Warnings against Myself: Meditations on a Life in Climbing

by David Stevenson

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295995533
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Warnings against Myself 7

Speaking in Code: Conversations and Reflections on Climbing, Language, and the Religion of the French 27

The Purposes of Ascent: Episodes and Conversations on Adventure, Climbing, and What It All Might Mean; An Account of Twenty Years in the West 41

Climber as Writer: From the Armchair to the Tetons 67

Last Dance of the Wu Li Master: A Distanced Appreciation of Terrance "Mugs" Stump 81

Virga 89

Untethered in Yosemite: A Report from Paradise in the Last Summer of the Millennium 99

Short Walks with McInerney: Three Classic Pilgrimages 117

Superstitious: Mont Blanc, French Alps 117

Struck: Longs Peak, Rocky Mountains 133

In the Bugs: In the Canadian Rockies 143

Axe of Contrition 149

Byron Glacier, June 24, 2009 155

Eros on the Heights 159

The Tower and the Riddle 181

Lives of the Volcano Poets 191

Here Comes Ol' Flattop 201

A Short Cultural History of the Ice Axe in the Twentieth Century 205

Three Dreams of Mountains, Late Fall 2004 213

Whillans, Haston, and Me: A Distanced Appreciation with a Couple Trip Reports, Contextualized 217

In the Very Big Ice House: Travels on the Harding Icefield 231

List of Illustrations 239

Acknowledgments 241

What People are Saying About This

Steve Roper

"With this book, Stevenson has joined the ranks of that rare breed: an excellent mountaineering writer. With remarkable insight he gives us stories that demonstrate that one doesn't have to be a full-time committed climber to enjoy wild adventures. As a professor and a dedicated family man, he has somehow found the time to explore all facets of the mountain trade, from surviving Alaskan peaks to struggling up scary rock climbs. His essays show a remarkable awareness not only of the physical world but of the innermost turmoil that can occur during moments of stress."

Editorial Reviews

"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)

From the Publisher