A.A.C., Southern California Section.Section members gathered in July for a meeting at the Malibu branch of the Los Angeles County Library, home of one of the Club’s five branch libraries. The core consists of over 3000 volumes of mountaineering literature donated by Ruth Erb, in memory of her husband, Club member Arkel Erb, who was killed in an accident in the Himalaya in 1977. Members browsed through the library with the assistance of Madelena Bastos- Connelly, a library official who serves, in effect, as curator of the A.A.C. collection. The County Library has added recently published volumes and maintained subscriptions of interest to climbers.

William Lowell Putnam addressed the Section’s annual dinner November 1 on his experiences in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division during World War II. Copies of Putnam’s book, Green Cognac, newly published by the A.A.C., arrived just in time to be available for purchase at the dinner. More than 30 members and guests attended the affair at the Quiet Cannon Restaurant in Montebello.

Section leaders are planning a series of regional events in an effort to make Club activities more available to the widely dispersed membership, which ranges from Fresno and Mammoth Lakes in central California southward to San Diego and eastward to Tucson and Phoenix. The first regional program is being planned for the Eastern Sierra.

Bill Stall, Chairman