The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative

If you like mountaineering books, you should like this one. It does have a few interesting quirks. Roberts was a Harvard student who climbed and this book describes two different ascents in Alaska on Deborah and Mt. Huntington. Not only are the two climbs entirely different, so is the writing style since they were written at different times. The first story is the Deborah ascent made with only one other climber. This story was written later and clearly narrates the climb while the Huntington climb tends to write in a more imaginative style attempting to explore thoughts and reasons why people climb. Frankly, I scanned some paragraphs in the second story as he would get on a tangent and leave the climbing facts. This climb is much more exciting due to the success of the climb and two more personalities involved on the climb. The Deborah climb tends to be one hardship after another. Having said this, there is a shocking occurrence after the successful climb that touches the climbers for the rest of their lives. This story has so emotionally attached you as a member of the party that it is impossible to put down for the last 50 pages. I recommend this book to mountaineering fans interested in the mundane tasks necessary for a successful Alaska assault. Also this will be interesting for readers wanting to explore interpersonal relationships under extreme hardships.

These two books contain some of the best writing ever done on the subject of mountaineering. "Deborah" starts out at a slow plodding pace but then draws the reader into the events that happened to Roberts and his partner in the remote wilderness of Alaska. The dynamics of the two climbers make for a interesting study of how people deal with extreme conditions. "The Mountain of My Fear" is a much more straight forward account of the first ascent of Mt. Huntington. Again the interactions of the climbers as described by Roberts makes for a fascinating read. The tragic ending leaves the author really questioning the whole point of climbing mountains. If I was going to recommend a book for a non-climber to read to gain some understanding of why people climb this would definitely be it.