Author: Jeff Connor
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1786890267
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Get Book Here
Book Description
The untimely death of Dougal Haston in 1977 robbed climbing of one of its most charismatic, controversial and enigmatic figures. A man of extremes, who managed to combine a rock star's lifestyle with a career at the cutting edge of world mountaineering, Haston remains a cult figure whose deeds have inspired generations of climbers world-wide. Connor traces the career of a great climber from his native Scottish hills to his startling feats on Everest and the world's other great mountains.This definitive biography, which draws on never before seen diaries, explores the agonised development of Haston the man.
Author: Simon Thompson
Publisher: Cicerone Press Limited
ISBN: 1849656991
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 470
Get Book Here
Book Description
To the impartial observer Britain does not appear to have any mountains. Yet the British invented the sport of mountain climbing and for two periods in history British climbers led the world in the pursuit of this beautiful and dangerous obsession. Unjustifiable Risk is the story of the social, economic and cultural conditions that gave rise to the sport, and the achievements and motives of the scientists and poets, parsons and anarchists, villains and judges, ascetics and drunks that have shaped its development over the past two hundred years. The history of climbing inevitably reflects the wider changes that have occurred in British society, including class, gender, nationalism and war, but the sport has also contributed to changing social attitudes to nature and beauty, heroism and death. Over the years, increasing wealth, leisure and mobility have gradually transformed climbing from an activity undertaken by an eccentric and privileged minority into a sub-division of the leisure and tourist industry, while competition, improved technology and information, and increasing specialisation have helped to create climbs of unimaginable difficulty at the leading edge of the sport. But while much has changed, even more has remained the same. Today's climbers would be instantly recognisable to their Victorian predecessors, with their desire to escape from the crowded complexity of urban society and willingness to take "unjustifiable" risk in pursuit of beauty, adventure and self-fulfilment. Unjustifiable Risk was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker prize in 2011.
Author: Susan Falconer
Publisher: Cicerone Press Limited
ISBN: 1783624108
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 176
Get Book Here
Book Description
This guidebook describes 30 circular walks in Scotland's Pentland Hills, a range of low summits which extends between Edinburgh and Biggar in South Lanarkshire. Ranging from 3 to 27km (2-17 miles), there is something to suit all abilities from the novice to the experienced hill-walker, with each route showcasing a different aspect of the area's unique character. Step-by-step route description is accompanied by 1:50,000 OS mapping and a wealth of interesting information on the region's rich natural and cultural heritage: its geology, history, wildlife and connections with literary greats such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott. Local place names are explained, local folklore explored and there is a helpful glossary of dialect terms. The Pentland Hills can be enjoyed in all seasons. Although the highest summit, Scald Law, stands at 579m, stunning vistas belie their modest elevation: this is a region of grass and heather-clad slopes which rise above picturesque valleys hiding streams and reservoirs. Walking in the Pentland Hills is an ideal companion to discovering great walking on Scotland's most accessible hills.
Author: Clint Willis
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 1680510886
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 557
Get Book Here
Book Description
•The exploits of mountaineering’s most colorful band of adventurers The Boys of Everest by Clint Willis tells the gripping story of “Bonington’s Boys,” a band of climbers who reinvented mountaineering during the three decades after Everest’s first ascent. It is a story of tremendous courage, astonishing achievement, and heartbreaking loss. Chris Bonington’s inner circle included a dozen of mountaineering’s most legendary figures—Don Whillans, John Harlin, Dougal Haston, Doug Scott, Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker, and others—who together gave birth to a new brand of climbing. They took increasingly challenging risks on now-legendary expeditions to the world’s most fearsome peaks—and they paid an enormous price. Most of them died in the mountains, leaving behind the hardest question of all: was it worth it? “Willis's classy style turns reportage into literature . . . Bonington's Boys come across as raw, anguished souls . . . As Willis describes in his artful prose, their suffering is not just a means to an end (the summit), it is an end.” –The New York Times “A gripping adventure saga . . .”–Publishers Weekly “A death-haunted saga of the scalers of heaven . . .” –Kirkus Reviews “Mr. Willis tells a story that is gripping and poignant and even appalling . . .” –The Wall Street Journal
Author: Peter Gillman
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 1680510517
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 462
Get Book Here
Book Description
•The classic story of a notorious climb, now revised, updated, and expanded by the original author with new information •Literally a race to ascend Europe’s most formidable mountain wall—Brits and Americans versus Germans The North Face of the Eiger was long renowned as the most dangerous climb in the Swiss Alps, one that had cost the lives of numerous skilled mountaineers. In February 1966, two teams—one German, the other British/American—aimed to climb it in a straight line from bottom to top. Astonishingly, the two teams knew almost nothing about each other's attempt until both arrived at the foot of the face. The race was on. The Anglo-American team of John Harlin, Layton Kor, and Dougal Haston intended to make a dash to the summit when conditions were right. The Germans, with an eight-man team and a mass of equipment, planned a slow, relentless ascent. Watching all was a young journalist, Peter Gillman. Now, fifty years later, Gillman recalls the dramatic events on the North Face, and assesses their effect on those who took part. The charismatic and controversial American climber John Harlin was killed before the summit was reached, while others were permanently injured through frostbite. For British photographer Chris Bonington, who was sucked into the action, it opened a path to a career and reputation as Britain's foremost mountaineer. “It was incredibly challenging and probably some of the hardest climbing done in the Alps to that time,” remembers Bonington. “Being involved was absolutely fantastic. There’s never been anything like it for me, before or since.” This title is part of our LEGENDS AND LORE series. Click here > to learn more.
Author: Jim Perrin
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446409481
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Get Book Here
Book Description
Don Whillans has an iconic significance for generations of climbers. His epoch-making first ascent of Annapurna's South Face, achieved with Dougal Haston in 1970, remains one of the most impressive climbs ever made - but behind this and all his other formidable achievements lies a tough, recalcitrant reality: the character of the man himself. Whillans carried within himself a sense of personal invincibility, forceful, direct and uncompromising. It gave him sporting superstar status - the flawed heroism of a Best, a McEnroe, an Ali. In his own circle, his image was the working-class hero on the rock-face, laconic and bellicose, ready to go to war with the elements or with any human who crossed his path on a bad day.
Author: Heather Dawe
Publisher: Vertebrate Publishing
ISBN: 1906148708
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Get Book Here
Book Description
The last descent and I can't let myself think it's in the bag. Anything could happen, take it easy, take no risks. Just get to the finish and win. 'The challenge and anticipation that pushes me to try harder. The obsessive urge to achieve. It's not all about winning. Why do I do it?' Growing up in Bristol, Heather Dawe was 17 when she started running. Having fallen in to the teenage trap of smoking and drinking she resolved to do something about it, not knowing then where it would take her. A climber since her youth, an obsession with wild places and the mountains was engrained in her DNA. Moving to Leeds to study, she began to compete in fell races and mountain marathons, joking in the pub one night that she could race at the highest level. Being hit by a car doing over 40mph while cycling would have ended many athletes' dreams, but Dawe's drive pushed her even harder. Hard enough to make her pub joke a reality, hard enough to win Elite Mountain Marathons, to win the Three Peaks Cyclo-cross race and to complete the Bob Graham Round. Pushing harder still, she entered the Tour Divide - racing the 2745-mile route of the Continental Divide in North America as she to sought to discover her physical - and emotional - limits. Dawe writes of what it takes to compete in adventure races; the training, the sacrifice, the mistakes that must be made in order to learn and develop. An intensely deep and personal book, Adventures in Mind explores what drives a woman - living with her partner and their child, working 9-5 - to push so hard and so far; into herself, and into the wild.
Author: Tony Collins
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415352246
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Get Book Here
Book Description
Providing a social, economic and political study of field sports and those other activities and customs labelled as rural sports, from the earliest of times to the present day in all of the United Kingdom and Ireland. This book brings together several distinct types of traditional rural sports with particular emphasis on the social history and 'traditional' aspects. It contains several hundred entries focusing on individual sports and others providing analysis of key concepts, themes and terminologies. The Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports is an invaluable reference that provides students, scholars and sports enthusiasts with a focussed and authoritative source of information on the history and culture of rural sport in Britain.
Author: Maria Coffey
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781585426515
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Get Book Here
Book Description
An energetic look at the spiritual lives of extreme athletes, this work asks why extreme athletes take the risks that allow them to push the limits of consciousness, what they encounter there, and what others can learn from them.
Author: Daniel O'Quinn
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487510748
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Get Book Here
Book Description
In the eighteenth century sport as we know it emerged as a definable social activity. Hunting and other country sports became the source of significant innovations in visual art; racing and boxing generated important subcultures; and sport’s impact on good health permeated medical, historical, and philosophical writings. Sporting Cultures, 1650–1850 is a collection of essays that charts important developments in the study of sport in the eighteenth century. Editors Daniel O’Quinn and Alexis Tadié have gathered together an array of European and North American scholars to critically examine the educational, political, and medical contexts that separated sports from other physical activities. The volume reveals how the mediation of sporting activities, through match reports, pictures, and players, transcended the field of aristocratic patronage and gave rise to the social and economic forces we now associate with sports. In Sporting Cultures, 1650–1850 , O’Quinn and Tadié successfully lay the groundwork for future research on the complex intersection of power, pleasure, and representation in sports culture.
