By Amie Lalonde and Nick Baggaley
In this multi-authored review of the Jon Whyte Award winner "Alpine Rising: Sherpas, Baltis, and the Triumph of Local Climbers in the Greater Ranges" by Bernadette McDonald, enjoy two perspectives of insights from a mountain enthusiast and a guide.
From the Perspective of Amie Lalonde, Registrar at The Whyte and mountain climbing neophyte.
McDonald tells the story of local climbers in the Himalaya and Karakorum with great care, letting the individuals who have been ignored by history have their stories told - often in their own words through her deep archival research and multitude of interviews. It is a short book that covers quite a lot of history – from the 1920s to present day.
As a casual climber and general mountain enthusiast, I enjoyed reading the stories of the Sherpas and Nepalis who were integral to early mountaineering attempts of K2, Nanga Parbat, and Everest; people who are largely absent from the original European/American accounts of these climbs. While the treatment of these men (and some women) by the Western mountaineers may have been well known to those who are already well-read on these expeditions, for me, some of the first-person accounts of the lack of food and sub-standard gear the porters were given by the leaders of the expeditions was quite shocking.
I found that it sometimes became a bit of a list of names, dates, and mountains that were hard to distinguish. I felt that it could easily be 200 or 300 pages longer and provide a bit better exposition for readers like me who don’t have a strong knowledge base on the area and the history of major expeditions.
I appreciated McDonald’s discussion of the differences in western perception and opportunity between Nepali and Pakistani porters and climbers and how the explosion in local guiding operations in Nepal has spilled into Pakistan, often putting the Pakistani climbers in similar positions the Nepalis were in a century ago.
Valuable too, is McDonald’s exploration of the various reasons porters and climbers continue to scale the world’s most dangerous behemoths: from the economic impacts on communities and families, to personal status and local fame, and to the same sort of deep need that grips mountaineers world over: “It is my passion, and I cannot live without it” – Ali Sadpara
The book ends with the modern era, with climbers such as Nimsdai and Mingma G Sherpa who are making sure the world knows their names and finally pays local climbers the attention and respect they have deserved for a century.
From the Perspective of Nick Baggaley, ACMG Apprentice Alpine Guide, guidebook author, and general mountain nerd.
"Alpine Rising" is a meticulously researched, very readable and very overdue addition to the pantheon of Himalayan and Karakoram mountain histories. Bernadette McDonald deftly weaves together a tapestry of local Pakistani, Nepalese, Indian and Tibetan personalities to fill in the blank spaces left by books like Herzog’s "Annapurna," Bonatti’s "The Mountains of My Life" along with more modern expedition classics like Bonington’s "Everest: The Hard Way."
McDonald starts with a retelling of the classic early Himalayan and Karakoram explorations, with a focus on the highest peaks - mostly Everest and K2, but with digressions to the remaining 8000m mountains in the ranges. Her narrative focuses the stories of the porters, the locals like the Sherpa emigres in Darjeeling and the villagers of Gilgit-Baltistan who started off working as expedition workers for meager subsistence wages, and who climbed (the Rising in the title) to the modern day, where they demand their inclusion as equals in the mountain economy of the Himalaya and Karakoram.
The book is compulsively readable, while perhaps a little inaccessible to those unfamiliar with the long history of expeditions to the Karakoram and Himalaya. McDonald brings her writing experience from her past books like "Art of Freedom" and "Alpine Warriors" to write a very well-crafted and non-jargony history.
Where the book shines strongest is in all its character studies. In sections ranging in length from paragraphs to full chapters, McDonald tells the stories of both well-known and unknown Baltis, Bhotias, Shimshalis, Sherpas, and all the panoply of previously-unseen climbers and porters who were critical to the successes and failures of Western expeditions all through the great peaks of Asia. With an additional eye towards their lives off of the great peaks, she brings to the forefront local legends like Ang Tharkay, Ali and Ali Raza Sadpara, and Little Karim, while shedding new light on the stories of not only well-known climbers like Mingma G Sherpa, Nirmal (Nims) Purja, Tenzing Norgay and Sajid Sadpara, but also unknowns like Mehdi Amir (critical to the first ascent of K2), Dawa Tenzing (deputy sirdar on the first ascent of Everest) and their struggles later in life.
Unfortunately, it seems like the sheer breadth of these character studies is perhaps also the book’s undoing. The narrative thread trails off near the later half of the book, overborne by the number of different vignettes. Still, the book barely suffers from this, as the stories in the final few chapters illustrate the book’s overall thesis - that local climbers, after a long history of being supporting characters in Western narratives, are very ready and very willing to take center stage in their home mountains. There will always be more stories to be told about local climbers, local guides and their struggles in the Karakoram and Himalaya, but McDonald’s book provides a strong foundation for any of these.
Pick up your own copy of "Alpine Rising" at the Book Shop at The Whyte - open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.!
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