The Red Snows, by Sir John Hunt and Christopher Brasher. London: Hutchinson and Co., Ltd., 1960. 176 pages, ill. Price 25 s.

Here is a book which should be read by everyone interested in visiting the Caucasus for serious mountaineering. The principal author is Christopher Brasher, who made a new Olympic record for the 3000 meter steeplechase at Melbourne in 1956. Sir John Hunt was invited to join the party of eight young British climbers which included George Band and Mike Harris, and who called themselves the British Caucasus Expedition 1958. The author says: “It took us five years of frustration, correspondence, mounting files, before we finally got to Russia. But when we had surmounted bureaucracy we found it was worth every hour, every letter, every disappointment. We climbed with Russians; we lived with Russians, we found that we thought alike about common interests.” This is the key to the book, the first one in English on present-day climbing of the highest standard by visitors with the Russians in their chief relatively accessible high mountain area.

Climbing in the Soviet Union is highly organized. All mountaineers are rated as 1st Class, 2nd or 3rd Class, a few are Masters of Sport, and a handful are Honored Masters of Sport. Thousands participate. The Russians have great courage and endurance. They think nothing of carrying heavy packs and spending days at a time on the highest peaks, traversing back and forth and along the various groups of peaks which in the Bezingi Glacier area of the Caucasus rise up to 17,000 feet. The ten-mile long glacier tongue ends at about 6500 feet. The climbing camps are run by different unions which provide most of the funds. The British party, after flying down from Moscow to Rostov and then to Mineralnye-Vody, went by bus to the Baksan valley, which heads between the western end of the main range and Elbruz. Spartak Camp, open all the year, is up the Adyl-su valley, above its junction with the Baksan. Arriving in the rain, they were greeted by a large placard, “Welcome to the English Alpinists. Supper followed with some of the instructors. Camp was called the next morning by loud speakers, and all the Russians did exercises before breakfast. Eugene Gippenreiter came to take charge of the party’s arrangements.

They climbed in two areas, the first around Ushba. On the way up to high camp the strange red snow was seen, something reported by Freshfield many years ago, and caused by bacteria which become encased in falling snow, giving the surface an appearance of being thinly covered with dried blood. The attempt on Ushba, a very bold twin-peaked summit of 15,400 feet, never got much above the high camps into which the party divided. Snow fell much of the time for a week. Returning to Spartak Camp, a truck was taken down to Nalchik, and then up into the Bezingi valley. The next chapter is headed: “The most exciting area of mountains in Europe.” The Caucasus crest is the dividing line between Europe and Asia, thus Elbruz is the highest peak in Europe and the Bezingi valley on the north slope is also in Europe, but Svanetia fifteen miles across the range is in Asia. Arriving at New Bezingi village, camp was made near a camp of the Academy of Sciences. The scene ahead was almost Himalayan in scale and splendor; the Bezingi Wall, five miles long and thousands of feet high. The party was divided into three groups: the first composed by Band, Harris, Bull and Kustovski would attempt the Müller Buttress on Shkhara, a climb of 5A standard. The second consisting of Hunt, Blackshaw, Jones and Brasher would try the Schwarzgruber Rib on Jangi-tau. The third group of Neill, Thomas, and Gippenreiter would attempt Gestola by its face. Enough to say that the description of those climbs on glacier, rock, snow and ice among crevasses, nights at high altitudes, is dramatic indeed. There were minor mishaps as when an ice axe pulled out, dropping Hunt into a crevasse. Between climbs, groups of Russian climbers would come over to the British camp or vice versa, and listen to each other’s accounts of the climbs; the Russians particularly enjoyed listening to John Hunt. One of the best climbs was a joint one on Shkhara, up by a rib on the 7000-foot face and down by a curving ridge and ice fall to the starting point. Also, one by a new route on Dykh-tau led by George Band.

As would be expected in such mountains, there is an occasional fatal accident. Two occurred in the vicinity during the British visit. A dozen people had been killed in the Caucasus the previous year, a remarkably good record for the amount of climbing done in such a great region. Rescue work is well organized. The leader, a Master of Sport, whether held to blame or not, is sometimes demoted for a year or two, but then may be restored to full privileges later, which includes authority to plan and lead expeditions.

Toward the end of the book is a chapter on the question as to whether the reports of a Russian attempt on Mount Everest in the fall of 1952 were based on fact. The source of the story, if it was only that, seems to be blamed on a defector from East Germany who, being short of money and knowing something of Russian climbing, had given a good story to the Press. The Russians also appeared to be planning a joint effort with the Chinese: a reconnaissance in 1959, and the actual attempt in 1960. (The Chinese did claim a success in May, 1960.)

John Hunt summarizes climbing in the Caucasus by comparing it with something between the Alps and the Himalayas. “The standards of the climbs,” he says, “were as hard as some of the really difficult Alpine ones; but longer and lacking the amenities,” huts, paths, etc. The times of most of the Russian parties are slower than, for example, that of Mummery and his guide Zurfluh who first climbed Dykh-tau, up and down in eleven hours, instead of the two or three days as often taken today, but probably with less expert parties. He writes very appreciatively of some of their Russian climbing companions, in particular Anatoli Kustovski and Eugene Gippenreiter. Ending the book is a valuable chapter on “The Mountaineering History of the Caucasus” by John Neill.

This book is good reading, and is well illustrated. It gives probably the best current account of mountaineering by and with a tough, cheerful, friendly people, with whom the British party were on excellent terms throughout, despite the initial difficulty in getting there at all. Americans could well consider sending a good climbing party to the Caucasus at a time of favorable political “climate.”

Henry S. Hall, Jr.