The Will to Climb: Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna - the World's Deadliest Peak by Ed Viesturs with David Roberts
New York: Crown, 2011 ISBN 9780307720429
It's been a while since I've indulged my armchair mountaineering whimsy, and I'm glad that this is the book that has brought me back to it. Ed Viesturs has done a good job of weaving the history of climbing Annapurna around his own three attempts on the mountain, which he finally summited in 2005 making him the first American to successfully summit all fourteen 8,000 metre peaks.
It's a cruel irony that the first 8,000 metre mountain that was successfully climbed has turned out to be the most deadly in percentage terms of all the highest mountains, with approximately a third of the climbers attempting Annapurna succumbing on its flanks. Maurice Herzog's account of the first ascent by a French team of climbers has become a mountaineering classic, and was the book that drove Viesturs into a climbing career. He found Herzog's almost mystical outlook on climbing and on the expedition itself mesmerizing, as have so many others (strangely, I found it a hard book to read, with Herzog's prose a little overblown in translation).
While clearly in great awe of Herzog, Veisturs has the authorly sense to delve deeper and to find that all was not harmonious on that first ascent, and that what was for Herzog a mystical triumph was for Louis Lachenal a terrible disaster. Woven into Viestur's description of the various attempts on Annapurna are his musings on the philosophy of mountain climbing, and how there are many different reasons for attempting the virtually impossible. All climbers are driven, but all are driven by different things - for Viestur's companion Jean-Christophe Lafaille, climbing Annapurna was an obsession, seeking revenge for the death of his climbing partner Pierre Beghin on the peak in 1992. For Anatoli Boukreev, being high on a mountain gave him wings, it was a love affair and a hard physical penance. For Viesturs it was the satisfaction of solving technical problems and managing his fear and stamina to get to the top.
One thing that is not discussed as deeply is the damage such danger does to the psyches of mountaineers. Reinhold Messner was the first to ascend all fourteen 8,000 metre peaks, and the first to turn his skill into celebrity - but losing a brother on his first ascent of Nanga Parbat must have been an almost insuperable tragedy. Viesturs talks about so many climbers who have died, often in comapny with companions, which must be a heavy burden. And yet most continue to climb. It is a different mindset to those of us couch mountaineers who would quail at such risk, danger and potential for life-long regret and "what ifs".
Much as the climbers are all great characters, the main character in The Will to Climb is the mountain itself - Annapurna. It is so incredibly dangerous because it's geography means that there are endless numbers of dangerous seracs and avalanche-causing snowfields, and it's impossible to avoid putting yourself in danger if you wish to reach the summit. These immediate dangers are in addition to all the other problems of climbing such a high mountain. Viesturs, with his cautious approach to risk and danger, had to go beyond his boundaries to in the end reach the top of the mountain, and to rely on the luck of the draw to make it up and down. A member of another expedition on the mountain in 2005 was killed in an avalanche a day after Viesturs climbed over the same spot.
For us armchair mountaineers, The Will to Climb is a great book - part history, part adventure, part philosophy, it ticks all the mountaineering book boxes, and is easy to read. Now, for the next peak!
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