Book Review
Title
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Denali Climbing Guide
by R.J. Secor
Who must have this book: Anyone considering
a climb on Denali.
Who should have this book: Anyone who reads
a lot about climbing Denali and would like to see photos and
maps of climbs
ISBN: 0811727173
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I
picked this book up for two reasons. First it was in the dollar bin,
and second I had been reading a lot of climbing accounts from Denali.
This book is crammed full of photographs and maps that did more to
let me picture the climb than a thousand pages of text had. Reading
about the West Rib, Cassin’s Ridge, and the Washburn Route all
seemed vague and abstract until I got this book. The photos and maps
of this book really helped put different locations into relationship
for me.
For my purposes, this has been a good book and I had gone back several
times when reading other stories. But since then I have gather several
other books like Jonathan Waterman’s High Alaska that fills
this roll better.
For anyone seriously planning a climb on Denali, this book might be
a good starting point, but it doesn’t contain enough information
to plan an entire trip. Even the author points out that more research
is need for planning your climb. The great thing Secor does is reference
specific articles in climbing journals for more specific information.
I don’t want to rip the book too much for its scope, this is
an introductory book looking at it now, I compare it to an entire
library of very focused books.
This is a very good intro to climbing Denali, although, unless you
are looking for a route a large part of the book is very repetitive.
But the photos alone are worth the price of the book, even if you
pay full price.
Overview
The book is divided into three parts, preparation, routes, and appendixes.
The preparations section has the basic information about fees, seasons,
dangers, etc. Of course fees information in books always have the
risk of becoming dated which has already happened to this edition
of the book. Again the scope of the book is introductory, if you are
looking for detail information look to other sources. Like for dangers
of climbing Denali, look at Surviving Denali.
The second section about routes is the bulk of the book. The route
descriptions are brief but sufficient. It’s the pictures and
maps that truly made this book useful to me, and there are a lot of
them. Especially useful is the full illustration of the Washburn route.
The final section are the appendices at the end of the book, including
a bibliography, equipment list, and important addresses.
Author
R.J. Secor has been climbing extensively for 30 years.
His other books include climbing books about the Sierras, Mexico and
Acongagua.
