3 comments about Pioneer in Tibet: The Life and Perils of Dr. Albert Shelton.

1. The author says it best. "Shelton was a complex creature, a man who craved both adventure and social esteem, a doctor who practice medicine intermittently, a missionary who seldom preached, a devout family man who endangered himself and his family in a perilous post" (page 214)
   
   Wissing has written a fine biography of Albert Shelton, a frontiersman from Kansas and the founder of the first missionary station in Batang, Tibet in 1908. The borderlands between Tibet and China in those days were a battleground and Shelton entered into the fray as a missionary, hunter, collector and seller of Tibetan antiquities, interpreter, and advisor to Tibetan rebels. He became famous in America, especially after being held captive by Chinese bandits for more than a month.
   
   The author covers the complex politics of both the Tibetan marches and the missionary establishment. Shelton is not altogether an admirable character; he seems more interested in constant exploration and collecting art treasures than he does in spreading the Gospel, and he obviously basks in his fame. His dream was to be the first Protestant missionary in Lhasa and he was on the road to achieving that when he met his dramatic end in 1922, an end that befitted the character of the man.
   
   If you're interested in Tibet, missionaries, and China this is an excellent book to read. Shelton could be a prototype for a somewhat more pious version of Indiana Jones.
   
   Smallchief



2. Wissing accomplished the task of flattening the Himalayas with his two dimensional portrayal of the Sheltons, the Chinese, the Tibetans, and the continent of Asia. He glossed over the Unequal Treaties, Opium War, or any other conflicts with the West that would cast doubt on the altruistic motives of the missionaries and ruin his "feel good" story. The book lacked any perspective to place the Sheltons in, and thereby deprived a lot of their work of meaning. I was left with no clue that they rode out a two revolutions, that Dr. Shelton was a great diplomat, or even how high up Tibet is, other than an occasional sideways reference. There was a lot of potential for a very good and interesting book about Dr. Shelton, but either by accident or intent it was left with the substance of a "Chicken Soup" book.



3. Well, people didn't like my review, so I guess I'll just have to rewrite it. :P Here goes:
   
   In response to the other reviewer's comments, this is a book about a man's life in a place and a time. It's not a book about the political climate of a land during a certain span of years (though I thought the author did include enough information to paint a sense of context). Take this excerpt for example:
   
   "countless goods made their way via this route, but by far the most important was tea. Tea was China's most valuable export to the Tibetan, Turkic, and Mongolian peoples who formed an arc at the periphery of the Celestial Kingdom. The brick tea trade was integral to Chinese-Tibetan commerce, politics, military history, and social intercourse. The trade dated back to the late Tang Dynasty (618-907), when the first loads of tea..."
   
   You make the call. I know a good amount about Tibet, it's height, and its history already. Like I said before, if you want to know more about Younghusband's violent push into Tibet's interior, well sorry, that's not the focus of this book--It's about Albert Shelton. But if you don't know anything about Tibet, maybe you'll feel as the other reviewer did--fair warning (though I do disagree with him). I myself would have liked to seen more detailed maps of the cities and routes that Shelton traveled along (though there are maps, they're just not thorough enough).
   
   I thought that Wissing's account did a good job of displaying what a certain missionary's life was like in Tibet during the early 1900's. Far from painting the picture of an altruistic superchristian, at times Wissings account left me lamenting Albert's poor choices. In the beginning he seems to be an adventure hungry, inexperienced person. It take him and his family years to even like the Tibetan culture and not to look down ethnocentric noses at it. Thankfully it isn't as prevalent today in missionary circles, but back then people were often ignorant of other cultures and at times horribly nationalistic. It is really sad to hear accounts of those who never really got the Apostle Paul when he said "I become all things to all people, that I might win some to Christ". I personally found it intriguing to see this change in Shelton.
   
   The book also has many interesting accounts of exchanges between Shelton and the Tibetans. The meeting of two cultures, and two faiths, had amazing results at times. With Tibet's relcutance to change in general, I wouldn't be surprised if these were things one could still experience if they went to the right places. There is also an interesting look through Albert's journal into a Christian man's dealing with imminent death and intense pain while he was being hauled around by bandits who kidnapped him. That is a personal account that you won't find the likes of most places and the worth of the book could be found alone in that.
   
   I refuse to go into a detailed account of Shelton's general life because I believe the "book description" above does a well enough job, and you can read that.
   
   Lastly, Wissing is a journalist. He writes well, and the book is pleasing to read (as far as biographies go--if you not a biography person, why are you even bothering?). Like any biography it has its share of facts and the recalling of accounts, but I think Wissing did a good job of balancing everything out in a way that rarely overwhelms the reader.

2 comments about Smithy: The Life of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

1. I was reading this book on a visit to NZ, flying from Los Angeles to Auckland. This put Smithy's epic adventures in a new light...as a commercial pilot myself, I could start (just start)to appreciate the problems they encountered, let alone the fear they must have felt... An excellent book, well researched, and as the review states, "not a dull page in the book". Well done Ian.



2. While i confess to not having read any other books on Sir Charles, I have an appreciation of sorts through the many Smithy stories i had grown up with. My father had worked at Brisbane airport where the Southern Cross stands today and as a boy i recall him telling me Smithy stories as we walked around the old plane. Naturally, 70 odd years after the epic flight, traffic streams past and no one gives it a second glance (although oddly this amazing historical icon is almost hidden from view). I wonder how many young Australians today know who this man is and what he contributed to world aviation.

   This book offered a smorgasboard of adventure and excitement and really does put into perspective the amazing feats this man accomplished. It also shows to us a character that was flawed in many ways. Smithy is portrayed as being reckless, selfish and irresponsible and yet also often displayed amazing courage, determination and humour. The book seems factually thorough while continues to flow nicely and is really an entertaining read.

   This book would provide an ideal starting point for a film, that could further document and publicise, not only Smithy but all those other early aviation pioneers. Just so many amazing flights amidst so much danger and often so much fun.

   A great story of a legend from a time when you really had to do something to earn that epithet.

1 comments about Lemoyne D'Iberville: Soldier of New France.

1. Pierre LeMoyne Sieur d'Iberville is a major figure in the history of both the Hudson's Bay Company (he was the arch-nemesis of the HBC, raiding their major forts and almost extinguishing their influence over the fur trade) and Lousiana - where, during the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV, he established several strategic forts and played a key role in the founding of New Orleans. This is a very good book of his life in the French Navy and the French Colonial Service, extremely rewarding reading for anyone with an interest in New France and early Louisiana.

5 comments about Sailing Alone Around the World: The First Solo Voyage Around the World (Phoenix Press).

1. I first read this book about 30 years ago, I think. I vaguely remember thinking it was dry, and now I'm amazed at myself. It is anything else but that, from today's perspective! First published in 1900, Slocum's prose reads fresh and crisp; and his sense of humor pleases me with its dryness. No wonder it's still around, over a century later.
   
   Slocum, who worked his way up to shipmaster and owner after starting before the mast in the days when sailing ships still ruled international commerce, reached middle age in a different era. With his family grown, he accepted a friend's gift of a sloop that lay decaying in a field. Slocum rebuilt the SPRAY completely. Then he set out in her alone, to circumnavigate the globe.
   
   He spent nearly three years in that successful effort. Newspapers followed his progress, and in port after port he made new friends and learned new things. Seasoned world traveler though he was, I got the feeling as I read that he hadn't had time for much of that learning on earlier voyages. He'd been busy looking after his ship, its cargo, and his family (who sailed with him). Now, off on his own with a freedom he hadn't known before, he savored each new experience and then recorded it for eventual publication.
   
   "The author made me feel that I was there, too," is a cliche. But cliches come into being because they're true enough to invite over-use, and in this book's case the words fit perfectly. A classic for good reason!



2. This book is a wonderful find! Very readable and compelling, the author unwittingliy tells the tale of his adventures around the world on a small boat that he built with his own two hands in New England near the turn of the century. The book is without pretense, at times is hard to imagine, yet the language is so simple and straightforward how can we do anything but believe his stories written in a down home style. This is a book that's easy to get lost in and holds your attention until the very last page. I read it while on the beach. I recommend that you do the same. The sound of the lapping waves makes the book that much more enjoyable.



3. This story is the greatest sailing story I have ever heard of. Joshua Slocum is so far out and such an indomitable human being that it is difficult to fathom without reading the story. This book is truly an exercise in understatement.
   
   A large society of Slocum afficianados exists now, largely in response to this one book. I just this past friday saw a replica of the Spray, the vessel on which he made this unprecedented voyage, owned by an old sailor. The replica is named Joshua, and sails from Alameda California. I saw it because it was at the annual wooden boat festival in Port Townsend, Washington.
   
   Spectacular.



4. Wish I had been a little more careful before I selected this edition. It's a tiny book with stiff pages and cover which doesn't stay open unless you want to break the spine. Just awful. I'll find a different edition at the library.



5. this edition has no illustrations, a cheap edition, very frustrating because the book is very good. I was forced to buy another edition with the illustrations, but have had problems with the shipping from the vendor, the book has not arrived, so I will have to buy a third edition !! Very frustrating. The first time this has happened to me at Amazon.

1 comments about To Ruhleben -- And Back (Collins Library).

1. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got "To Ruhleben and Back," but this memoir was a strange and wonderful surprise: English college kid sneaks into wartime (1914) Berlin as a journalist on a dare, gets in way over his head, is thrown into a prison camp, and then escapes with a fellow inmate in broad daylight to run, hide, and bluff their way across Germany to freedom. It's a really engrossing, old fashioned page turner. It's not a war book at all, more like a weird survival odyssey with a total wiseass: at one point he even poses as a sort of folk singer, probably not your usual POW escape plan. Great stuff.

1 comments about Yitzhak Rabin: The Battle for Peace.

1. While I found this book to be more of a short history of Israel that centers itself around Rabin, I still found this book to extraordinarily well balanced and just very good. I was extremely impressed by the amount and quality of information the author packed into such a small book.
   
   I originally purchased this book as a compendium to Rabin's own memoirs. I wanted a different take on Rabin after I finished with his memoirs so that I could compare his words with those of another. I expected from the title of this book that it would be, on the whole, a rather positive and pro-Israeli account of his life, so I assumed I would get a work of little value other than as another person's perspective. Instead what I got was a very balanced look at Rabin and Israel. The author does a wonderful job detailing a complex man during a very complex time in Israeli history, and because she tackles the positives along side the negatives with the same vigor and detail the reader gets a much needed window into the accomplishments and failures of not only Rabin but Israel as well.
   
   I found this book to be highly insightful, and her discussion of the political squabbles within labor to the dissension on the right and within the religious community goes along way in explaining why Israeli policy regarding issues such as the occupied territories was in actuality essentially nonexistent. The fact that some issues have had the potential of ripping Israeli society in half goes a long way in explaining why some of Israel's most pressing problems seemed to be left in the wind.
   
   This is a wonderful book written by a brave individual. I say brave because anyone writing on Israel or Israeli figures has the potential of being attacked by one or the other side, but especially those authors who decide not to pander to either side and write a truly unbiased book have the possibility of being attacked by both sides. This author has written a book that is informative and balanced which is a rarity as regards this issue. Readers will do themselves a great service by giving this mighty, little book a go. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

2 comments about Shackleton: Irishman In Antarctica.

1. If Shackelton made it across the antartic as planned he probably would not be as well-known as he is today. The feat he and his crew managed to pull is simply astounding. One of the most inspiring adventure stories of all time in my opinion.
   Amru Albeiruti



2. The collective effort of Jonathon Shackleton (Antarctic special and a cousin of the famed explorer) and biographer John Mackenna, Shackleton: An Irishman In Antarctica is an informed and informative portrayal of Ernest Shackleton's historic, dramatic, highly dangerous South Pole expedition. Even though the voyage's ultimately failed to achieve it's stated goal, and Shackleton's crew were stranded on ice floes, all hands worked together to survive for a year before the perilous return to civilization could be made. Not a single man died in Shackleton's expedition, a credit to Shackleton's leadership and determination. His is a profound, inspirational, and keenly engaging story which is very highly recommended reading.

1 comments about George Drouillard: Hunter and Interpreter for Lewis and Clark and Fur Trader, 1807-1810.

1. After reading numerous books on the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition, it was a pleasure to gain further understanding of the somewhat mythical and legendary George Drouillard. Not only was he an extremely undaunted individual but also the go-to person for basically every task at hand whether it was with the L & C Expedition or his trapping ventures with Manuel Lisa.
   Although the author does speculate on several events in Drouillard's life, he nonetheless gets the point across that Drouillard was right there in the upper echelon of mountain men and first frontiersman of the west.
   Good read.

No comments about The Rash Adventurer: A Life of John Pendlebury.

5 comments about Transcendent Summits: One Climber's Route to Self-Discovery.

1. Reprinted from the Colorado Springs Gazette
   
   When Gerry Roach was in high school in the late 1950s he listened to opera records over and over until he boiled down the grand operatic tradition to its essence.
   
   "Act one: profess undying love," the Colorado author and mountaineer told a crowd gathered recently to hear a few stories from his early days. "Act two: many complications. Act three: everybody dies."
   
   The young Roach could not have known that his life would follow a similar dramatic arc of love, struggle and death.
   
   By age 15, he had essentially professed undying love to climbing mountains. The complications of difficult climbs and the deaths of fellow climbers came later.
   
   Now, as Roach celebrates his 50th year of climbing, he is giving a show in Colorado Springs that revisits some of his earliest alpine arias.
   
   Roach, 61, best known regionally for his yellowspined guidebook, "Colorado's Fourteeners: From Hikes to Climbs," is one of the state's most accomplished mountaineers. He has scaled every Colorado fourteener at least twice, and summited 2,000 more peaks in the state. He was the second person ever to climb the highest point of every continent, and the first to bag the 10 highest summits in North America. Along the way he has written nine books, including his 2004 foray into narrative, "Transcendent Summits."
   
   Most people with a repertoire like that might be ready to take a bow. But as opera fans know, a show is only as good as its last act, and it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings. Roach has no plans to stop climbing or writing.
   
   "Of course I'm getting less strong and less fast as I get older. That might be a problem if I was trying to set a speed record on K2, but for my purposes, it doesn't make much of a difference. I can still climb in Alaska every year.
   
   "Right now I'm working on climbing the highest point in every national park," he said on a recent afternoon after a yoga class near his Boulder home. "Plus, as soon as I turn 62, I can get a lifetime senior pass to the national parks. That will be amazing."
   
   Roach's prelude to mountain expeditions came in 1956 when he and a friend used their paper route money to buy a few pitons and carabiners, stole his dad's hammer and headed up to a set of sandstone slabs above town called the Flatirons.
   
   "Back then, climbing was a counter-culture activity," he said. "Not many people did it, and people thought the ones who did were nuts. We didn't have any real gear. We climbed in our school shoes."
   
   Gear or no gear, Roach had the desire and drive to learn the budding sport and soon hooked up with a ragtag chorus of climbers
   at the University of Colorado who taught him the ropes. He was so dedicated to becoming a mountaineer that he would practice tying and re-tying knots while dousing himself with cold water in the shower.
   
   "It was the mystery that drew me. The sense of adventure. At the time, parts of Colorado seemed as remote as the Himalayas," he said.
   
   COLORADO TO KATHMANDU
   
   The Rockies were a resounding rehearsal range for Roach. Every lesson learned could be applied on mountains around the world.
   
   One lesson he learned early on, while trying to scramble up Crestone Needle in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, was that Thanksgiving is a rotten time to climb.
   
   "We quickly turned back. Oh, November's the worst. It's cold, but the snow hasn't set up yet. Why can't we get those days off in May instead?" he said.
   
   To this day he resents the holiday's poor timing, but it taught him that weather will always win, and a good climber must wait patiently for the right conditions.
   
   After climbing some of the state's classic alpine routes, he headed off to bigger adventures. In high school, Roach and a few climbing buddies bought a used milk truck and made two trips in it to climb Mexican volcanoes "with enticing, unpronounceable names," such as 17,343-foot Iztaccihuatl.
   
   "It was fantastic how much adventure could be had for so little. Our first trip only cost us $40. The second time it cost us $60," he said with a gruff laugh.
   
   His climbing career continued to crescendo in college. He organized an expedition to Denali in Alaska and, later, one to Mount Rainier in Washington.
   
   Today, visitors to Roach's climbing résumé at his Web site, www.climb.mountains.com, will scroll for a long time before reaching the end. He has been on 19 Alaskan expeditions, 10 Andean expeditions and seven Himalayan expeditions.
   
   Like his opera records, those acts were filled with complications and deaths.
   
   Roach was still in high school when his first climbing friend died. In college he was trapped in a blizzard on Mount Rainier and had to wait out the gale in a cramped ice cave formed by steam coming off the volcanic mountain's top.
   
   Later, on a peak in South America, one of his climbing partners was knocked unconscious when the snow they were on collapsed. In an epic effort, Roach and his partners got the injured man to a hospital, only to watch him die from brain damage.
   
   Today, Roach still has all his fingers and toes, but it is a rare presentation when he doesn't mention, off-handedly, that one climber or another from an expedition is no longer around.
   
   "A gruesome number of them have died," he said. "I almost feel like I keep climbing to carry the flag for them."
   
   ROACHISMS
   
   Roach is best known among casual peak baggers for his guidebooks, not his climbing feats, but he rarely reads guidebooks himself. It would be like staring at subtitles during a live performance of "Madame Butterfly" instead of just getting wrapped up in the music.
   
   "I don't like to know too much about where I'm going. Figuring it out is part of the challenge. I usually read the book after the climb, just to see how I did," he said.
   
   But not reading books has never translated into not writing them. Roach has a guide for everything from popular Front Range hikes to obscure technical thirteeners.
   
   Anyone flipping through a Roach guide will find detailed descriptions, maps and photos, and stumble across a liberal sprinkling of almost philosophical one-liners, such as "physics always wins."
   
   Fans have deemed these little gems "Roachisms."
   
   A particularly poignant Roachism shows up in Aron Ralston's best-seller "Between a Rock and a Hard Place." The young explorer is best known for cutting off his hand and forearm to escape from a dislodged boulder in a Utah slot canyon.
   
   After realizing he was stuck, Ralston took out his knife and scratched a line he remembered from Roach's thirteener guide into the stone: "GEOLOGIC TIME INCLUDES NOW."
   
   Along with fans, the maestro has critics who blame guidebook authors for the swelling numbers of hikers on some Colorado summits.
   
   He shrugs off such grumbling as "ridiculous." "Guidebooks don't create a demand," he said. "They just keep people from making wrong turns."
   
   A guidebook, like a scratchy recording of "Carmen," can easily be left on the shelf by anyone who would rather experience the real thing without a middleman.
   
   "There are so many mountains out there with no one on them, especially the thirteeners," Roach said. "You can still have the same adventure that I had 50 years ago by leaving the guidebook at home."
   
   Dave Philipps (dphilipps@gazette.com)



2. Those are some great reviews. Reality s**** though... not worth the time or money.



3. In Transcendent Summits, Mr. Roach has accomplished the nearly unthinkable: in some of the most artistically effective words ever written on the subject, he has communicated how several critical experiences in his life have generated the motivation, preparation and skills required to achieve at a world-class level in his chosen field of endeavor for more decades than many of us have been alive.
   
   In a very real sense, this book is not a climbers' book, but a book of and for the human species. The details of climbing form only the backdrop for the real story of Transcendent Summits: the development of character through consistent self-challenge and accomplishment at a level beyond what most of us can imagine.
   
   If you count yourself among those who seek out challenges rather than shrink from them, then this book is for you. If you find nothing of interest here, count yourself among those from whom I personally have nothing to learn.



4. Gerry Roach's new book Transcendent Summits is filled with youthful enthusiasm, yet tinged with the experience of his many years of climbing and mountaineering. The climbing stories of his youth, set in the 1950s and 60s, are brought to life by his great narrative writing style. The title cannot be easily explained; one must read the book to completely understand the significance of it to the author. When I reached the end of the book, I finally understood the meaning of the title and realized that I have had a few transcendent summits in my own mountaineering experiences.
   
   The overriding structure of the book is revealed in the foreword written by Rick Ridgeway. Gerry Roach had always learned an important climbing lesson from each of his transcendent summits. Each lesson learned is concisely summarized down to one word. He assembles the first letter of each word to form the acronym "WHO CLIMBS UP." From there we are off reading the adventures of a young boy with his head in the clouds. There is an obvious correlation between the climbing lessons and applying those lessons to everyday life.
   
   At an early age he finds his parents "Life" magazine from July 1953 with a picture of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on the cover. Reading the article about the famous first ascent of Mt. Everest, he is captivated by the controversy over which man first set foot on the summit. The explanation that the two climbers can be as one when connected by a piece of climbing rope is a puzzling concept for a boy. He then questions the authenticity of their claim of climbing Mt. Everest. His mother tells him, "Mountaineers are men of honor." Honor is a transcendent summit lesson that Gerry Roach learns on Mt. Rainier a decade later.
   
   One of the fascinating aspects of the book for me was his description of climbs that I have also experienced in Colorado, Washington, Mexico and Alaska. However, he puts them in the context of the late 50s and early 60s by writing about the transportation methods to get to the trailhead and the descriptions of the gear he used. There are also descriptions of a couple of climbs he did that are no longer legal to do, one climb that became legal in the time context of the book, and a mountaineering hut that no longer exists.
   
   Another time context writing technique he employs is to include world events that shaped his life. For instance, his father was a member of the scientific community in WW II and had some part in developing the atomic bomb. Gerry would do some Hindu chanting while climbing and when the Chinese invaded Tibet, he was saddened that the Dalai Lama left his homeland. He mentioned the scene of the Russian Prime Minister, Kruschev, pounding his shoe on the table at the United Nations. The escalation of the Vietnam War affects his research on top of an isolated Alaskan volcano in the summer of 1964. At the end of the book he joins the newly formed Peace Corps to go to work in India.
   
   The book is also a coming of age story of a boy transforming into a man, and his experiences with women. As a young teenager, he lived in Paris with his family and encountered prostitutes while wandering the streets in search of stone masonry walls to climb in the old city. He mentions the difficulties of high school dating while attending Boulder High School. On a family trip to Norway one summer during high school, he is amazed how forward the young women are that he meets while peak bagging the country's high points. The young Scandinavian women are out to party in the land of the midnight sun. The summer after his high school graduation, while building an observatory on top of Maui, he meets and falls in love with a woman and intends to marry her but never does. Then there was that mysterious older woman with the psychic connection he met the day before climbing Ship Rock when it was still legal to climb.
   
   I was particularly interested in the background information of the native people's legends surrounding some of his climbs. The Native American legend of the creation of Ship Rock is fascinating. He was emotionally touched at the crux of the climb when he recognized the location of a legendary battle. He also writes of the Aztec legend of the Mexican Volcanoes, known now as Orizaba, Popo and Izta. From Hawaii he writes of the legendary struggle between the demigod Maui to capture the sun in the Haleakala Crater. In the chapter on his Mt. McKinley climb, he writes of his affection for "Denali's queen", Sultana (Mt. Foraker) from the Indian legend and of their child, Begguya, known as Mt. Hunter. The telling of these legends helps bring a much larger context to the book.
   
   The mountains have been a place of joy as well as an educational forum for Gerry Roach that he applied to his everyday life. For example, as a result of an incident on Little Bear at age 14, he learned how a person's ego could compromise one's safety. While still a teenager, Gerry Roach learned to do risk assessment from climbing at an earlier age than his non-climbing peers. He writes of risk assessment in conjunction with the death of several of his climber friends. He believes in the importance of safety to live a long life to create and spread joy to others. As an instructor with the CMC, I was interested to read his statements on safety, risk, and mortality in the mountains.
   
   A strong theme throughout his stories is the human bonds that develop from climbing with a trusted team. Gerry Roach's first climbing partner was his high school classmate, Geoff. Together they formed "The Summit Club" and climbed together for many years. He writes about the fellowship with the guys on the drive to the Mexican Volcanoes in the old milk truck they fixed up. He develops a close trust with Layton Kor on the first ever climb of T2 in Eldorado Canyon. During a fierce storm at the summit on Mt. Rainier, one rope mate drops in exhaustion. It crossed Gerry's mind to leave him, but his honor would not let him leave someone to die. The four men on his Denali team had developed a positive attitude and a special relationship to overcome many difficulties near the summit. My favorite quote in the book came from the chapter on Denali. He wrote, "One of life's extant experiences is to be on an expedition where the energy is positive and the momentum is always accelerating toward the summit."
   
   "Transcendent Summits" is much more than a collection of an old climber's stories; it is about life. It is about the human connections we make, keep and treasure through climbing. I recommend this book to all climbers interested in discovering the lessons Gerry Roach has written about and comparing them to their own life lessons.
   
   Kurt Wibbenmeyer (kawibbenmeyer@yahoo.com)



5. I am a climber. I can understand the gap between the 1's and the 5's. This is a climbers book. It does not have wide appeal to general readers.
   
   Blazak's review criticizing a (possible) non-climber for not understanding the book only emphasizes the point that this is written for climbers alone. It is also apparent that Mr. Blazak is a friend of Mr. Roach (Gerr) as most of the 5's seem to be. Maybe saying this is a climbers book is too broad, it is a Boulder Climber's book, or the friend's of Gerr's book.