Everest: The West Ridge, by Thomas F. Hornbein. Photographs by members of the American Mount Everest Expedition and its leader, Norman G. Dyhrenfurth. Introduction by William E. Siri. Edited by David Brower. Sierra Club, San Francisco, 1966. 200 pages, including 84 pages of lithographed color plates. Price $25.00.

"Those two black specks, scarcely visible among the vast eccentricities of nature, but moving up slowly, intelligently, into regions of unknown striving, remain for us a symbol of the invincibility of the human spirit.” These words, written about Mallory and Irvine’s climb in 1924 could just as well have been written about Unsoeld and Hornbein’s climb in 1963. That these words are quoted in Everest: The West Ridge, is appropriate, because this book not only tells about a great climb of Mount Everest, nearly 40 years after Mallory and Irvine were lost, but it is a book dedicated to the invincibility of the human spirit. Needless to say, it is remarkable that Hornbein and Unsoeld survived to tell the story.

The book has three basic elements: a profusion of magnificent color photographs, particularly those of Dyhrenfurth, Lester, Emerson, Unsoeld and Bishop; a duffelbag full of splendid quotations about mountains and their effect on man; and Tom Hornbein’s engrossing story of his passion to climb the West Ridge. There may be too many quotations for some people, but each of the three basic elements deserves high praise. Here are the splendid pictures we have long been looking forward to, and also the real warp and woof of expedition life, the true feeling of being on an expedition. One of the most remarkable things about the book is the reality of the conversations. Constant use was made of tape recorders, and the frequent conversations in Hornbein’s text make life and the human relationships almost embarrassingly real. When Willi talks to Tom at the start of the expedition, or discusses West Ridge versus South Col plans with Norman Dyhrenfurth, you will swear you are in a corner of the tent listening.

There is no attempt to tell about the forming of the expedition, the problems of its leaders in getting the great entourage of men and material to Nepal. Instead, this book blends the Sierra Club philosophy about man and nature with a very personal account as seen by Tom Hornbein, a man with a mission to climb Everest by the West Ridge. Tom describes well the countryside and the expedition feelings as the climbers walk from Everest to Base Camp, but the burning intensity inside him is steadily growing until one finally senses that he will do almost anything rather than turn back from the West Ridge. The story of Hornbein and Unsoeld’s great traverse up the West Ridge and down to the South Col is one of the great mountaineering stories of all time. The other three who bivouacked with Tom on the ridge, higher than Lhotse, that windless night, probably would each remember the summit day in a different way, but this is Tom’s story. Yet, whoever reads it will not forget Willi Unsoeld, who led most of the final climb of the West Ridge; when they bivouacked, Willi took off Tom’s crampons and boots and warmed Tom’s feet against his own stomach.

David Brower, on page 15, tells of the make-up of the book and discusses the unusual juxtaposition of photographs and text. He adds, "Dr. Hornbein was primarily concerned about how the West Ridge was won; we were concerned also with the lower terrain and man’s achievement there.” Some readers may not see the connection, though the two are not necessarily in conflict. For as Mallory says, "if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.”

Robert H. Bates