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Avery
climber
New Zealand
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 19, 2016 - 12:07am PT
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Simon McCartney's first book 'The Bond' is, fundamentally, a story about friendship and survival. It's an intimate look at what makes a climbing partnership work under stress. It's also a journey about self-realization and retrospective deliverance.
Huntington NF and Denali SWF were two seminal climbs in the history of alpine style ascents in Alaska. The fact that neither has seen a (complete) 2nd ascent proves that both routes were hard, dangerous and visionary.
McCartney's approach is both low key and meticulous. He has little time for cliché. Apart from an account of the obligatory apprenticeship in the Alps, McCartney gets straight to the main course.
The book cover carries the promise and the text and (great pics) more than deliver on that promise: Alaskan climbing at the razor sharp end. Everything about the Roberts/McCartney partnership is presented in a startlingly 'matter of fact' fashion. We come, we see, we climb, seems to be their mantra. Naturally, they're aware of the dangers but they go about their business with remarkable ease. Very little time is spent agonizing over their motivation.
While the Huntington climb is uncertain and dangerous, you always get the feeling that the pair are still in control, however tenuous. A protracted and hungry decent appears to be the real crux of the climb.
Denali is different. Right from the start, McCartney instils in the reader a sense of foreboding and dread. It's a credit to him that he achieves all this without hyperbole or foul language. It all ends with McCartney's illness and a desperate retreat down the Cassin under the devoted and selfless eye of Bob Kandiko.
McCartney then turned his back on all forms of climbing. For all intents and purposes he vanished.
What follows is best left to the reader. A sense of the 'miraculous' pervades the remainder of the book. It's as moving as it is unlikely. Ultimately, regardless of how hard you try, one can never fully disengage from one's past. Simon McCartney and the reader have come full circle.
‘The Bond’ is like a breath of fresh air. I urge you to read it and allow yourself to be transported back to a meticulously recreated sense of time and place.
Avery
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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Aug 19, 2016 - 08:02am PT
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Thanks Avery. This is a reminder to me that I wanted to get this book.
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Aug 20, 2016 - 11:16am PT
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Just a bit of backstory from me (Jack's widow) that adds even MORE to the story, at least for me. I met Jack in 1983 or so.....the Denali climb was still fresh, but painful and uncomfortable because of the resultant epic/rescue, etc. Not long after, Jack tried for years to "find" Simon, all this before computers, Google, and the rest. He spoke to me many times about Simon, so much so I felt like I knew him. Over the years it became more depressing to Jack that Simon had vanished seemingly into the ether. And more so later when some were casting doubt onto the veracity of (at least) the Mt. Huntington climb. Like the rest of the men in the book, Jack carried the events of those 2 climbs deep in his heart, eventually I think rubbing uncomfortably like scar tissue he couldn't heal. So imagine....it's 2012 and I'm half-way into the Camino de Santiago de Compostela (a spiritual 600 mile walk across Spain) with Jack's ashes in my pack, trying to make sense of my life, OUR life. I stop at a cafe for tea and to check my email, and see top on my inbox, "Simon McCartney looking for Pam Roberts." My hair almost stood on end, and I knew instinctively that this was something momentous. Simon and I began working together from that moment....I eventually copied and sent to him Jack's journals and photos from the climbs. So now the book is out, and real, and Simon is a dear friend, as are Bob Kandiko and Mike Helms, among others. For me, and I think for Simon, this is our gift to Jack. I am so grateful to him for writing this fabulous book! Thus far all reviews are overwhelmingly positive...you can read some on Amazon. By the way, for a hardcover book with many great, color photos, it's a steal right now!I'd love to hear more opinions as the book gets more circulated. Thanks, Avery!
Pam
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Aug 22, 2016 - 11:31am PT
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bump..............
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Avery
climber
New Zealand
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2016 - 07:50pm PT
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'The Bond' by Simon McCartney. Reviewed by Steve Bell
First, some background:
I was in Alaska in 1980. I remember looking up at Mount Huntington's fearsome north face, which had been climbed two years earlier by Jack Roberts and Simon McCartney. Constantly swept by avalanches, their route looked so difficult and dangerous that I couldn't believe that any sane person would want to do it.
I'd met both climbers before: Jack in Chamonix's Bar Nationale in 1977, and Simon in a pub in North Wales in 1978. This was just before their Huntington climb, and although they already had 'hard man' reputations, neither of them seemed crazy enough to play Russian Roulette with those avalanches (well, perhaps Jack did). To my mind, venturing onto Huntington's north face was tantamount to suicide; the fact that no-one else has done so since Roberts and McCartney's ascent in 1978 suggests that other mountaineers agree. And yet for them, Mount Huntington was just the beginning.
Of course, I couldn't wait to buy the book.
Now the Review:
'The Bond' is the story of a unique climbing partnership. It vividly describes the unshakable self-belief of two climbers who venture into ever more dangerous situations. It gives us an insight into the mindset that drove them onto Huntington's deathly slopes, and how it made them hunger for more until their faith in their invincibility is finally crushed by the height and scale of Denali. Extreme difficulty, freezing storms, altitude sickness and hunger are described with an emotional detail that erases the decades that have passed since then. The bond of shared adversity is unbreakable, and what Simon and Jack shared and survived defies belief.
Several other writers, including a significant proportion by Jack Roberts, contribute much to the story. This allows for multiple points of view which adds both detail and credibility as their adventures unfold. For example, when Simon is delirious and close to coma, his narrative gives way to the diaries of Jack Roberts and his remarkable rescuer, Bob Kandiko. This adds tremendous realism to their tale, as does the liberal spread of photographs.
Although the meat of the book is about epic mountaineering, the story resolves with a moving reflection on relationships and life's purpose and I would challenge anyone to read it with a dry eye.
'The Bond' is a harrowing yet beautiful story and it's incredible that Simon McCartney nearly didn't write it. Had he not done so, mountaineering literature would have been deprived of one of its greatest adventures.
Thanks to Steve Bell
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Aug 24, 2016 - 04:40pm PT
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bump.............now it's made the Boardman-Tasker short list!!!
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Will_P
Trad climber
Melbourne, Victoria
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Aug 24, 2016 - 07:12pm PT
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And now available on Kindle.
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Aug 25, 2016 - 02:03pm PT
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Although with Kindle, there won't be pictures, and one of the GREAT things about the book are the TONS of great photos, both black & white and many colored ones, as well. Definitely adds to the story and the book. Just sayin'!!! :-)
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