Welcome! :: Chessler Books

We are reducing prices to reduce inventory, please sign up for weekly email sales.

Liquidation does not mean we are going out of business, we will never stop selling books while we are able. Liquidation mean we are trying to sell all our inventory at whatever prices are necessary to do that. Like most pre-internet booksellers we have been buying books as if the book business would stay strong, and I would live forever. Well, it didn't, and I won't.

So here we are with tens of thousands of books. We realized that we had to start accelerating the rate of selling books. That means lowering prices, and opening those those dusty boxes of books in our warehouse. We also put on more staff at higher salaries so we could attract book lovers who could do my job, which is describing our books.

It is working. We are currently selling a lot of books, and we will not be closing our bookshop until I can no longer work. I do not foresee running out of books. If we do, we will start buying again.

Every week we send an emailed list of Sale Books at sharply reduced prices. Please sign up for our mailing list (see below) as there is no other way to know what we are putting on sale, or days we are sending emails. Customer response has been terrific.

The only way to get the great books at bargain prices is to get our emails. Many books sell out within 12 hours!

Over the last fifty years we have accumulated a gigantic stock of mountaineering books, mostly used, but many new as well. Thousands of our books are autographed by the great names of 20th century mountaineering. We also have thousands of rock climbing and mountaineering guidebooks (new and used), climbing magazines and club journals, topographic maps, rare collectible maps, climbing hardware, nailed boots, wood handled ice axes, ephemera, art, photographs, posters, lithographs, signatures, plus books on Polar Exploration, Tibet, adventure travel and similar subjects. We are now liquidating this climbing book and collectibles bonanza at prices unseen since the 1960s. Please get on our mailing list!

Michael Chessler

RARE CLIMBING BOOK BONANZA

Dear friends,

We are thrilled to announce our acquisition in May 2016 of one of the finest collections of used, rare and collectible books on mountaineering that we have ever seen.

The subjects include climbing everywhere and in all languages, plus a huge skiing book collection in all languages, many books on Polar Exploration, and large California history book collection. It is currently all for sale, and available as fast as we can get it shown on our website.

PLEASE ADD YOUR NAME TO OUR MAILING LIST, AND CLICK ON NEW ARRIVALS (On top of every page) EVERY WEEK TO SEE WHAT HAS BEEN UPLOADED.

4000 RARE CLIMBING BOOKS IN GREAT CONDITION!

In two years we have listed half the 4000 books we acquired in 2016. It once filled 150 boxes that had an average weight of 40 pounds. That's three tons! Our source, a long time book collector, was extremely knowledgeable about the history of mountaineering, its literature in many languages, and what it took to make a great book collection.

MANY BOOKS AND DUST JACKETS ARE UNKNOWN TO US

We now have many books, editions and dust jackets that we had never seen, or even knew existed. This library has many better condition examples, and amazingly scarce and well preserved dust jackets, that will make the serious book collector salivate with desire. It did that to me.

Please be sure to join our mailing list as we announce a new selection of 50-100 books every week or two:

ALWAYS 2000+ BOOKS ON SALE

For 2018, we are continuing our weekly reduced price book sales. Please sign up for our mailing list, or check New Arrivals every week or two. Our inventory was reduced by several thousand items in 2015-2018 [thank you!] but we need to pare off more. We still have a 24 foot storage unit in which we have stored extra inventory for 25 years, which we are closing finally at the end of August 2018.

If you click on the SALE buttons on top and/or left side of every page, almost every sale item will show. There is also a separate Sale button under DVDs, and $10 & less.

If you need help, just e-mail or call us. Contacts on the left of this page, below.

We Usually Ship Orders on Thursdays

ARE THE SIGNATURES IN THE
BOOKS AND ICE AXES WE OFFER AUTHENTIC?

"How can we prove that the signatures on our
Books and Ice Axes are real?"

Here is the evidence, with many of the culprits,
caught on camera with PEN IN HAND!
The photos were all taken by Michael Chessler or an assistant.

The photo above is the first time I, Michael Chessler, met Sir Edmund Hillary. It was in the early 1990s and he actually came to our bookshop, then in Kittredge Colorado. We met with him many times for the next 20 years, when he would autograph books & ice axes for our bookshop. We also went to meet him, in NYC, LA, SF, Banff, and several times to Auckland. He was always very nice to us, and we are proud to have known him. And yes, we made contributions to the Sir Edmund Hillary Himalayan Trust every time we met him.

Above is Ed Hillary in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, just after New Zealand honored him by putting his image on the $5 NZ currency. Knowing that Hillary would be asked to autograph the bills, the NZ Parliament passed a law allowing him to do so, because it was defacing the currency! We bought our first lot of $5 bills at the best place to buy NZ money in LA, at the currency exchange window at Pre-TSA LAX of course!

In June 2017 the great Tommy Caldwell autographed copies of his new book, The Push, for us, about his free climb of The Dawn Wall on El Capitan, his traverse of the Fitzroy Massif, and his kidnapping during a climb in Kyrgystan.

The amazing Alex Honnold in November 2015. Those pitons were all for sale, signed by Alex, on this website. Everything he signed that day has been sold.

Babu Chirri Sherpa, who held the record for ten Everest ascents, and fastest climb from Bascamp to Summit, under 17 hours.

Hot Henry Barber. One of the very few climbers whose personal style and superb ability changed and upgraded how everybody after him climbed. I even adopted a delightful habit of his, that he must have picked up on his famous world tour in the seventies. Emulating Henry, I now sign my name with a British "Cheers. "

Chris Bonington, signing books al fresco. His Everest expeditions were often done in a grand style that reminded one of the British Raj on Tiger safari.

The Man.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire. My wife Heinke Forfota was Hungarian, and Kurt Diemberger is Austrian. They loved to chat in German.

Heinrich Harrer, a climber who had the nose for finding the best unclimbed peaks and routes in the world. Also, can you believe, the Austrian golf champion too!

Tomaz Humar. A sweet person, this was in Snowbird in 2002 the week before the Utah Winter Olympics.

Jamling Tenzing, showing me his father's (Tenzing Norgay) Porter Book. The book is signed by Tilman, Shipton, Ruttledge, Lambert, Denman, etc. I offered him a joking $100 for it.

Goran Kropp. On his one and only book tour. His slide show was the funniest performance I have ever seen!

Jeff Lowe. One of America's greatest ice climbers.

Royal Robbins and Tom Frost. Nothing else needs to be said.

Pete Schoening. He and Andy Kauffman made the first ascent of Gasherbrum I, Hidden Peak. America's only time making a first ascent of an 8000 meter peak. He also saved his whole team, seven lives in one belay, on K2 in 1953.

Madhav Lal Tabdar, Bradford and Barbara Washburn, Roger Bilham, Buddhi Narayan Shrestha.
Brad was a legendary mountaineer, pioneer of Alaska climbing. Photo taken about 1989.
Barbara made the first female ascent of Denali in June 1947.
Roger Bilham is Colorado University Professor Emeritus, and a Senior Research Scientist in
Geological Sciences � CIRES
The man on the left, Madhav Lal Tabdar, was Nepal Government Secretary, Ministry of Land Reform & Management.

The gentleman man next to Brad is Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, who was Director General of the Government Survey Department of Nepal.

The photograph was taken after the signing of the Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) between the Nepal government and the University of Colorado, Boulder, to launch the GPS survey in Nepal to strengthen the geodetic co-ordinate network of Nepal.

Jim Whittaker, with Michael Chessler. Jim's real accomplishment was being only the 10th person to summit Everest (he says he was 7th!), not the first American part.

Jim Wickwire, with Michael Chessler. Jim was one of the first Americans to climb K2, along with John Roskelley, Rick Ridgeway, and the strong and silent Louis Reichardt.

Reinhold Messner in our bookshop. More than anybody, he

created and nurtured high standard and ethical alpinism

in the high mountains of the world. Has anybody ever lived
their life so fully to the brim (and the edge) as he has?

David Breashears. A rock climber phenom who made the transition to Everest climber and film-maker.

Conrad Anker. A great rock climber who learned how to use an ice axe and crampons. It's so wonderful to see a self-effacing guy like Conrad become so successful in his business, avocation and private lives.

Ed Hillary, in our bookshop in the 1990s. We met with him fifteen times in the 1990s and 2000s.

Fred Beckey, whose very name symbolizes the freedom
of climbing and the climbing life-style.

Jon Krakauer. His book Into Thin Air gave an unexpected boost to climbing. Another quiet, self effacing climber who made the big-time.

Maurice Herzog. See how he grips a pen with no fingers!

His handwriting was actually be excellent and readable!
What a great life he lived!