The book club had another great meeting discussing Jennifer Lowe-Anker’s Forget Me Not. The meeting was capped with a telephone conference call with Jennifer. She is an amazing person who opened her heart and her family in Forget Me Not and was equally open on the telephone call. Forget Me Not is a remarkable book. Thanks are due to Jennifer as well as to Sherry Richardson for arranging the conference call. This is the second time that a special guest has participated in book club – you never know who might show up next!
Next month’s meeting will be August 11th when we’ll be discussing The Price of Conquest by Lino Lacedelli, Giovanni Cenacchi, and Mark Worthington.
(If you are interested in “renting” rather than buying the book, the AAC Library has three copies available.)
This book covers the events of the first ascent of K2 by an Italian team in 1954. This ascent was remarkable in how it was accomplished and the litigation and acrimony that has followed the ascent to this day.
Other books about the ascent include:
Ascent of K2 Second Highest Peak in the World by Ardito Desio. 1955
The Mountains of My Life by Walter Bonatti, ISBN 0-375-75640-X. 2001
The AAC just announced award of honorary membership to Jeff Lowe, so here is a list of books and videos available in the library:
GV 200 .C59 1987 Salkeld, Audrey. The Climber’s handbook. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, [1987]. A chapter on ice by Jeff Lowe
av GV 199.44 .K37 N35 1991 (video) Nameless Tower. Los Angeles, CA: ESPN Enterprises, [1991]. Summary: “Jeff Lowe of the U.S. and Catherine Destivelle of France attempt a daring free ascent on the East face of the Nameless Tower in the Karakorum range of northern Pakistan.”
av GV 200.3 .L61 1996 (video) Lowe, Jeff. Alpine ice : Jeff Lowe’s climbing techniques. Nederland, Colo: Arctic Wolf, [1996].
av GV 200.3 .O97 2000 (video) Ouray Ice Festival 2000. [s.l.]: Mountain Zone, [2000]. Narrators: Jeff Lowe and Tom Tatum. Summary: “Ice climbing with worlds greatest ice climbers at the Ouray Ice Festival. Each climber does both an ice climb and mixed ice and rock climb with winners based on combined scores.”
av GV 200.3 .O95 1998 (video) Ebel, Teri. 1998 Arctic Wolf Ouray ice festival and ice craft invitational exhibition. Nederland, CO: Arctic Wolf, [1998]. Written and produced by Jeff Lowe. Summary: “Ice climbing with world’s greatest ice climbers at the Ouray Ice Festival. Each climber does both an ice climb and mixed ice and rock climb with winners based on combined scores.”
av GV 200.3 .L6 1(video) Lowe, Greg and Lowe, Jeff. Waterfall ice : Jeff Lowe’s climbing techniques. Nederland, Colo: Jeff Lowe/Arctic Wolf, [1995] [2005].
av GV 199.42 .U82 Z53 2004 (video) Lowe, Jeff. Clean walls. Ogden, UT: Adaptable Man Productions, [2004]. “In Part Two Jeff Lowe leads Scott Thompson on the first ascent of Lodestone Tower in Zion National Park.”
av GV 200.2 .H54 2007 (video) Lavigne, Alexander. Higher ground. [Colorado Springs, Colo.]: Higher Ground Productions, [2007]. Athletes: Jeff Lowe, Shawn Huisman, Sean Isaac, Noah Isaac. Summary: “Documenting a yearlong journey as seen through the eyes of a selection of world-class climbers, Higher Ground focuses on the importance of exploration, passion for the mountains and those who pursue the lifestyle”
Just a reminder that if you are looking for some summer reading without spending money, the library can help, plus it’s a great place to sit and read on your rest day, or when it’s raining. And if you don’t live here – no worries! We’ll mail the book to you for free as part of your member benefit.
Not only do we have guidebooks so you can plan your trips, we’ve got fiction (mysteries, detective novels!), photography, history, travel narratives from the 19th century to today, vhs and dvds – all kinds of stuff to entertain and inspire -
The Gunks
20,000 books – all mountains, all the time.
Here’s a few books we just bought for you – some classics, some new:
Zion: Canyoneering, Tom Jones
South Dakota Needles: The adventure climbs of Herb and Jan Conn, Lindsay Stephens
Flatiron Classics, Gerry Roach
Girl on the Rocks, Katie Brown
Gunnison Rock, Leo Malloy
The Whole Enchilada: A climber’s guide to Potrero Chico, Mexico, Dane Bass
The Gunks, Sach Orenczak & Rachel Lynn
Bugaboo Dreams, Topher Donahue
Jim Perrin: The climbing essays
The Eiger Obsession, John Harlin III
Strange and Dangerous Dreams, Geoff Powter
Stone Play: the art of bouldering, JS Watson, editor
Everest for Kids, Alan Arnette
Through a Land of Extremes: The Littledales of Central Asia, Elizabeth and Nicholas Clinch
The library will be closed on Friday July 3rd and Saturday July 4th. We will open with normal hours on Tuesday, July 7th, noon to 7pm. Have a great weekend!
Book Club is held in the American Mountaineering Center on the 2nd Tuesday of every month but June. Check in at the Library to find out which room. For More information and to RSVP, contact the group leaders at aacbookclub@gmail.com
If you haven’t seen it, be sure to spend some time with Stewart Weaver’s and Maurice Isserman’s Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes, recently published by Yale University Press. Increasingly hailed as the magnum opus of the history of Himalayan exploration, Fallen Giants has received positive reviews in The Atlantic and The New York Review of Books. You can read the New York review here.
Professor Isserman spent a great deal of time at the AAC Library scouring the archives for unique sources of information to include in the book. It is a well-written and meticulously researched masterpiece.
AAC members and Friends of the Library can borrow Fallen Giants and thousands of other titles in the library’s catalog. Become a member or a Friend today!
Join Clayton Laramie, local American Alpine Club member, for a presentation on his recent expedition to Cochamo, Chile.
Clayton and friend Francisco Parada set off to establish a new route at El Monstruo but circumstances led them to the Cirque of La Paloma, on Pared de las Profetas. This is the first route to complete the wall to the summit. The route is called Otro Dia Orto Largo (Another Day Another Pitch) in honor of the time spent and hard work required to establish this line. The route took them 5 days of effort over 2+ weeks (lots of rain) and an epic decent on summit day through waterfalls and vertical rivers.
“Hiding in the remote jungle mountains of Northern Patagonia, Cochamo is a wonderland of huge granite domes with endless potential for routes. It’s kind of like Yosemite, except that there are 5 walls bigger than El Cap and maybe 200 established routes in the whole valley!”
Come see the slide show, and hear Clayton talk about his incredible experience establishing this line. It was a trip of many “firsts” for Clayton and inspiring for climbers and explorers of any level.
Program starts at 7:00PM…Museum reception at 5:30.
Check out the article in yesterday’s Denver Post about our new From the Favorites exhibit. Big thanks to Preservation Librarian Beth Heller and CMC Marketing Strategist Chris Case for carrying out the curatorial work, Museum Operations Manager Sarah Wood for logistical support, and a HUGE thank you to the donors who made the exhibit possible.
Twenty-one of Brad’s favorite large format photographs, a unique photogravure collection, and other one-of-a-kind items are currently on display. We’ll rotate the photographs with another set of Brad’s favorites in mid-August. The show is scheduled to run through October 26.
June 27, 2009
Doors open at 6:00, show begins at 6:30
American Mountaineering Center
710 10th Street
Golden, CO 80401
Cost $15
Join the Colorado Environmental Film Festival for a Night on Water featuring the nationally acclaimed film FLOW , Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century – The World Water Crisis. We will also have a speaker to talk about water issues in Colorado and a reception following.
If you haven’t seen it, be sure to spend some time with Stewart Weaver’s and Maurice Isserman’s 
