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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 11, 2005 - 10:54pm PT
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ok,
1) Dave Roberts The Mountain Of My Fear total epic!
2) Dave Roberts Deborah classic mountain literature
3) John Krakauer Into Thin Air great story, lousy analysis by John on the accident
4) Hermann Buhl Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage the original hardass
5) Conrad Kain Where The Clouds Can Go way ahead of his time
6) Edward Whymper Scrambles Amongst The Alps hiliarious descriptions of the indigenous Italians...
7) Lionel Terray Conquistadors Of The Useless sucky first line, killer title, best one phrase description of climbers... by the real deal
8) Sir John Hunt The Conquest Of Everest the company story
9) Heinrich Harrer Seven Years In Tibet one of my favorites
10) Gaston Rebuffat Starlight And Storm definitely an original, why suffering is good and a part of climbing not to be missed
11) Maurice Herzog Annapurna the official story which side stepped a few interesting details...
Sorry these first lines are far from the best.... but the stories are wonderful.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 11, 2005 - 10:58pm PT
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Dragon... Buhl certainly was what we'd think of as a dirtbag climber... his solo efforts fit right in now, but he was considered crazy-dangerous by much of the climbing community of the time.... and it was more than 50 years ago.
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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May 12, 2005 - 12:09am PT
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"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aurelaino Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
"When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her."
These are two of my favorites. If only climbers wrote so evocatively.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 12, 2005 - 03:55am PT
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Roger... set an example, we are waiting for your memoirs
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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May 12, 2005 - 07:06am PT
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"It was a dark and stormy night..."
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 12, 2005 - 01:13pm PT
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I thought that was the opening line for the FA of SFHD? you weren't on that one....
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Matt Greenwood
climber
Portland, OR
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May 16, 2005 - 05:49pm PT
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What is the difference between a fairy tail and an old sea story?
A fairy tail starts as “Once upon a time.”
An old sea story starts as “This aint no sh*t.”
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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May 17, 2005 - 09:25am PT
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"Whoa Dude!, Hold my beer... I gotta try *that*"
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OW
Trad climber
Patagonia
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May 17, 2005 - 10:39am PT
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"Well, like I esplained to y'all before, I ain't no drinkin' man."
Jimmy Buffett - God's Own Drunk
The rest of the story:
"I tried it once and it got me highly irregular and I swore I'd never do it again. But I promised my brother-in-law that I'd go up and watch his still while he went into town to vote. It was right up on the mountain where the map said it would be. Friends let me tell you one thing though - it wadn't no ordinary still. It stood up on that mountainside like - like a huge golden oak. God's yeller moon was a shinin' on the cool clear evenin'. God's little lanterns was a twinklin' on and off in the heavens".
"An, like I esplained to you one before, I ain't no drinkin' man, but, temptation got the best of me and I took a slash. Whew! Whoa! That yella whiskey runnin' down my throat like honey dew vine water and I took another slash. Took another'n and another'n and another'n! Before you knew it I'd downed one whole jug of that sh#t an' commenced to get hot flashes. Goose pimples was running up and down my body and a feelin' come over me like somethin' I'd never experienced before. It's like - like I was in love. Lemmie have a little love, darlin'. In love for the first time - with anything that moved. Animate, inanimate - it didn't matter. It's like there was a great neon sign flashin' on and off in my brain sayin: 'Jimmy Buffett, there's a great day a comin'.' Cause I was drunk. And I wasn't a knee-crawlin', slip-slidin', Reggie Youngin', commode-huggin' drunk. I was God's own drunk - and a fearless man.
That's when I first saw the bear. He was a Kodiac-lookin' fella 'bout 19 feet tall. He rambled up over the hill expectin' me to do one of two things - flip or fly - I didn't do either one - it hung him up. He start sniffin' around my body tryin' to smell fear but he ain't gonna smell no fear because I'm God's own drunk and a fearless man - it hung him up. He looked me right in my eyes and my eyes was a lot redder than his was - it hung him up.
"So I approached him and I said: 'Uggh, Mr. Bear, I love every hair on your 27 acre body. I know you got alot of friends over there on the other side of the hill. There's ol' Rare Bear, Tall Bear, Freddy Bear, Kelly Bear, Really Bear, Smelly the Bear, Smoky the Bear, Pokie the Bear. I want you to go back over there tonight and tell'em I'm feelin' right. You tell'em I love each and every one of them like a brother and a sister. But if they give me any trouble tonight - I'm gonna run every God damn one of them off the hill!' "
"He took two steps backwards and didn't know what to think. Neither did I but, bein' charitable and cautious, well, hell, I approached him again. I said: 'Uh, Mr. Bear, you know in the eyes of the Lord, we're both beasts when it comes right down to it. So I want you to be my buddy - Buddy Bear.' "
"So I took ol' Buddy Bear by his island-sized paw and I led him over to the still. Now he's a sniffin' around that thing cause he's smellin' somethin' good. I gave him one of them jugs of honey dew vine water - he downed it upright - looked like one of those damn bears in the circus sippin' sasperilly in the moonlight. I gave him another'n and another'n and another'n - before I knew it he'd downed eight of 'em and commenced to do the bear dance. Two snips, a snort, a fly, a turn and a grunt, it was so simple like the jitterbug - it plum evaded me."
"And we worked ourselves into a tumultuous uproar and I was awful tired - went over to the hillside and I laid down, went to sleep, slept for four hours and dreamt me some tremulous dreams. And when I woke up, oh there was God's yeller moon shinin' on the cool clear evenin'. God's little lanterns was a twinklin' on and off in the heavens. My buddy the bear was a missin'. Yea. Wanna know somethin' else, friends and neighbors? So was that still."
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Mar 12, 2012 - 12:11pm PT
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I looked over at Javier and said, "This isn't going to end well, is it?" And he said, "Just be glad that it will end soon."
JL
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Mar 12, 2012 - 12:23pm PT
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"It was a dark and stormy night" is an infamous phrase written by Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton at the beginning of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. It is considered the worst ever opening for a novel. There's even a contest now, in its 'honour'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Mar 12, 2012 - 12:31pm PT
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"saigon, sh*t, i'm still only in saigon..."
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Bowser
Trad climber
Red River NM
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Mar 12, 2012 - 12:38pm PT
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"Earlier that night, rain had fallen on Boulevard St. Laurent, and there were still triangular pools on the uneven sidewalk."
Anyone guess what very popular climbing novel this opening line came from?
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Mar 12, 2012 - 01:52pm PT
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A couple of openings:
"The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.
The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.
Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarns--and even convictions. The Lawyer--the best of old fellows--had, because of his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol. The Director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more somber every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.
And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men."
Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
"See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullary fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves. His folks are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster. He lies in drink, he quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and watches him.
Night of your birth. Thirty-three. The Leonids they were called. God how the stars did fall. I looked for blackness, holes in the heavens. The dipper stove.
The mother dead these fourteen years did incubate in her bosom the creature who would carry her off. The father never speaks her name, the child does not know it. He has a sister in this world that he will not see again. He watches, pale and unwashed. He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man."
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 12, 2012 - 01:59pm PT
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"Suddenly the sight of a burning Huey filled my windscreen."
I just wrote that - part of my true-life memoirs. I also have another set of memoirs.
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wildone
climber
EP
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Mar 12, 2012 - 02:19pm PT
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It was an extraordinary night.
The wind had been blowing; it had ceased, and the stars had sprouted like weeds. They were in tufts with roots of gold, full-blown, sunk into the darkness and raising shining masses of night.
Jourdan could not sleep. He turned and tossed.
"The night is wonderfully bright," he said to himself.
He had never seen the like before.
The sky was vibrating like a sheet of metal. You could not tell what made it do so because all was still, even the tiniest willow twig. It was not the wind. It was simply that the sky came down and touched the earth, raked the plains, struck the mountains, and made the corridors of the forest ring. Then it rose once more to the far heights.
-Joy of Man's Desiring
-Jean Giono 1935
I am OBSESSED with Giono right now. I just cannot believe the man's ability as a writer. Humbling, and mind blowing.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Mar 12, 2012 - 02:28pm PT
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Hermann Buhl. Lonely Challenge.
"I was born in Innsbruck; the hills looked down into my cradle and I must have inherited my love for them, for my father loved to wander among the mountains. My mother was from the Grödnertal, in the very heart of the Dolomites, but I lost her when I was only four; she was spoken of as a fine, sensitive woman whose intelligence reached out beyond the cramped confines of everyday existence to those things on which it is impossible to set a material value. Her picture and my sense of loss have been with me all my life."
Anderl Heckmair. My Life.
"As an infant I was something of a problem child, according to my mother. Sickly and unable to eat properly from the day I was born on October 12, 1906, almost to my second birthday I survived by being packed, quite literally, in cotton bindings. On escaping from my cocoon I became very lively. I was sent to a kindergarten where I proceeded to unleash my zest for life that had been so long constrained. The place was thrown into disarray, and after a few days they sent me home again."
Giusto Gervasutti. Gervasutti's Climbs.
"I have often wondered how my passion for mountains came into being, but it is rather like trying to remember when one first learnt to swim - somehow one always seems to have known. Nearly always there is one determining factor, whether supplied by chance or of one's own making, which impels a person towards whatever type of activity he chooses. Yet I have never been able to decide what exactly it was that aroused the passion which was so greatly to influence the whole of my life."
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Mar 12, 2012 - 02:45pm PT
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Edwin Drummond. A Dream Of White Horses.
"To Climb or Not to Climb
If climbing is speaking a fluent body language,
yesterday was all Greek
to me...
Feet stuttered on doorsteps of granite:
a blank face.
Tongue-tied, my fingers
let me down, looking at the ground
as if I'd forgotten my name.
.........."
Tony Howard. Troll Wall.
"My personal Norwegian Saga started in 1958, the year I left school, and it took me first not to Norway but to the Antartic. Our headmaster at Oldham Hulme Grammar lined us up in the school hall at the end of our final term. "And where do you intend to continue your studies", he asked each boy as he walked down the row: "Oxford, Sir, reading History"; "Cambridge, Sir, reading Physics". Then it was my turn: "The Antartic, Sir, going whaling." It felt wildly exciting, even anarchic. Who could resist?"
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Lennox
climber
just southwest of the center of the universe
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Mar 12, 2012 - 02:46pm PT
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I don't remember much of that night, I know what they told me happened, and I know that vodka, coffee, more vodka, and a Mini-14 are a bad combination.
As his older brother chauffered us to buy some weed, I laughed when my friend Jerome yelled "oink-oink" at a passing motorcycle cop.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Mar 12, 2012 - 02:47pm PT
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"She looked like a girl sitting on that barstool - 'she' really did."
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