Vivid mountain year

Press, 8 January 1983, Page 14

Vivid mountain year

Sacred Summits. By Peter Boardman. Hodder and Stoughton. 1982. 264 pp. Colour plates and maps. $35.75. (Reviewed bv Cohn Monteath) "Sacred Summits" is not an easy book to read or review — knowing that the English mountaineers. Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker, have just disappeared high on Everest in a bid for the unclaimed Tibetan E.N.E. ridge. For those who enjoyed Boardman's first book "The Shining Mountain" — two on Chanabang’s West Wall — "Sacred Summits" makes compelling reading. Like "The Shining Mountain." "Sacred Summits" is an important statement on modern expedition climbing. It is a vivid portrayal of a professional’s year; elucidating the meaning of total commitment to the Himalayas somehow, though sadly, all the more poignant by the stunning news so close on the heels of the book's release. A hectic year begins with a lighthearted ramble through the steamy StoneAge mountains of New Guinea. Several new rock routes are put up in the fabled Carstenz Pyramid area amid a shoestring holiday atmosphere. The historical snippets interwoven throughout the narrative are well researched. Business begins in earnest after Boardman’s return to his mountain school in Switzerland and soon he is whisked

away to Kangchenjunga with Joe Tasker. Georges Bettembourg and Doug Scott. With open, honest writing Boardman comes to grips with both the serenity and seriousness of a four-man push up the ferocious north ridge of the world’s third

highest mountain. Sneaking between ice avalanche and hurricane while living inside each other the line to the "untrodden peak" is a hard one. Somehow the guillotine jams at the end of its run allowing a brief interview with the summit gods. Despite emotional fatigue surrounding Kangchenjunga and his father’s battle with cancer. Boardman is soon swept out of Europe again, chasing the tail-end of the 1979 monsoon and the virgin south summit of Gauri Sankar on the NepalTibet border. The final third of "Sacnd Summits" zeros in on the ascent of its horrific west ridge. A drama of major proportion unfolds as Boardman's small team pull up their fixed ropes in a desperate bid to eke out their meagre rope supply for protection higher on this four-kilometre nightmare of fluted cornices. Himalayan pushes of this sort require a boldness, and level of technical ability, rarely witnessed in the 1950 s and 60s. Thankfully, such aggressive and powerful climbing today is also occasionally producing literature that goes bevond the depth and creativity of the vast majority of past expedition narratives. Boardman had that gift ‘and we are privileged that he opened his diary for us before setting out for Tibet and Everest.

Just as Gauri Sankar gives us Boardman's best writing, it has produced the most startling photographs. The other plates fade by comparison - simply snaps. Small expeditions do not often lend themselves to creative photography.