Reviews for Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters

The average rating for Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-03-01 00:00:00 James Bertrand James M. Tabor suffers from two problems in this book: he doesn't have enough mountaineering experience to adequately understand what happened in this disaster, and he can't write. Since the story is about the somewhat mysterious deaths of seven of twelve members of a 1967 American expedition to Denali and a botched and confusing rescue attempt by the National Park Service (NPS), the only qualifications needed to write a great book about this expedition are: 1) Mountaineering experience to understand what happened in this disaster 2) Ability to write There were just so many things wrong with this account. He inserts himself in the book way too much and what he says is quite dumb - at one point he says, "When it gets really bad, you do pray... whatever your sea-level agnostic pretensions".* His evidence is quite horrible: "One of the most interesting photographs is that taken by Dennis Luchterhand, he of Rainier premonition [he had a dream that he was going to die]. He looks down at the snow instead of toward the camera, so you can't see his face. That's an odd way for a man to pose... maybe there's something else going on in some deep place in his mind, the same place from which the premonition came, and maybe looking at the camera somehow seems to summon it up when what he really wants to do is keep it down there". Of course, this is after he says that "you can learn an immense amount, as police work has taught me and the popular television series CSI has taught many others, from photographs." The most egregiously bad section is when he concocts a fictionalized account of what may have happened when no evidence is present. The crux of the mystery is that there is no photographic or diarily evidence of what happened to the seven men when the ten-day storm hit and killed them high on the mountain. This doesn't stop the author from positing that one team member "finally runs out of patience and proclaims, Come on you slackers, it's time to get up this mountain, goddamnit!". This goes on for multiple chapters. And I won't even begin to talk about the stupid cliches; the dumb references to Malcolm Gladwell, CSI, and Hemingway; and the mind-numbingly bad metaphors. The best parts of the book are when he quotes wholesale from other accounts of the '67 disaster and literally everything he writes makes the book worse. According to his website, James M. Tabor fancies himself as a "a mountaineer, scuba diver, caver, hang glider pilot, horseman, firearms expert, and father" who "MFAed at Johns Hopkins". I understand the irony of an arm-chair mountaineer levying this accusation, but it seems that the author is a dilettante at life. At least I don't subject you to 400 pages of drivel (just this goodreads review). *This is not even true. In Joe Simpson's "Touching the Void", Joe Simpson, who was close to death after breaking his leg on the mountain, bluntly claimed that he had no illusions about a god or afterlife. What's worse is that Tabor read this book, and then tells us in FotM that he read it.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-11-15 00:00:00 Josef Prime Don't know why I am interested in high-altitude mountaineering (when you will never see me do it), except that it usually provides a compelling story about individuals struggling against difficult odds. This book is well-written and informative, keeps the reader interested in the fate of the participants, before and after the central events, and ends up being more about leadership, personality, and ego. The author's intent, beyond describing the ordeal of twelve men (seven of whom died) while struggling to conquer Denali (Mt. McKinley) in Alaska, is to repair the skewed and incorrect perceptions that developed concerning the tragedy. Although he is careful not to assign too much blame, realizing that mistakes were made and nature played a prominent (though not necessarily insurmountable) hand, the author does question the decisionmaking of NPS officials (who in some cases were untrained and inexperienced concerning mountaineering) and the role of a prominent climber/scholar in both (in a way) cursing and then slanting blame. The author weaves personal information, history, and opinion in a compelling way. What it basically comes down to is that two (really three) separate groups of climbers never really jelled as a team (where teamwork is at a premium), and inexperience and personality problems of two young leaders were magnified by schisms they were sadly unable to control and faced brutal weather this mountain can throw at athletes (especially back in the sixties, in the early years of high-altitude climbing, when many things were still new). I think this would be a good read for anyone who considers starting up a climbing expedition to this mountain (or others of similar challenge). Altitude can change attitude. Climbing can kill. People who do climb take risks, and sometimes the result is deadly (but I doubt they would really have it any other way). Not too many heroes in this story, but I think the author shows that the climbing party was experienced and fairly well-prepared; that mistakes, even small ones, can have cumulative and deadly results (simply forgetting to bring enough wands, for instance); that good communication and weather forecasting is vital; that quick and intelligent management of these types of natural sites is necessesary; and that team-building and confidence in your fellows is vital. Ultimately, however, there will always be deaths in this (and other) extreme sports, especially when records or new paths are being blazed. God bless them and protect them.