesting aspect deals with how this diverse group of people come together to work as a team and how they are haunted by the memory of Joe Tasker and Peter Boardman. While no one in this group summited, personal bests for highest point attained were set by most of the participants. For those that climbed into the Death Zone (see Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer and The Death Zone by Matt Dickinson), there was the realization that they were able to function at that level without supplemental oxygen. The book is very enjoyable and accessible. The commercialization of Everest has become a much debated topic since the tragic events of 1996 (again, see Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer). This book shows us what Everest was like prior to the hand-held guided tours that seem to be so favorable today.

I FOUND THE ILLUSTRATIONS EASY TO FOLLOW IT GAVE YOU WAYS TO USE KNOTS, BREAKING STRENGHTS OF KNOTS AND SOME HISTORY OF SOME KNOTS IT IS WORTH BUYING FROM BEGINNER TO INTERMEDIATE.

An excellent, comprehensive and well written history of the first recreational explorations of the mountains. Nice photos. Will stimulate your own exploration of this area.