women at the top
Dhe title “A Woman’s Place” is a homage – to a self-confident US mountaineer: When Arlene Blum wanted to take part in an expedition to Denali, Alaska’s highest peak, in the 1960s, she was smiled at. They said she could come and cook, but not climb.
Years later, Blum organized an all-women’s expedition to Annapurna, an eight-thousander in Nepal, and raised sponsorship money with a t-shirt that read, “A Woman’s Place Is On Top.”
The anecdote shows: It was not easy for mountaineers. Steep walls were the lesser hurdle; the main thing was to overcome social reservations. But over the course of history, there have been a few women in this male-dominated area – this is shown in the clever, small illustrated book, which is also a practical postcard book, with 40 photos from the collection of the Swiss Alpine Museum in Bern.
It’s a lot of fun leafing through the old postcards and reading the informative captions on the backs about the pioneer women on the mountain. The time period ranges from the late 19th century to the 1980s.
You can see a photo from 1893 of the ascent of the Italian Queen Margherita to the Signalkuppe for the opening of the Capanna Regina Margherita mountain hut, which was named after her. A picture from 1923 has Swiss women on a glacier as a motif, a color photo from 1980 shows “gaiters and finches for women”. Mind you, finches do not mean birds, but slippers. Amusing and enlightening, not only for feminists.
“A Woman’s Place. A postcard book”, published by the Swiss Alpine Museum, Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 24 euros.
The danger increases the attraction of the mountains
“You climb from a hut or from the valley to a mountain peak. And back down again.” This is how banal Philipp Laage describes mountaineering in two sentences in his “Summit Rush”. The Berlin author has done it often, climbing Mount Fuji (Japan, 3,776 meters), Chachani (Peru, 6,057 meters) and Pik Lenin (Tajikistan, 7,134 meters).
Uganda’s highest point: Feelings of happiness at 5109 meters despite the snowstorm
Source: Reisedepeschen Verlag/Philipp Laage
However, if you have never done this, you will ask yourself why you should climb onto a pile of stones. The answer to this question is the common thread of the entertaining book, in which Laage also provides an outline of the golden age of alpinism, from 1865 (first ascent of the Matterhorn) to 1950 (when Annapurna, the first eight-thousander was “cracked”).
Laage knows about the potential dangers that are also what make the mountains so attractive: “Of course, nothing should and should never happen, but it was within the realms of possibility. Interestingly enough, that was a point of view that spoke more in favor of mountaineering than against it.” In the Zillertal he experienced it like this: “It was done. We were through, broken, done, blissfully destroyed and done for.”
Laage finds it extremely relieving that in the mountains it is rarely about more than reaching a peak or the next hut without getting your feet wet. In our increasingly complex modern life, mountaineering has something impressively simple about it: “Can I breathe? can i walk Wonderful, then the most important questions of the day would be clarified.”
Which makes the answer to the question why people climb mountains obvious: It is this unique mixture of peak intoxication and happiness.
“Summit rush. Why I climb mountains” by Philipp Laage, Reisedepeschen Verlag, 288 pages, 19.50 euros.
Reinhold Messner and luck in mountaineering
After Reinhold Messner climbed his first eight-thousander in 1970, he wrote the book “Back to the Mountains”. His brother Günther died while climbing Nanga Parbat. Reinhold Messner lost seven toes, and yet he was the first to climb Mount Everest without bottled oxygen, as well as all other eight-thousanders. His debut, more than 50 years old, became a classic – and has now been reissued with impressive photos by Andre Schönherr and a new foreword and epilogue.
Selfie at 8126 meters: Reinhold Messner in 1978 on Nanga Parbat
Source: picture alliance/dpa/Reinhold Messner
With the book, Messner not only found his way back into the mountains, but back into life, as he confesses in the new foreword: “I was alone at the end of the world and remained lost.” The question “Where is your brother?” has him all not letting go of life. Luckily he is not despondent, but – that is the quintessence of his lyrics – has found strength and energy on the summits.
In mountaineering lies the happiness of being fulfilled, he writes, “the mountains put strength in our squatted bodies”. Some things read a bit stilted, the then only 26-year-old had not yet found his writing style. This also applies to the printed mountain poems, about which we only want to say this much here: It’s okay that he didn’t appear further as a poet.
Some of Messner’s book reads as relevant today as it did back then. The South Tyrolean wrote that the townspeople had lost contact with nature due to increasing mechanization and had to find a balance, “today this is more necessary than ever before.” The man already had vision and vision 50 years ago, which is why his reissued book is still up to date.
“Back to the mountains” by Reinhold Messner, Bergwelten Verlag, 144 pages, 20 euros.