Once again, the book is lavishly illustrated. There are sumptuous landscape paintings by W.M.Turner and that great travelling artist, Edward Lear; Edward Whymper’s celebrated engravings; Bradford Washburn’s incomparable aerial photos of Alaska and the Alps; John Cleare’s unsurpassed images of Snowdonia rock climbing; and, of course, action shots by some of the finest contemporary mountain photographers, such as Gordon Wiltsie, Simon Carter, Mike Robertson and Heinz Zak.

Some of the images – and the climbs they portray – are familiar classics. In a book like this it would be impossible to ignore the first ascent of the Matterhorn and the North Face of the Eiger. Or Everest. Or North America’s highest summit, Denali. But this is not just a book about high snowy summits. The first ascent of a hundred metre rock climb can be just as creative and exciting as the struggle up a Himalayan giant (and sometimes a lot more fun), and many of the world’s finest mountaineers have also been great rock climbing pioneers.

So – this book encompasses every possible kind of ‘first’, with plenty of esoteric summits, like the Moab Desert’s ‘Standing Rock’ featured in the beautiful dustjacket image. Extended captions outline the story behind the photos. For those who want to read further, the full text reads as a broadly chronological narrative, with generous dollops of quotation from the rich literature of this most gloriously illogical pursuit.

 

First Ascent Cassell Illustrated 2008 ISBN-10: 1844035964 ISBN-13: 978-1844035960 American edition Firefly Books 2008 ISBN-10: 1554074037 ISBN-13: 978-1554074037   German edition: Legendäre Erstbesteigungen: Die Eroberung der spektakulärsten Gipfel Bruckmann Verlag GmbH 2009 ISBN-10: 3765453609 ISBN-13: 978-3765453601 Dutch edition: De Top Bereikt: pioneers in de bergen Atrium ISBN-13: 978-9059472655

CLIMBER MAGAZINE FEATURE

First Ascent, featured recently in this Climber magazine feature by Ed Douglas. Click to download pdf of article