The Shining Mountain – Peter Boardman

The Mountain Library rating: ★★★★★

Published: 1978
Reading style: accessible, but has been regarded as elitist by non-climbers
Images: Yes (B&W, colour, illustrates key points of the story)

A constant feature in Top 10 mountaineering book lists, and occasionally labelled ‘the best mountaineering book of all time’, Peter Boardman’s The Shining Mountain deserves its classic status. It is an absorbing chronicle of Peter’s groundbreaking climb of the west wall of Changabang (Garhwal Himalaya) with Joe Tasker in 1976. The climb was a turning point for alpine style climbing in the Himalayas. The route, a deathly mix of steep rock, ice and snow, took the pair 25 days to climb using [then] cutting edge techniques and equipment, including ‘single point suspension hammocks’. The impact of their success dramatically expanded the horizons of what was possible for alpine style climbing in the Himalaya, from that point onwards.

The Shining Mountain won the John Llewelyn Rhys Memorial Prize for literature in 1979, and together with his, and Tasker’s, other writings inspired The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature.

Lasting memory:

The Shining Mountain is beautifully written. The combination of the author’s great insights into the personal and physical challenges of the climb, his intelligence and ability to tell a complete and fulfilling story – supplemented by valuable quotes from Tasker – are qualities that make this book stand tall.

Boardman’s detailed descriptions of climbing conditions on the ‘wall’ and the techniques used to defeat its many critical pitches, are skilfully worked into the narrative to build to a climax that provides my lasting memory of this book.

The final pitch, before a snow slope leads to Changabang’s summit, finishes with what the author called the keyhole, a human-sized hole between the now overhanging wall and a large rock.  Boardman’s description of shimmying into this gap to ‘unlock’ the climb is both outrageous in its simplicity (an insult to the unfathomable climbing prowess that brought the pair to this height) and sickening in its reality.

“After twenty feet the Groove moved from the vertical to overhanging…I twisted my head back and looked around.

It was the most amazing, exhilarating situation I had ever been in. I looked down and across at Joe, who was hanging on the edge of space. Directly below me almost our entire route fell sheer away…For a moment I was speeding through the skies above the wrinkled world.

…The big block crowning the Groove was suspended above my head…Since there were no signs of it moving, I decided it would be safer to try and squirm behind rather than risk levering it away by pulling around its outside.

As soon as I had wriggled my shoulders through the hole my feet swung out into space. After a lot of undignified wriggling and heaving, I suddenly popped out onto some snow…I looked upwards and saw snow, the easiest angled snow I had seen for four thousand feet. I had popped through the keyhole that, at last, seemed to have opened the door to the climb – surely nothing could stop us now?”

What the publisher says:

No one believed that it could be done – for a two man team to climb the fearsome granite face of Changabang’s West Wall. Yet that became the all-consuming obsession of Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker. To conquer the Shining Mountain.

The story of that ascent reveals the numbering dangers of high-altitude climbing, the to inner tensions and turmoil of two men alone on a gruelling climb high in the Himalayas, and the sheer courage and single-mindedness that finally led to ultimate triumph.

“It is a preposterous plan. Still, if you do get up, I think it’ll be the hardest thing that’s been done on the Himalaya’s.” Chris Bonnington

“A real thriller, an incredible adventure. The most gripping mountaineering book I’ve ever read. There is no let-up in the tension and it is impossible to put the book down.” The Chronicle.

Dougal Haston rehydrating after the first ascent of Changabang. [Photo Doug Scott) @www.alpinist.com

Tags: Alpine Style, Himalaya, Joe Tasker, Peter Boardman