The Mountain World 1966/67, edited by Malcolm Barnes and Hans Richard Müller with translations by Hugh Merrick, for The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd; Chicago: Rand McNally and Co. 224 pages, 56 plates, maps. Price: $7.95.

The 1966-67 issue of The Mountain World is the latest in a distinguished series started in 1947. Surely everyone conversant with mountaineering has respect for the authoritative material which has been presented in these volumes. And it is not too much to say that anyone seriously interested in world-wide alpinism should own, or at least have read, this unique series, of which the last nine volumes have appeared in English. This appears especially relevant to normally provincial Americans who are commonly unaware of great foreign climbs simply because their descriptions have been given in an inaccessible language. The Mountain World which provides translations of many of these articles fills a most important gap, and in this way alone justifies its existence.

But the series, and this volume, does more. It reminds a reader of narrow interests that mountaineering has many facets, no one of which encompasses the complete experience. There is the Eiger Direttissima (together with an analytical article which falls well short of its mark) and there are more humdrum expeditions to the lately popular Hindu-Kush of Afganistan and Pakistan. There is the genuine thrill of exploration in the first recent penetration into unknown Bhutan; perhaps some of this kind of excitement will be conveyed to younger climbers for whom sheer difficulty, not the great unexplored, provides the main attraction. And the remote Antarctic, perhaps overtold to American audiences, lives and breathes in a superb story by Corbet. Unusual modesty marks the account of the 1965 Indian Everest Expedition who put four separate parties on the summit:

"As should be the case with any adventure, our expedition had never intended to compete with any records. We gained from the experience of our predecessors and climbed, as it were, on their shoulders … we were blessed with good luck, so very essential at Himalayan heights.”

Would that more expeditions could see the truth so clearly. Finally, and certainly not least from the point of lasting value, are the compendia: Greenland, the southern Cordillera Blanca, and the fascinating Puna de Atacama. All of these will be required reading for future expeditions to these regions.

Yet, even as few human efforts are without imperfection, so it is with this book. It would appear that the same criterion of significance has not been applied to all the articles. One finds, and this has been true in previous years, an occasional lapse, such as an article about an unexceptional climb which is not new. This type of error seems a waste of precious pages. Most of the articles, reporting the problems and accomplishments of an expedition, find little time for contemplation of the meaning of their undertaking. Indeed, other than the hint in the analysis of Direttissima climbs that there may be more than one point of mountaineering view, no philosophy is to be found in this volume. Judging from previous issues, this is chance rather than editorial policy. And inevitably there are the small errors, such as the reference to the second ascent of Nevado Huantsán as an attempt.

Lastly a critical reader can perceive a bit of provincialism in The Mountain World. The continental accomplishments are given adequate airing while the world-wide coverage seems somewhat ill-proportioned. There are curious gaps. No Fitz Roy. No mention of the activity in Yosemite. It is a reasonable fear that the average European mountaineer may think of American climbing in terms of nothing but K2, McKinley, and Everest. The fault of this imbalance, however, may rest more with the writers from the hinterlands, such as the United States, than with editorial policy. Articles which are not written can scarcely be published. Criticism should not be overly harsh. True cosmopolitanism is an exceedingly difficult summit to attain. Yet one would very much like to have a source for keeping current on mountaineering throughout the world. While The Mountain World does not quite do this as yet, it appears to be the closest approximation that the English-reading mountaineering public has available. As such it is essential reading for the informed mountaineer, and we can earnestly pray that the series will long continue.

Leigh Ortenburger