What They Conquered was Mountains or Themselves?

William Blake once said, "Great things are done when men and mountains meet." What did he mean by that? Was he talking about Hannibal’s famous passage through the Alps? No, he wasn’t. What he was referring to was the rare experience you can feel only upon getting out of congested city life. It is about the majestic experience of taking a glance at truly sacred territory. Mountains provide human beings an entity to return to the earth, with invaluable experiences to peep into the majestic Mother Nature.

"Meeting with Mountains" is a marvelous record of history, which features 35 challenges accomplished on 34 great mountains in the world. The book introduces fascinating stories of great climbers such as Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary, who became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. The journey will take your breath away. However, esteemed author and climber Stephen Venables does not limit his adventure to the K2 or Mont Blanc. The book is full of interesting stories that include the Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory (MEVO), a live volcano in Antarctica, and the Sea Stack, the famous geological landform consisting of steep, vertical columns of rock in the sea off of Australia. It brings you to many scenic spots through vivid and colorful pictures. You will likely feel revived when you look through its pages. Each one of the 35 stories introduced in the book is as impressive as the movies.

In the chapter of the Eiger of Alps, the author addresses John Harlin III, who made a bold attempt to make climbing history in memory of his father, who at the age of 30, fell 4,000 feet to his death while attempting the first “direct” route to the summit. There are many other fascinating stories that will fill you with suppressed excitement including Gertrude Bell who "climbed Chamonix and the Mer de Glacé" as well as "the rocky face of the Finsteraarhorn glacier." The beauty of their great adventures lies in the fact that not all the challenges were successful. Walter Bonatti, famed for his climbing panache, pioneered little known and technically difficult climbs in the Alps’ Grand Capucin.

The author includes and emphasizes ordeals that great climbers suffered. The book tells us about the death of four members of Bonatti’s seven-man team, who had been pioneering a new route in the middle of Mont Blanc in 1961. During the failed expedition, Bonatti saved two colleagues with great efforts and courage. It is what the author says that makes these stories great. “The victory of human beings who overcome great ordeals stimulates the human spirit.” Mark Inglis, a rescue mountaineer in New Zealand`s Mount Cook National Park, ending up losing both his legs below the knee due to frostbite. However, in 2006, Mark reached the summit of Everest at 7:00 a.m. on May 15, registering as the first double amputee to have ever done so. Eric Bienarson, who lost all his fingers to frostbite when he climbed Mount Logan in Canada, said, “What is needed to hold my child is not my fingers but my caring heart.”

Readers may find this book somewhat expensive, but indeed worthwhile. The author, Stephen Venables, is the first Briton to climb Everest without oxygen in 1988. It is translated by a mountain climber and a former editing director of the Corea Alpine Club, the largest mountaineers` organization in Korea. “What we conquered is not the mountains but ourselves (quotation by New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary).” The book is filled with the fragrance of human beings who love mountains.

ray@donga.com