Product Description

Modern Mountaineering on Alpine Rock, Snow, and Ice

If your experience as a backpacker or rock climber is drawing you higher; if the cold, remote alpine environment calls you nearer, this book is for you. The Mountaineering Handbook will teach you the skills that will take you to the top. Even if you’re already an experienced mountaineer, you’ll find detailed descriptions of the newest and most effective techniques to refine and organize your methods and equipment. The Mountaineering Handbook isn't mired in outdated traditionalism; its new-school techniques are safer, more effective, and more fun for mountaineers at every level. With constant emphasis on light, fast, and efficient mountaineering, Craig Connally shows you how to:

• Move quickly up and down rock, snow, and ice with appropriate safety systems
• Manage mountain hazards, including rockfall, avalanche, lightning, and high-altitude illness
• Select the best equipment for your personal style and objectives
• Maintain sound nutrition and training according to the most up-to-date science
• Understand the human factors of mountaineering--the social and psychological forces that influence critical decisions

Connally’s passion for mountaineering is evident in his writing--The Mountaineering Handbook is clever, insightful, and entertaining. He intends to move mountaineering into the twenty-first century, but he’s also determined to turn the traditional how-to book on its ear by injecting personality, humor, and thoughtfulness into every page.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86280 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From the Back Cover

Modern Mountaineering on Alpine Rock, Snow, and Ice

If your experience as a backpacker or rock climber is drawing you higher; if the cold, remote alpine environment calls you nearer, this book is for you. The Mountaineering Handbook will teach you the skills that will take you to the top. Even if you’re already an experienced mountaineer, you’ll find detailed descriptions of the newest and most effective techniques to refine and organize your methods and equipment. The Mountaineering Handbook isn't mired in outdated traditionalism; its new-school techniques are safer, more effective, and more fun for mountaineers at every level. With constant emphasis on light, fast, and efficient mountaineering, Craig Connally shows you how to:

• Move quickly up and down rock, snow, and ice with appropriate safety systems
• Manage mountain hazards, including rockfall, avalanche, lightning, and high-altitude illness
• Select the best equipment for your personal style and objectives
• Maintain sound nutrition and training according to the most up-to-date science
• Understand the human factors of mountaineering--the social and psychological forces that influence critical decisions

Connally’s passion for mountaineering is evident in his writing--The Mountaineering Handbook is clever, insightful, and entertaining. He intends to move mountaineering into the twenty-first century, but he’s also determined to turn the traditional how-to book on its ear by injecting personality, humor, and thoughtfulness into every page.

“Backpackers venture into the wilderness to see a little farther, but mountaineers describe their adventures as means of looking more closely into their own selves--to see a little deeper. Climbing mountains compels introspection because every detail--from the smallest to the most ominous--must be constantly attended to. That’s both exhausting and exhilarating. Exhilarating, because the criteria for success are absolute and absolutely objective--they are chosen by the mountain, not by the mountaineer, and every person is equal when judged by mountains. Success requires mountaineers to appraise their own physical and mental capacities and to know, or discover, the extent of their reserves of competence, commitment, and courage. Mountaineering does not build character so much as it reveals it."--from The Mountaineering Handbook

Craig Connally puts many years of mountaineering, ski mountaineering, and climbing rock and ice into his engaging writing. More importantly, he has applied his advanced degrees in science and his career as an engineering manager to sort out and explain what works and what doesn’t in the mountains.

About the Author
Craig Connally is in his third decade of mountaineering, ski mountaineering, and climbing rock and ice. He climbs with instructors and guides and has mentored beginning climbers.

Customer Reviews

Useful, provokative and funny
This book contain lots of useful stuff and the author does a good job in not just listing lots of different options (like another famous book he loves to bash) but actually giving recommedations on what works. The author has very strong opinions about certain things that perhaps are less emotional to others but it adds some flavour to the text. If he were more balanced it would have been a duller read. Especially, read his calculations about forces acting on protection and climbers. Some disturbing news about the first piece of protection! This is good stuff and this is the only book where I have seen it done properly. Well done Craig!

American style
Im sure this is all good modern info but just be aware that it is in a very American style. For example, there is the usual mix-up of units: oz of gel and lbs of water per pound of body weight. The section on foods is about all gels and powders and is actually quite funny because the author is so serious about 'performance'. If you use a figure of eight descender and eat GORP (good ol raisins and peanuts apparently) then this is not the book for you.

The best text on climbing forces and anchors
Working at height in industry for twenty years, then moving into mountaineering raised a few eyebrows when it came to seeing typical belays and anchors! It wasn't until I read this book that I found an author that seemed to have a thorough scientific understanding of a roped safety system, tempered with what seems sound experience to provide reasonable and practicable solutions.

As mentioned by another reviewer, the metric units are often out (typos mostly). However, climbing forces are covered very well in the metric system, and there is plenty of good info on Metric navigation techniques in other classic books.

The most serious error I have found, is an illustration of a tibloc used as a simul-climb anchor on page 308; the karabiner should capture the rope, so that in a lead fall, the rope rotates and is held, around the smooth edges of the karabiner, rather than the two thin edges of the Tibloc. Great that the technique is discussed!

I thoroughly recommend this book, if only to help put to bed the issue of how to set anchors for belayer, the second and anchor No.1 of the lead!