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Climbing Magazine Reviews
Climbing Magazine welcomes print, photo, and DVD material for our Reviews department, both online and in print. Please contact Julie Ellison for more information.
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 Judge This Book by its Cover
What if we held a beauty contest for climbing guidebooks? With 430 full-color pages of good looks, the second edition of Bishop Bouldering ($37.50, wolverinepublishing.com) might make Miss America. That is, if Miss A could find her way blindfolded to every bloc from Rock Creek to the Druids and pull down like a fiend.  Don't Leave Home Without It
Adventure photography couldn’t be simpler. At least that’s how Michael Clark makes it seem in his how-to book Adventure Photography: Capturing the World of Outdoor Sports ($24.95, larkbooks.com). The 15-year veteran has shot everything from yoga to surfing to expedition races, and in this book documents every detail of the who, what, when, where, why, and how of each sport.  A World of Firsts
It seems like these days, any feature film with a star-studded cast passes as a solid movie. It might be void of any real plot or storyline, but you watch it because you recognize the names on the poster. Chuck Fryberger’s CORE ($39.95, chuckfryberger.com) breaks the mold by following climbing’s A-listers on individual journeys to go “to the heart of climbing.”  Espresso Lessons from the Rock Warrior's Way
Physical training for rock climbing, or any sport for that matter, is formulaic; there is, more or less, an equation to improvement. But perhaps due to its inherent complexity and nuance, mental training has always taken a backseat to physical training in our sport, despite its equal and oft underrated importance. Arno Ilgner’s Espresso Lessons from the Rock Warrior’s Way ($19.95, warriorsway.com) takes the complicated fears, emotions, and doubts our mind creates while rock climbing and teaches us how to handle them and climb harder.  Manifest Training
Many of us find training too monotonous, even boring. Chiropractor Michael Layton disagrees. Dr. Layton has written, photographed, and self-published a unique guide to exercise, nutrition, and advanced climbing skills called Climbing Stronger, Faster, Healthier: Beyond the Basics ($24.95, amazon.com). Part textbook, part climbing manifesto, the book devotes much of its 200 pages to training and injury rehabilitation.  Adaptation
The excellent, tightly edited (28 minutes) Andy Parkin: A Life In Adaptation (£12 plus shipping, bluehippomedia.com) is a still, meditative portrait that doesn’t descend into the usual action sequences and first-person wankery about “the proj.” Andy Parkin is an ex-pat Brit who’s spent the last 25 years in Chamonix. An alpine badass (Broad Peak alpine style and the Walker Spur solo in winter), he survived an epic accident on the Rothorn in 1984 and thereafter moved more deeply into his art...  Out of Africa
Many climbing flicks focus solely on the epics — huge dynos, 50-foot whippers, clutch sends — while the ineffable, inbetween moments are excised. Happily, Chris Alstrin’s film Waypoint Namibia ($14.99, waypointnamibia.com), on granite-dome hunting, avoids this pitfall.  Double Whammy
In 1968, Yvon Chouinard, Dick Dorworth, Lito Tejada-Flores, and Doug Tompkins loaded up a Ford Econoline with surf, ski, and climbing gear and drove 5,000 miles south along the Pan-American Highway. At the road’s end, they augured into a snow cave and, when the weather broke, established their California Route on Fitz Roy, Patagonia. Tejada-Flores filmed with a 16mm Bolex, and it became the film Mountain of Storms.  The Secret's Out
The first-ever guidebook to Colorado’s best-kept secret, Durango Bouldering ($25, pineneedle.com), details more than 350 V0-to-V13s at five superb areas, including Sailing Hawks — aka The Secret Spot — and the recently discovered 071 Boulders. Southwest Adventures guide Ian Allison spent four years searching, sending, and documenting.  Joyous Struggle
Finally, an English translation of George Ingle Finch’s delightful The Struggle for Everest ($44.95, topworldbooks.com). First published in 1925 and available solely in German till now, this is the only book by an Everest team member devoted to the British expeditions of the 1920s. An eminent chemist and leading alpinist, Finch, with Geoffrey Bruce, reached 27,250 feet on Everest in 1922.  Project Orange
Go to Arkansas: the sandstone is steep, bullet, uncrowded, and kaleidoscopic, ridge after ridge fading into the Ozark horizon. The Arkansas native Cole Fennel brings us his 400-page Rock Climbing Arkansas ($37.95, fixedpin.com), cataloging 14 zones, including sport/bloc staples like Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, the trad mecca Sam’s Throne, and venerable Mount Magazine.  Race for the Nordwand
Move over CGI-heavy, testosterone action flicks. Enter the North Face (musicboxfilms.com, debuting February in theaters nationwide; DVD to follow). Set in 1936, this riveting recreation depicts the two Germans — Toni Kurz and Andreas Hinterstoisser — who confronted “the last problem of the Alps”: the Eiger’s North Face. Chased up the wall and then joined by an Austrian team, the men battle avalanches and frostbite ...  Alpine Time Machine
Ever wish you could travel back to climbing’s early days and follow the earliest first-ascent visionaries? This fantasy comes to life in Daniel Arnold’s Early Days in the Range of Light: Encounters with Legendary Mountaineers ($28, counterpointpress.com). Arnold, cleverly, chose 15 classic peaks in California’s High Sierras and spent three years studying the lives of the peaks’ pioneers, groundbreakers like John Muir, Clarence King, and Norman Clyde.  A Royal Life
Most people wouldn’t need seven volumes to tell their life story — but then again, most people aren’t Royal Robbins. In My Life: To Be Brave ($19.95, royalrobbinsthebook.com), the first in this autobiographical series, Robbins lays bare the driving forces — external and internal — that have shaped him. Chapter one dives straight into his landmark solo of the Leaning Tower: the insecure belays, the pumped arms, and the stubbornness it took to overcome the ominous wall.  Progression Obsession
If a form of Tourette’s exists in which you repeatedly yell, “Holy cannoli!”, then I contracted it watching Progression ($19.95 for HD download, $29.95 for the DVD; bigupproductions.com), Big UP’s latest. It spotlights, with expert cinematography, today’s A-listers — Tommy Caldwell, Alex Honnold, Kevin Jorgeson, Matt Segal, Chris Sharma, Patxi Usobiaga, etc. — in the realms of sport, comp, big walls, highballs, headpoints, and more.  Eldo Opus
Masterpieces arrive fully realized, the creator’s toil invisible in the final product. Eldorado Canyon, Colorado, now has its masterpiece with Steve Levin’s intuitive, exhaustive, 450-page Eldorado Canyon: A Climbing Guide ($39.95, sharpendbooks.com). (See Players, of Climbing No. 281 - December 2009, p.26, for more on Levin.) This first-ever photo-topo guide comes stacked with action photos.  Kootenay Craggin'
The West Kootenay region in south-central British Columbia is one of North America’s most beautiful mountain areas, and there’s now a rock-climbing guidebook that does justice to its splendor. Written by local climbers Vince Hempsall and Aaron Kristiansen, West Kootenay Rock Guide describes 22 areas and more than 400 routes — from Nelson, to Slocan City, to Castlegar — and includes day-trip alpine climbs in the Valhalla Mountain Range.  The Making of an Alpinist
Want to know how a kid from Pullman, Washington, became who Reinhold Messner has called today’s best high-altitude climber? Then read Beyond the Mountain ($29.95, patagonia.com), wherein Steve House recounts his rugged path to the pinnacle of modern alpinism. Chock-full of spellbinding adventures, this autobiographical gem reveals as much about the author’s personality and motivations as his FAs.  Play Time
“A player in the rock-climbing world is someone who’s there every single day,” says Dave Graham early in Brian Solano’s new DVD, The Players ($19.99, theplayersmovie.com). “And they’re obsessed with climbing on an infi nite level.” To be atop the rock game, like the film’s cast — Graham, Emily Harrington, Joe Kinder, Chris Lindner, Ethan Pringle, Alex Puccio, Lisa Rands, Chris Sharma, and Daniel Woods — you must put climbing before all other masters.  The Shadow Person
In 1916, while the marooned Sir Ernest Shackleton and two crew members fought fiercely for survival on South Georgia, they had the sensation that another, providential person accompanied them — that they “were four, not three,” as Shackleton wrote. This phenomenon — of sensing a beneficiary presence during extreme tribulation — became known as the Third Man Factor ...  Jerry Moffatt's Revelations Wins Grand Prize at Banff Mountain Book Festival
Revelations, the autobiography of British rock climber Jerry Moffatt, has won the Grand Prize at the 2009 Banff Mountain Book Festival – one of the biggest prizes in publishing in the outdoor, adventure and environment genres, and arguably the most prestigious prize in mountain literature.  Show Me the Money
Hair-raising Himalayan expeditions, crazy adventures to exotic lands, first ascents of remote peaks — all these could be ours, says conventional wisdom, save lack of one key ingredient: M-O-N-E-Y. Enter Jeff Blumenfeld and his You Want to Go Where? How to Get Someone to Pay for the Trip of Your Dreams ($24.95, skyhorsepublishing.com).  Mountain Misadventures
We climbers often joke about “barely surviving” our greenhorn years, rife with silly n00b mistakes. But, as Mark Scott-Nash points out in his Colorado 14er Disasters: Victims of the Game ($16.95, bigearthpublishing.com), statistics show that the number of experienced victims rivals the novices. Turns out, plenty of other ingredients go into the disaster soup: overconfidence, summit fever, fatigue, groupthink, hypothermia.  In Living Color
Now hear this: three key Southwestern areas see their first full-color photo guides this year. First is Boulder Canyon Rock Climbs ($35, wolverinepublishing.com), by Bob D’Antonio. Right above Boulder, too, are the Flatirons, richly documented in Climbing Boulder’s Flatirons ($32, sharpendbooks.com), by Jason Haas, who for years chased down Beta and climbed almost all the vast area’s gems. And finally, there’s Zion Climbing: Free and Clean ($29.95, supertopo.com), by Bryan Bird.  EXCLUSIVE: PROGRESSION PREVIEW
I often have superhero dreams, where I can fly, jump to the top of a building, and basically climb whatever I want. In those dreams, my fingers never tire and my body feels light and hollow. The climbers in Big Up Productions' Progression are living my dreams. The first thing you need to know about this movie is that it’s no bullshit — fancy scene transitions and text effects from past Big UP flicks like Pilgrimages, or The Dosage series are gone, leaving only stark images of gifted humans pushing themselves like mad demons to the edge of the possible. |
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