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Reading Rescue, January 2007: Outdoor Adventures
By Anne Allen and Mary Anne Fulmer
 The
holidays are over, and winter is on its way. Many of us have made
resolutions to eat more healthily and exercise more this year. After we
are through congratulating ourselves for another session on the
treadmill or ski machine, the Reading Rescuers (no boring books here)
have been enjoying books about outdoor adventures.
If you have watched Discovery Channel's "Man Vs Wild",
you know who Bear Gryll is. In every episode, he is abandoned in the
wild, typically with a knife and flint, then left to fend for himself.
In The Kid Who Climbed Everest (796.52 GRY), Gryll tells of the
bungled parachute jump that left him with a broken back and out of the
British Army at age 21. Most people after such a horrifying accident and
serious surgery wouldn't decide to go through rehab, get fit, find
sponsors, and, with a childhood friend, join an expedition to climb
Mount Everest. That, however, is what Bear did, and this book takes you
along with him, fighting winds in excess of 60 miles an hour, coping
with temperatures 50 degrees below zero, and struggling to breathe the
thin air. Somewhat unexpectedly, Bear gets the chance to go for the top,
and we experience his euphoria at reaching the summit of the world's
highest mountain, and then the struggle to get back down safely. At age
23, Gryll became the youngest person ever to complete the climb
successfully.
Clint Willis edits wonderful anthologies of outdoor
stories. Ice: Stories of Survival from Polar Expeditions (919.8
ICE) is a collection of short pieces that invites you to skip through
the book. Interested in Scott's Antarctic expedition? Nancy Mitford's
short essay gives an excellent synopsis of it. The excerpt from Cherry-Garrard's
The Worst Journey in the World tells about the trek that he and
two others made in the Antarctic winter to retrieve eggs from the
Emperor penguins. There is a selection from Scott's journals and an
excerpt from Beryl Bainbridge's award winning novel The Birthday Boys.
Edward Abbey's writing was new to us, and The Last Pork Chop is a
fascinating account of a rafting trip he took, hoping to see a grizzly
bear. Six Came Back, written by Sgt. David Brainard, tells of 25
army men sent to a weather station on Ellesmere Island in 1881. When the
supply ship is late, the men's situation is dire.
Another Clint Willis book is Wild: Stories of
Survival from the World's Most Dangerous Places (613.6 WIL). Edward
Abbey has another article, this time about rafting down the Glen Canyon.
If you haven't read Jack London's classic To Build a Fire
recently, it is here. David Roberts takes us mountain climbing in
Alaska. The Man Who Liked Dickens by Evelyn Waugh tells of a
traveler along the Amazon who learns his host's help carries a high
cost. And Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, about his
experiences on the Appalachian Trail, is filled with his trademark wit.
In 1985, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates travel to Peru, to
climb the unclimbed west face of Siula Grande, a peak in the Andes.
After some training climbs in the area, the two set off, laughingly
telling the young man they have hired to watch their gear that they hope
to be back in four days, but if seven days pass without their return, he
can have their things. The mountain ascent goes well, but a storm rolls
in and the two climbers are woefully unprepared to cope with it. In
Touching the Void (796.5 SIM), Simpson relates how they got down the
mountain. After Joe breaks his leg in a devastating fall, Yates uses
rope to lower him down, until another fall leaves him hanging above a
crevasse, with only Yates to hold him. As the minutes go by and Simpson
is unable to pull himself back up, Yates realizes they will both slide
to their deaths in the abyss. To save his own life, he cuts the rope
that joins them. This is an amazing story that leaves you shaking your
head at what a person can do if his survival depends on it.
In 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off to
climb Mount Everest. On June 8, they were spotted on the mountain near
the summit. They were never seen again. More than 70 years later, a
climber reports seeing a body on the mountain, which he describes as an
Englishman, from a long time ago. Lost on Everest (V 796.52 LOS)
depicts the search for this body and the climbing team that goes up to
find and identify it. Made by NOVA, with a running time of 60 minutes,
this video has the high production values you expect from PBS, and the
excitement of watching world class climbers coping with "the death zone"
and carrying video cameras to shoot the mountain footage.
If you aren't too busy climbing mountains and trekking
through the wind and cold, then perhaps the adult winter reading program
is for you. Come to the library to sign up and read books to earn raffle
tickets for a variety of prizes. As always, please send questions or
comments to mfulmer@pennlib.org
or phone the library at (724) 744-4414.
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