Warnings Against Myself
Meditations on a Life in Climbing
Published on 1. March 2016
Book
Hardback
277 pages
978-0-295-99553-3 (ISBN)
Description
From his youthful second ascent of the north ridge of Mount Kennedy in the Yukon's Saint Elias Range, an in-and-out on skis for which he had not entirely learned how to ski, to a recent excursion across the Harding Icefield conceived under the influence of rain and whiskey, David Stevenson chronicles several decades of a life unified by a preoccupation with climbing. Reflective and literary, and also entertaining and funny, his accounts move across the great climbing locations of the western United States, with forays into the spires of the Alps, and slip freely in time from the author's childhood, when he could not wait to head west, to his adulthood, with a wife and two sons, in which he still feels compelled by a longing to be on the heights.
Reviews / Votes
"This collection of essays provides an evocative look into the somewhat exclusive climbing world. Stevenson's prose is lively, and his references to other prominent climbers and climber-authors may serve as a jumping-off point for further research in the field."- Lucy Hereford (Pacific Northwest Quarterly (PNQ))
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Seattle
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
21 illus.
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-295-99553-3 (9780295995533)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
David Stevenson is the director of the Creative Writing and Literary Arts Department at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He is the author of the short fiction collection Letters from Chamonix, winner of the Banff Mountain Festival Fiction Prize.
Content
Introduction
Warnings against Myself
1. Speaking in Code: Conversations and Reflections on Climbing, Language, and the Religion of the French
2. The Purposes of Ascent: Episodes and Conversations on Adventure, Climbing, and What It All Might Mean; An Account of Twenty Years in the West
3. Climber as Writer: From the Armchair to the Tetons Last Dance of the Wu Li Master: A Distanced Appreciation of Terrance "Mugs" Stump Virga
4. Untethered in Yosemite: A Report from Paradise in the Last Summer of the Millennium
5. Short Walks with McInerney: Three Classic Pilgrimages
6. Superstitious: Mont Blanc, French Alps
7. Struck: Longs Peak, Rocky Mountains
8. In the Bugs: In the Canadian Rockies
9. Axe of Contrition
10. Byron Glacier, June 24, 2009
11. Eros on the Heights
12. The Tower and the Riddle
13. Lives of the Volcano Poets
14. Here Comes Ol' Flattop
15. A Short Cultural History of the Ice Axe in the Twentieth Century
16. Three Dreams of Mountains, Late Fall 2004
17. Whillans, Haston, and Me: A Distanced Appreciation with a Couple Trip Reports, Contextualized
18. In the Very Big Ice House: Travels on the Harding Icefield
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Warnings against Myself
1. Speaking in Code: Conversations and Reflections on Climbing, Language, and the Religion of the French
2. The Purposes of Ascent: Episodes and Conversations on Adventure, Climbing, and What It All Might Mean; An Account of Twenty Years in the West
3. Climber as Writer: From the Armchair to the Tetons Last Dance of the Wu Li Master: A Distanced Appreciation of Terrance "Mugs" Stump Virga
4. Untethered in Yosemite: A Report from Paradise in the Last Summer of the Millennium
5. Short Walks with McInerney: Three Classic Pilgrimages
6. Superstitious: Mont Blanc, French Alps
7. Struck: Longs Peak, Rocky Mountains
8. In the Bugs: In the Canadian Rockies
9. Axe of Contrition
10. Byron Glacier, June 24, 2009
11. Eros on the Heights
12. The Tower and the Riddle
13. Lives of the Volcano Poets
14. Here Comes Ol' Flattop
15. A Short Cultural History of the Ice Axe in the Twentieth Century
16. Three Dreams of Mountains, Late Fall 2004
17. Whillans, Haston, and Me: A Distanced Appreciation with a Couple Trip Reports, Contextualized
18. In the Very Big Ice House: Travels on the Harding Icefield
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments