Book Reviews EDITED BY JOHN THACKRAY

Many People Come, Looking, Looking, by Galen Rowell. Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1980. 164 pages, color photos. Price $30.00.

Even among the many superb photographers of today, Galen Rowe11 has a quality which immediately identifies his work, just as Ansel Adams’ black-and-white masterpieces are so uniquely his. Especially gratifying in this latest Rowe11 work is the skill and sensitivity of his writing, which matches the photographs so beautifully. This is not another coffee table book of mountain pictures, nor is it a show-and-tell account of incredible climbs. What Rowe11 began in the ranges of North America he has con- tinued here-a thoughtful and perceptive collection of essays describing how climbers and trekkers have used the mountains they love too much. Rowe11 has explored the far reaches more than most. He has made the 5.10 pitches and been caught out in storm and danger. He has been a member of a large mis-matched expedition to a great mountain and written bitterly about it. He has soloed difficult pinnacles and put up routes on the classic great walls. So he really knows the mountain and wilderness experience.

Several years ago Rowe11 turned away from the macho trip to reflect on what he saw about him, and to tell others about the inevitable changes brought to remote montain areas by the growing flood of visitors. In Many People Come, Looking, Looking he describes what he saw and felt in three wonderful areas of Asia-the northern valleys of Ladakh (Kash- mir), the peaks and valleys and isolated hamlets in the Annapurna region (Nepal) and climactically, on the immense granite skyscrapers which line the Baltoro Glacier in Baltistan. He describes a happy and successful expedition in each of these areas and there is a forgivable pride in “We were the first . . .” which in no way mars the reflections which make up most of the book.

Rowe11 has done his homework carefully and well; he is not an emo- tional bleeding heart conservationist, but an impressive and convincing environmentalist who examines both sides of the balance sheet. Others have described (though less powerfully) the damage done to people in those far away places by the comparatively super-affluent visitors who have upset the work-produce barter system, and caused a spiralling infla- tion which is as destructive as the deforestation caused by these regions’ increased demand for firewood. Sherpas may earn ten times the pay they did a few years ago, but it all goes to support work by others who in turn

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are no better off than they had been. The widely publicized deforestation which has taken half of Nepal’s forest land and turned it into an eroding desert is only the most obvious of the damage. It is said that an island of silt some 40,000 square miles in area is building in the Bay of Bengal from the washed-away soil of Nepal, and for this climbers and trekkers are significantly to blame.

Each of Galen Rowell’s books seems better than the last, and this is no exception.

CHARLES S. HOUSTON

Stones of Silence, by George B. Schaller. New York: Viking Press, 1980. 292 pages, 14 color plates, maps and illustrations. Price $15.95.

Why should mountaineers read about a zoologist’s scrambles in the Himalaya? Dr. George Schaller’s narrative offers no first ascents or dar- ing feats, yet it transcends all the Himalayan chronicles this reviewer has read in terms of re-enacting the truths of human experience in the greatest of the earth’s ranges.

A mountaineer’s perception is all too often limited to achieving a specific goal in the here and now. An explorer usually forgets to tell his readers that the blank on his map was not unknown to all men in all time. Schaller, however, seeks to understand the behavior of creatures “born of the Pleistocene, at home among pulsating glaciers and wind-flayed rocks.” Mountain sheep, snow leopards, and Alpine Clubbers all fit this definition, which is quoted from the final paragraph of Mountain Mon- archs, Schaller’s 1977 scholarly treatise of his same journeys. The last sentence provides title and direction for his present book:

For epochs to come the peaks will still pierce the lonely vistas, but when the last snow leopard has stalked among the crags and the last markhor has stood on a promontory, his ruff waving in the breeze, a spark of life will have gone, turning the mountains into stones of silence.

Schaller and the Himalaya came together in Alaska. While an under- graduate at the University in Fairbanks, he accepted the invitation of a guest lecturer to go on a summer climbing trip in 1954. Schaller and Heinrich Harrer made the first ascent of Mount Drum, a major peak in the Wrangell Range. Fresh from his seven years in Tibet, Harrer whetted Schaller’s desire to explore the Himalaya.

Between 1969 and 1975 Schaller logged more days in the Himalayan outback than any western mountaineer. He made a rough survey of the status and distribution of mammals throughout the length of the range, and focused on the first serious behavioral studies of Asian mountain sheep and goats.

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Peter Matthiessen joined Schaller on one of these treks and wrote a national bestseller, The Snow Leopard. The exquisite prose of individual passages in this work fails to deliver the concrete messages of Stones. Matthiessen, title notwithstanding, never saw a snow leopard and inter- preted the Himalaya through a haze of Zen Buddhism clearly rooted in the East-the East Coast of the United States, that is. This harsh sound- ing conclusion is not given flippantly. The book gave me an increasing feeling of uneasiness, a feeling that it was at odds with my own Himalayan experiences. Timidly at first, I began questioning Himalayan adventurers about their reactions to it. To my great surprise, most were unable to finish it, and set it down with a feeling of discontent. The control group in my informal survey, readers who had not been to the Himalaya, were far more likely to have finished the book and to have received their com- plement of upbeat mystical glee.

Readers of Stones who have spent time in the Himalaya gave me an entirely different consensus. They usually finished the book and com- mented how accurately it reflected their own experience. Schaller had been able to take their own realities as a starting point, then deepen their appreciation for time and the evolution of life in these high mountains. His description of a real meeting with a snow leopard is no less poetic than the best of Matthiessen’s musings:

As we watched each other the clouds descended once more, en- tombing us and bringing more snow. Perhaps sensing that I meant her no harm, she sat up. Though more snow capped her head and shoulders, she remained silent and still, seemingly impervious to the elements. Wisps of clouds swirled around, transforming her into a ghost creature, part myth and part reality. Balanced precariously on a ledge and bitterly cold, I too stayed, unwilling to disrupt the moment. One often has empathy with animals, but rarely and unexpectedly one attains a state beyond the subjective and fleetingly almost seems to become what one beholds; here, in this snowbound valley of the Hindu Kush, I briefly achieved such intimacy. Then the snow fell more thickly, and, dreamlike, the cat slipped away as if she had never been.

A meeting with the climbers of the 1975 American K2 Expedition is described with similar insight:

Some climbers are Captain Ahabs in search of their Moby Dicks, tragic heroes, somehow flawed by the standards of our society, which with monomania pursue an icy summit as if it were the great white whale. But most climbers are Ishmaels. They partake in the quest but without need to give their all to the sterile heights. Who were Ahabs, who were Ishmaels on this American team whose path had so accidentally crossed mine?

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After Schaller has led the reader through a long series of potential Shangri-las, his message becomes unequivocally clear. There is no Shangri-la. The future for most Himalayan large mammals is desperately bleak. Mountain meadows appear to provide plenty of summer range for exotic wild sheep and goats, but the lower valleys, where they must forage for the long winters, are almost universally populated and grazed. Habitat destruction affects the future of more trophy Marco Polo sheep than does hunting. And the greater predators, of course, are dependent upon the existence of their prey. Particularly poignant is Schaller’s time warp of a barren village in the mountains of Pakistan. His trained eye sees beyond a “desolate scene . . . the product of a desperate aridity,” and into a not- so-distant past:

Here and there stunted acacias have been cut and left to dry, to be picked up later and sold for firewood . . . Herds of black-haired goats, thin bony creatures, scour the terrain . . . Had man not mis- used this land for thousands of years, I would be driving through woodland, with wild asses standing in the broad-crowned shade of acacias and cheetah stalking unsuspecting Indian gazelle through swards of golden grass. Perhaps down by the river a pride of lions would be resting after the night’s hunt. The forests are gone now, the rivers dry except after a downpour, and the lion, cheetah, and asses are dead. Only a few gazelle remain. No wonder the land seems lonely as one drives toward the distant hills, trailing a funnel of red dust made incandescent by the sun.

By his insights and rich prose, Schaller has escaped the role of most environmental doomsayers, who subject their poor readers to an ocean of negativity. This is the story of one man’s quest to discover. He realizes that his audience is not, for the most part, familiar with his modes of travel or the cultures he has lived amidst. Unlike Matthiessen, he does not choose to overplay his hand. Like a good novelist, he pays close attention to daily rituals and the small details of his experience. Reac- tions, feelings, and a historical perspective outweigh expressions of uni- fied metaphysical idealism. As Rene Daumal wrote in Mount Anulogue, “A good stew is worth more than a false philosophy.” Schaller has given us an overflowing bowl of gourmet Himalayan goulash.

GALEN ROWELL

The Last Step: The American Ascent of K-2, by Rick Ridgeway. Seattle: The Mountaineers, Washington, 1980. 352 pages, including 32 pages of color photos $25.00.

Take fourteen people of varying personality, profession and inclination; add an extended stay in a foreign country, mediocre diet, a healthy dose

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of bad weather and high altitude and the morass of problems one would expect from being confined with the same fourteen people for three months without respite, and presto, you have the classic ingredients for an expedition book. The Last Step is a classic expedition tale, not in the stoic sense of pre-war British accounts, or even in the nationalistic/ heroic mold of Annupurna. This is an intimate look at life on a large, modern expedition, as Ridgeway sums up in his final chapter:

“I asked myself if on this expedition there were any heroes, and I realized the answer was no. We had no gallant knights conquering new worlds. Instead we had fourteen people overcoming their all-too-human frailties to achieve a goal. In that sense maybe we were heroes- modern-day ones-anti-heroes. Not larger than life, but ordinary people with ordinary weaknesses.” (p. 296).

The look at times gets too intimate. Ridgeway is not the first person to delve deeply into the motivations and psyches of his companions, to explore the murkier aspects of intra-team politics. Indeed, he finds him- self in distinguished company: Bonington Hornbein, Rowell, and even himself in the previous Everest book, to mention but a few that come to mind. What seems different, and hence unique about the present work is the sheer scope of the drama, from the subtle competitive urgings of one’s peers, through what seem to me to be almost embarrassingly per- sonal details. Ridgeway is to be congratulated for his honesty, and, to his credit, he uses many excerpts from diaries and letters to provide as balanced a view as seems possible. Nevertheless, he doesn’t paint a pretty picture of expedition life, and in many ways the mass of personal obser- vation presented is tedious and gets in the way of the story itself.

And the story is a good one. The route is long and dangerous, if not extremely technical; and it is to the credit of all participants that the summit is reached despite considerable bad weather and the very long siege involved. In addition, no one gets killed (a real relief), and three of the four summit climbers make it without oxygen

This last fact is significant: whereas Messner and Habeler have been looked upon as some sort of superhuman hardmen/fanatics, the Amer- icans seem more down to earth, and their performance on K-2 makes the whole arena of high-altitude climbing seem that much more acces- sible to mere mortals. On the other hand, Roskelley comes off as fairly low-key in the book, but one wonders just how mellow he can be with the incredible pace he has kept up over the past several years!

Included in the book is a single 32-page section of color photos which show the team, the route and the progress of the climb. One can only guess at the task involved in their selection, but overall the photos are excellent, both in quality and in production. This graphic section is intended to stand on its own, separate from the text, and in this it is remarkably successful; the captions are a blend of strict information

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and quotes from the text, and the editors have been gracious enough to let the photographs speak largely for themselves.

In conclusion, then, The Last Step is a good book, well worth reading and owning; but, like the climb itself, and the people whose story it is, the book is also flawed. It is this human quality that makes the book valu- able.

MICHAEL KENNEDY

Solo Nanga Parhat, by Reinhold Messner. New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1980. 145 illus. including 46 color photographs. Price $19.95.

This is Reinhold Messner’s most emotional work. He writes of this remarkable mountaineering achievement as if he were looking deep inside his mind and its disturbances. Consequently, in reading Messner, every- one of us will see a little piece of ourselves in his attempts to overcome the human frailties we all share, on and off the mountain.

Messner allows us all a vast benefit of the doubt in his assertion that “Almost any young, fit person could climb Nanga Parbat alone-if he wanted to.” But, there’s the catch. Physically, Messner has many equals, but mountains aren’t climbed by muscle alone. Everest without oxygen and Nanga Parbat solo are, mentally, far beyond most climbers’ capa- bilities. In fact, this was Messner’s third solo attempt on the Diamir Face of Nanga Parbat since 1973. His first two attempts failed because even he was not mentally prepared at the time.

Messner’s attraction to Nanga Parbat has many facets. It was his first 8000-meter peak, which he climbed in 1970, reaching the summit with his brother, Gunther. They were forced to descend the Diamir Face, where Gunther was killed in an avalanche. Reinhold, frostbitten and exhausted, crawled to the nearest village down the valley and was saved. A year later, he returned to the face to search for his brother but with no success. In 1973, he returned again to solo the Diamir Face only to turn back at 6500 meters. Unable to explain this failure to himself, Messner needed to try again. Several years later, accompanied by his younger brother, he turned back during the walk in. With his marriage then failing, he could not concentrate on the climb and knew it was doomed.

Perhaps the most tragic event in Messner’s life was his divorce from his wife, Uschi, following which weaknesses began to show in him. “There are moments when naked despair breaks out of control and all I want to do is to die,” he wrote. Loneliness was far harder for him to overcome than reaching the summit of Nanga Parbat alone.

His climb of Everest without oxygen gave Messner a new sense of purpose and a rejuvenated psychology. He vowed “to do whatever it is I like doing provided only it doesn’t disturb anyone else.” He recognized

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that he was prepared to solo Nanga Parbat when he turned the “black loneliness” he had lived with since his divorce to “white loneliness”-his way of drawing strength only from himself.

Solo Nanga Parbat touches briefly on such subjects as the local Pakistani people, the trek, and Messner’s previous solo attempt. It also covers interesting climbing history on the “German mountain.” Although he cannot agree with the sentiment expressed, Messner quotes Willi Merkl, “The most decisive factor in the Himalaya is the collaboration of like- minded individuals, a community of labor which devotes itself, not to personal ambition, but is loyal to the main goal.” Messner far prefers Buhl’s individuality, saying, “Perhaps he understood how to exploit strength which others weren’t able to do.” Buhl’s strength, like Messner’s, was, of course, mental.

There are lessons for all of us in every chapter of this book. Messner often appears just as frail as the rest of us and has the same problems in life we all do. However, he solves them differently and more effectively by converting his worry, despair and tension into a positive climbing force. If, indeed, he is the world’s best mountaineer, it is because he uses adversity to build strength, controls his fear rather than overcoming it and shrewdly heeds his deepest emotions.

Although scattered paragraphs describe the climb itself, Messner focuses mainly on his thoughts throughout the narrative. I found the summit account anticlimactic, but the hair-raising descent brought the climb into perspective-he was lucky to be alive at the bottom. Where he had climbed a relatively safe route, Messner took the fastest, but most dangerous, route down-an avalanche gully in the middle of the face.

I feel that Messner goes too far in building an image of Nanga Parbat as the finest mountain in the world. To him, I’m sure Nanga Parbat or Diamir (meaning “King of all the mountains” in the local language) was his ultimate achievement at the time. Since then, he’s soloed Everest from the north and I’m sure he’ll accomplish even better feats. The “ultimate” is a moving target for us all.

The ascent of Nanga Parbat solo took mountaineering another big step forward. Everyone, I’m sure, can learn something from this incred- ible athlete’s experience.

JOHN ROSKELLEY

Annapurna-A Woman’s Place, by Arlene Blum. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1980. 256 pages, black-and-white and color photos, maps, bibliography. Price $14.95.

This account of the 1978 American Women’s Himalayan Expedition to Annapurna I is actually two books in one. It can be read as the story of a mountaineering expedition with all its concomitant trials and trib-

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ulations or as an account of a women’s expedition which was organized to give women the opportunity to demonstrate their ability in the high mountains.

One is taken first through the preliminaries of expedition organization: the selection of team members, planning and fund raising. Following this come the farewells to friends and loved ones and then the long, anticipa- tory flight from San Francisco to Kathmandu-the transposition from the reality of everyday life to the reality of life at an expeditionary level.

From Kathmandu, where final arrangements are made, the expedi- tion then proceeds towards its objective, Annapurna I. Almost from the outset, the team is plagued by ubiquitous expeditionary problems. There is illness to one degree or another, the food supply proves inadequate, and the logistics of transporting supplies and equipment hang heavy over the enterprise, as does the willingness of the porters and, later, Sherpas to cooperate. In short, this is the usual expedition scenario.

Once on the mountain, plans are formulated, camps are established and supplies are transported. The physical demands of the mountain are dealt with as the climbers gradually make their way upwards in the face of bad weather and severe avalanche conditions. When the summit is finally reached on Octobtir 15. by Vera Komarkova and Irene Beardsley, one shares in the general rejoicing. Later, following the abortive summit attempt by Vera Watson and Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz, which led to their deaths, one also shares in the grief at the loss of friends and the sobering impact this loss has on the expedition. It is triumph tem- pered by tragedy. In the end, however, the expedition has no choice but to simultaneously mourn its dead and celebrate its victory.

This book, however, goes beyond a general expedition narrative in its concern with women climbers and their lack of opportunity to dis- tinguish themselves at high altitudes. The introduction, which provides an overview of women who have been active in mountaineering and exploration, including Fanny Bullock Workman and Annie Smith Peck, is supported by the annotated bibliography. The conversations cited and concerns expressed reflect attitudes that must be perceived as peculiarly feminist. One senses that these women feel deeply the responsibility incumbent upon them-that of showing the world that women can succeed in an area of endeavor which has traditionally been dominated by men. If they fail, it is not just failure but a blow to womankind. If, on the other hand, they succeed, then their faith in the ability of women to perform well on the high summits of the world will be justified.

This book is truly a double-edged sword, and how it cuts will depend very much upon one’s personal bias. Although the style is perhaps more earnest than inspired, Annrcpurna-A Woman’s Place does give an account of a significant achievement both in the annals of mountaineering gen- erally and of women’s mountaineering in particular. In the final analysis, this is a book which will undoubtedly reinforce the feelings of those who

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believe that “a woman’s place is on top.” But it will probably not convert those who believe otherwise.

PATRICIA A. FLETCHER

High Mountains and Cold Seas A Biography of H. W. Tilman, by J. R. L. Anderson. Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1980. 364 pages, illustrations, sketch maps. Price $20.00.

Bill Tilman was the quintessential British explorer: tough and flexible as good leather, immune to hardship and danger, reticent often to the point of speechlessness. He was stocky, tireless, wiry and weathered with the brush mustache, pipe, and had the bearing of the best type British officer. He not only looked the part of an explorer-he lived it. No climber- explorer-sailor in this century led a more varied and adventurous life in remote parts of the world, and few have been fortunate enough to have such a skilled biographer.

Tilman revealed only parts of himself to the various categories of people who were his friends. He fought valiantly and with distinction in both World Wars and was wounded and decorated in both. Doubtless he had friends among his fellow soldiers but they were not well-known to those who knew Bill as a climber and explorer. We in turn knew little of Tilman the sailor, who took small boats into unlikely and dangerous waters. On the last of these voyages he and five young companions were lost without trace in the South Atlantic.

Roughly a third of Tilman’s eighty years were spent in growing up, surviving two wars and in the formative decade when he farmed in Kenya alone with hundreds of books for company. Another third was devoted to mountaineering in Europe, Asia, Africa, Greenland and the sub-Antarctic; the remainder was spent in deep-water sailing after, as he put it, he was “too old to climb.” Unlike most mountaineers and sailors, Bill Tilman wrote brilliantly, with splendidly dry wit, and a style and reservoir of quotations drawn from reading and re-reading the world’s best literature while running his coffee plantation in Kenya. As a con- firmed bachelor and putative misogynist there were no women in his life except for a devoted sister who was, he said, his sheet-anchor and to whom he turned for home and affection, which he returned to her many times. His fifteen books are classics in mountaineering and sailing, written with tongue in cheek, usually putting himself down, and with many famous one liners such as “. . . on the summit we so far forgot ourselves as to shake hands.”

Mr. Anderson knew Tilman during his sea-faring phase and his son was one of Tilman’s climbing disciples. Just what impelled him to write this splendid biography he does not tell us, but thank heavens he did: few mountaineers (who tend more to autobiography) have ever had

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a biographer of such quality and perception. Anderson has produced a sensitive and engrossing book which is scholarly as well as entertaining, and which gives a clear portrait of a reticent and self-contained individual. By his careful selection of letters, Anderson shows a side of this remark- able man which was hidden from view, even from his many friends. This is a splendid book about a magnificent man, and every climber and deep-water sailor will like and should have it.

CHARLESS.HOUSTON

Na Vrh Sveta, by AleS Kunaver, Ante Mahkota, JoEe Andlovic, Matija Male%& Danilo Cedilnik and Tone Skarja. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1979. Published in both Siovene and Croatian. 254 pages with 184 photographs in color, 124 in black-and-white and 9 route sketches. Price: 640 Yugoslavian dinars.

Although most readers of the American Alpine Journal will not be able to read the text of Na Vrh Sveta (“To the Top of the World”), I still highly recommend this lovely book. Its photographs are some of the most breath-taking and beautiful imaginable.

The book covers two decades of Yugoslavian climbing in the Himalaya. Their first expedition in 1960 approached Trisul from the south and failed to climb the main peak but did ascend Trisul II and III. In 1976 they ascended the Nandakini and made a splendid and difficult new route on the western side of Trisul. In 1965 an expedition pioneered a route on 25,925foot Kangbachen to about 1000 feet from the summit. Although Poles followed their route in the spring of 1974 and completed the first ascent, in the autumn of that year ten Yugoslavs reached the top and also made the first ascents of difficult Wedge Peak and two others. In 1969 they climbed Annapurna II and IV. In 1972 they pioneered a remarkably difficult route, the south face of Makalu, but bad weather and exhaustion prevented their climbing the final 1500 feet. An Austrian and an international expedition attempted their route but did not get even as high as they had. In the fall of 1975 the Yugoslavs returned and com- pleted the route. The final section of the book deals with their outstanding achievement, the ascent of the complete West Ridge of Everest.

The section on each mountain is introduced by a brief history of the climbing on the peak with some fascinating photos from all epochs, a de- tailed description of the Yugoslav expeditions with excellent sketches of the routes and finally a collection of superb color photographs.

For the reader who does not read Slovene or Croatian, the photo- graphs are reason enough to buy the book. They are of real artistic merit and are beautifully reproduced. There are excellent pictures of the ap- proaches, of the people of the region, of the peaks and of climbing action.

H. ADAMSCARTER

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Alpinism0 Espaiiol en el Mundo, volume I, by Jose Maria Aspiazu (in Spanish). Madrid: Editorial R. M., 1980. 215 pages, 54 black & white and 70 color illustrations, 10 sketch-maps and line drawings.

I approach books that record the mountaineering achievements abroad of a nation with somewhat mixed feelings. Books of this kind excel in the photographic description of some ranges not always covered by mountaineering books. On the other hand, the nationalism that charac- terizes these works leaves a sense of displeasure. The first nation to see its mountaineering accomplishments abroad recorded in a book was Switzerland, with the highly patriotic volume III of Berge der Welt (1948). It was followed by Italy (1953, 1967 and 1972), New Zealand (1969), Poland (1954 and 1974) and now Spain In 1972, a young Basque began to collect material for this book. It took him almost seven years to prepare the first volume. It must be remembered that Spain, unknown to almost every mountaineer, has the oldest mountain expeditionary history in the world, since it began in the early 1500s with ascents to Popocatepetl, Pichincha and other mountains in the Andes, thus maintaining in its hands for several centuries the record of climbing altitude (with the exception of the then unknown Indian mountain ascents in the Andes). This book, then, records this early, heroic period of Spanish mountaineering and also surveys climbing by modern Spaniards in the Polar regions, the Caucasus and Western, Central and Southeast Asia. (In the Himalaya-Karakoram they have so far ascended six peaks over 8000 meters.) The quality of the illustrations is in my opinion better than the average mountain picture book, with small black-and- white photos alternating with large color plates. Spaniards, like some mountaineers from certain nations, seem to show as much interest in the human population of the lands they have visited as in the mountains proper and this is reflected in their pictures. It must also be said that only one single picture shows here any flag waving at all, a perhaps unique record, if we compare this to other books in this category. The text, terse, is by the author but has many excerpts by the climbers them- selves incorporated into it. In all, this is a well illustrated and well written book that describes achievements that deserve to be better known. And volume II, to include Spanish expeditionary activity in Africa and the Western Hemisphere, promises to be at least as good.

EVELIO ECHEVARR~A

Going High The Story of Man and Altitude, by Charles S. Houston, M.D. Published by the author and The American Alpine Club, 1980. 211 pages, 35 illus. including 17 b & w photographs, bibliography. Price $10.00.

Charlie Houston is a modest man whose contributions to mountaineering are well known to anyone interested in climbing. Galen Rowe11 has

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pointed out the significance of his four early expeditions to the Himalayas in his preface to Going High. Anyone who has read K2 The Savage Mountain, by Houston and Bates, will appreciate the high calibre of Charlie’s qualities as a climber and compassionate human being. Charlie’s accomplishments in other fields are equally outstanding but, possibly, less well known to climbers. After obtaining his M.D. degree in 1939 from Columbia, he joined the Navy and in 1947 participated in one of the most fundamental studies of the effects of prolonged low-pressure cham- ber hypoxia in man-Operation Everest. After this research study Charlie became physician, internist and cardiologist with active practices in Exeter, New Hampshire, Glenwood Springs, and at the Aspen Clinic in Colorado. From 1962 to 1964 he was director of the Peace Corps in India and Special Assistant to the Peace Corps Director in Washington for two more years. Since 1964 and until recently he was Professor of Medicine and Environmental Health at the University of Vermont Med- ical School. For the past twelve years his direction of the high-altitude studies on Mount Logan has clearly demonstrated his ability as an admin- istrator and medical investigator. His most important scientific contribu- tions were the earliest recognition of high-altitude pulmonary edema as a clinical entity in the United States in 1960, and his discovery of high- altitude retinal hemorrhages at Mount Logan in 1968. More recently Charlie has established his unique ability as a teacher by the organization and presentation of popular courses on medicine for mountaineers and symposia on hypoxia. Could anyone be more qualified to write a book on high altitude!

Going High is essentially three books in one volume. The first fifty-one pages succinctly describe the development of our knowledge of oxygen, the atmosphere and high elevations attained initially by hot air balloons and later by mountain ascents. The description of Perier’s discovery by means of a crude mercury barometer that the atmospheric pressure was lower on the Puy de Dome (3500 feet) than at the monastery at the foot of the mountain is eloquent and exciting.

The second part of Going High consists of a clear description of the physiology of respiration, circulation, hemoglobin and the cell. The mate- rial is written for the layman and the excellent drawings aid the reader in understanding even somewhat complex physiologic mechanisms, such as cellular oxidative metabolism.

The chapters on altitude illness and acclimatization constitute less than half of the book. One wishes that these sections had been expanded, since some topics such as the significance of the results of Operation Everest are covered in only one paragraph. All chapters in the book are superbly illustrated with one-page reproductions and photographs accompanied by brief pertinent summaries and descriptions.

I found very few aspects of the medical section that I could take issue with. Still, there were a couple. For instance, there are perhaps

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too many brief case reports without significant commentaries. Then, too, while Charlie condemns anecdotal evidence as “a notoriously fickle source,” he uses such “evidence” to recommend the careful use of a powerful diuretic (furosemide) in the treatment of high-altitude pulmo- nary edema. I question this. A diuretic is only useful in treating pul- monary edema due to heart failure, where it acts by lowering the elevated filling pressure of the left ventricle which is forcing fluid from the pul- monary capillaries into the alveoli. In high-altitude pulmonary edema, on the other hand, the left ventricular filling pressure is normal or decreased-hence a diuretic cannot “squeeze” edema fluid out of soggy lungs. Why use a drug in the mountains which, according to Charlie, “can cause severe dehydration, a dangerous decrease in blood volume and shock,” especially when we have no clear evidence that it is helpful? I recently encountered a climber who had moderate pulmonary edema in the Sierras. He was brought down to a hospital near Yosemite where he felt greatly improved and requested that he be allowed to drive home with his companion. The physician agreed but, following Houston, gave the patient Lasix. Their trip home was interrupted by twenty stops at gas stations and the patient was incapacitated for two days by weakness and dehydration. The results of the “treatment” were far more incapac- itating and prolonged than the pulmonary edema!

Another mild criticism I have is that the “bony box” theory of the mechanisms of symptoms and neurologic deficits in “high-altitude cerebral edema” is championed by Houston in Going High without alternative mechanisms being presented. This concept assumes that hypoxia causes the brain cells to take up water resulting in edema of the brain. The brain swells up and, unlike the liver or other visceral organs, the brain has no place to enlarge since it is enclosed in “the bony box” of the skull. Swelling of the brain, according to this theory, causes headaches, dis- turbances of mental function, loss of consciousness and central nervous system injury with resultant neurologic deficits such as ataxia. Unfor- tunately cerebral edema in the absence of hypoxia is not always accom- panied by the signs and symptoms seen at high altitude. In patients with cerebral edema that are due to brain tumors, less than half have head- aches. In Going High the patient described on page 127 had severe cerebral edema without a headache. Intracranial pressure can be raised to over 500 mm. of saline (about 4x normal) by intrathecal infusions of saline without headache. It is well known that the removal of even a small amount of spinal fluid will often be followed by intense headache. It is more likely that the signs and symptoms of high-altitude cerebral edema are due to hypoxic nervous tissue injury and that swelling of the brain is an accompanying phenomenon and not a causative one. For this reason the term “high-altitude anoxic cerebral injury” would be pref- erable to “high-altitude cerebral edema.”

BOOK REVIEWS 331

A few topics of interest to climbers could have had more systematic coverage in Going High. These include: 1. The mechanisms responsible for the progressive decrease in maximal physical exercise capacity at increasing altitudes, as shown only in the vivid graph in Figure 3 1. 2. The causes of high-altitude deterioration in climbers who spend prolonged periods of time at elevations greater than 18,000 feet. 3. High-altitude systemic edema, i.e., swelling of the feet, face and hands.

This handy volume is recommended for anyone who is interested in the historical, physiologic and medical aspects of high altitude. The clear style of writing and the wide range of topics makes it a delight to read and a valuable reference. Charles Houston, in addition to his other accomplishments, has now established himself as a skillful author.

HERBERT N. HULTGREN, M.D.

Calculated Risk, by Dougal Haston. London: Diadem Books, 1979. 190 pages, glossary. Price s4.95.

Calculated Risk is the story of a Scottish climber, Jack McDonald who struggles continuously for understanding of himself, his friends, antag- onists, and relationships with women through life on a fine edge. Calcu- lated Risk is not just an affair with climbing. It enters into Jack’s whole life, leaving only room for those able to understand. It is here that the book achieves brilliance, for unlike any other climbing novel I am ac- quainted with, the reader is able to grasp the feeling of extreme commit- ment through one classic example after another.

I doubt that Calculated Risk will be appreciated except by those who are familiar with the situation of extreme commitment. The reader must occasionally read between the lines and be prepared for situations and characters that seemingly come from left field, but keeping in mind that its author, Dougal Haston, died in a skiing accident before completing a final draft, it comes closer to explaining the sensitivities and motiva- tions of a man evolved in a continuous struggle. Jack McDonald, much like the author, could hardly accept the world as it is. He drives every aspect as he explores himself and others, and in the process he changes everything he comes into contact with.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and particularly the examples Dougal chose to write about.

Be sure to read the foreword by Dougal’s close friend and constant climbing companion, Doug Scott. Without the foreword the book would quickly fall by the wayside. As Scott suggests, Calculated Risk is a semi- autobiography which uses real people and situations only slightly altered for the sake of the story, and on the real side it says more about Dougal than the adventures he chose for his autobiography, In High Places.

MICHAEL COVINGTON