Early Days In The Range Of Light: Encounters with Legendary Mountaineers

Description

It's 1873. Modern climbing gear and Gore-Tex shells are a century away, but the high mountains still demand your attention. Imagine the stone in your hands and thousands of feet of open air below you, with only a wool jacket to weather a storm and no rope to catch a fall. Daniel Arnold did more than imagine--he spent four years retracing the precarious steps of his climbing forefathers and lived to tell their tales here. From 1864 to 1931, the Sierra Nevada witnessed some of the most audacious climbing of all time. In the spirit of his predecessors, Arnold carried only rudimentary equipment--no ropes, no harness, no specialized climbing shoes. In an artful blend of history, biography, nature, and adventure writing, Arnold brings to life both the journeys and the stunning terrain. In the process he uncovers the motivations that drove an extraordinary group of individuals to risk so much for the summits of our most fabled landscapes.

At fifteen, Daniel Arnold began climbing the Pacific Rim volcanoes and local basalt crags of his native Portland and went on to climb throughout North and South America. He lives in southern California, and Early Days in the Range of Light is his first book.

"Dan has done something unique in climbing histories-he went back in time-first, by ferreting out and suffusing himself with ancient lore, then by forgoing modern equipment, and finally by retracing the finger-and-footholds used by the first climbers. His approach, as wackily original as the colorful characters he introduces, worked. This 'book' is really a Technicolor time machine to the earliest explorations of American high peaks." -Peter Croft