Modern mountaineering

I'm reading Heinrich Harrer's "The White Spider", which is a seminal climbing text documenting the history of attempts on the North Face of the Eiger. Harrer was himself one of the party that first successfully made the ascent, but in fact is probably better known for his involvement with Tibet and the Dalai Lama in the years before the Chinese "liberation". Certainly, the book's a must-read for anyone interested in climbing, and moreover, for anyone planning a trip to the Alps of the Bernese-Oberland in Switzerland.

In Harrer's book he makes much of the press coverage of attempts on the Eiger. There was plenty of coverage in the climbing press, but there was also plenty in the popular press. If Harrer is to be believed, most of those popular press stories were uninformed, sensationalist, and in many cases plain morbid. Chris Bonnington also talks about similar levels of popular press interest in climbers during the early days of his career. He did in fact participate in a live TV programme covering an attempt to put up a new route on the Cheddar Gorge (I think) - this was supposed to make for informing, true-to-life and entertaining television. I would have enjoyed watching it, but I'm not sure how successful it was at the time.

In this morning's news, there's coverage of the rescue by helicopter of Slovenian climber Tomaz Humar from the upper slopes of Nanga Parbat. The press seem to have been fairly even-handed and non-sensationalist in comparison to the kind of reports that Harrer reviews in his book. Also, Humar has his own extensive website displaying hundreds of photos from his many expeditions (some of which are amazing) and even has a blog being updated by his support team at base camp. Things have changed since the days of queueing up at the telescopes on Kleine Sheidegg to watch the climbers struggling up the Eigerwand.

So I've had a slightly bizarre mix of 50-year-old and 12-hours-old mountaineering literature today. Flicking from one to the other really shows how far the sport has come - from claw-nailed boots and hemp ropes, to individuals solo-ing new routes up 8000 metre peaks. Mind you, I'd much rather immerse myself in these stories and images of mountaineering than watch the seconds tick by in my dull office as I wait for these last few weeks to be over. I'd love to be a mountaineer - but my fear of heights and trad-climbing kind of tells me that I should stick to just reading about it! :)