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Chessler Books Rock Climbing - Mountaineering - Exploration New - Used - Collectible - Signed |
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 Chessler Books 1984-2025 41 Years of Mountaineering Books Over 600,000 climbing books sold since 1984 Mountaineering in the 21st Century If mountaineering has any value, and its value after all is purely philosophical, it lies in the experience rather than the result. If competition and above all nationalism are allowed to enter into it, it becomes debauched and meaningless. -- Eric Shipton Latest News: Winter 2024 - 2025 We are happy to say that we recently acquired some marvelous book collections, and have more coming. The theme of one collection of 300+ books are mostly SIGNED by the authors, and sometimes by other climbers in the book. To find these, click on the red ''Autographed' tab among all the green and red tabs at the top of every page on this website. Chessler Books, who we are and what we do. Welcome to Chessler Mountaineering Books, Since 1984 we have been a bookshop, a Mail Order Catalog House, and now we are a Website specializing in books on Mountaineering. We are probably the most complete bookshop for mountaineering books in the USA and even in the entire world. If you read or collect books on rock or mountain climbing we are the answer to your dreams. Even spending just a short time browsing our titles will show you that this website is a labor of love. We don't limit our selection to only the most expensive and rare books, or just modern books or bargain books. We have depth in all these categories. We carry most of the in-print climbing books from both America and England, and many out-of-print titles as well. We have available thousands of books from the recent and ancient past. Most mountaineering books go out-of-print quickly, and only a few dozen new climbing titles get published each year. We usually have copies of most of the recent books, as well as the last years', and before that, etc ad infinitum. Many of our titles are not listed on Amazon! We continually get in new stock and have excellent connections to replace rare items. We also stock back issues of most mountaineering magazines and journals. One of our best sources of books is acquiring collections from our older customers who sell us their books, which in many cases they bought from us 20 to 40 years ago. On the top of every page are 45 red and green subject tabs. The RED TABS are visited the most. Books are marked in Red Tabs:
These subjects are bound to have interesting books for almost everybody. For the last eleven years we have been having an on-going SALE on almost everything we have. I turn eighty 2025 begins, so it is time to put my house in order. To our surprise these last eleven years have also been among the most successful we have ever had, even during the pandemic. We were able to empty our warehouse which filled a 24' x 8' storage unit, plus our bursting bookstore shelves suddenly became 50% empty! Five years ago we actually felt that we were running low on books. So we started buying books again. Since January 2020 we have purchased thousands of books, mostly in nice collections here in Colorado and all over the USA and Canada. Despite the forces against doing this, such as the pandemic, we are having our best years in this new century! Please enjoy browsing this website. If you do not find what you are looking for, please phone or email us, and allow us to help you find anything not listed. Cheers, Mike Michael Chessler  Chessler Mountaineering Books How to use this website: If this is your first visit to Chessler Books, you can find books to look at by doing a SEARCH or BROWSE. HOW TO SEARCH or BROWSE OUR INVENTORY for a specific book, author, climber or mountain or country such as Nepal, simply type one or two words into the box labeled Simple Search, just to the left of the place you are reading this right now. In a search use few words, such as 'Messner Nanga Parbat,' or Messner Parbat' will get the same results. That will bring you all the books that mention Messner and Nanga Parbat. Some books will be about Messner's climbs of Nanga Parbat, other books may mention him just in passing. BOOK WISDOM: WHY BOOKS ARE SO IMPORTANT BOOKS ARE A GREAT TECHNOLOGY Books are a great technology.* Books existed before writing was invented. Books were spoken for centuries before paper and ink were invented. Books were already a genius technology when writing was invented. It was a genius technology 570** years ago and still is today. Books are very portable. They feed into a brilliant spatial organizational system known as the bookshelf. That really helps you with your brain. It helps you remember where things are. You remember where things are in the book. You remember where words are on the page. You remember where the page is in the book. You remember where the book is on the shelf. You remember where the shelf is in your house.* Books work without electricity. They survive most damage, and still work even if severely damaged. Even when burned they were often memorized by someone. Digital technology does not make physical books unusable or obsolete. Books have value to you even when they stay on the shelf. And of course books are a thing, not an electrical charge on your kindle. Most people enjoy reading from a real hardcover books, or paperbacks. You can flip through a book to find the words that meant the most to you. When you are not reading, your books make you feel good while they are just resting on your shelf. I read a lot of books that have maps to help understand the text. I use post-notes on the maps, and any other reference points in a book, such as the hundreds of footnotes that are now common in well researched books. Many footnotes often come with delightful anecdotes, anecdotes that are as good or better than in the main text. When I sit down to read a new book I always place 3 or 4 post-notes inside the rear cover. I go through a lot of post-notes! *Mostly From Stephen Gaghan. Movie Director 'Syriana' **1452: Gutenberg bible 120 Chessler Books Catalogs 1984 to 2004  There is a link to the listings of our old Chessler Books Catalogs in a green tab on top of every page in this website. We still have a few issues you can buy for reading, reference or collecting. We have a gigantic stock, thousands, of mountaineering books, used and new. Furthermore, hundreds of our books are autographed by the great names. Many of our best books are not on our website for long. If you want to stay in touch with us, and click on this website at whatever interval is convenient, you may never see the all the wonderful books that come and go every week, sometimes every day. If you do not signup for our emailed mini-catalogs, you will certainly miss some of the great items that a few of our hearty customers will order before you have your morning coffee. Every week or two we email our customers a list of our newly described books. Please sign up for our mailing list (see links above or below) as there is no other way to know what we currently have, or are putting on sale, or even when we are adding new books and sending emails. Customer response has been terrific. The only way to get many of the great books at bargain prices is to get our emails. Many books sell out within a few hours! Even if you check our website monthly, weekly, even daily, you may miss the rare moments of a rare 19th, 20th and 21st century mountaineering book. We have hundreds of rock climbing and mountaineering guidebooks, new and historical narratives, memoirs, biographies, back issues of climbing magazines and club journals, topographic maps of the world's mountains, rare collectible maps, older climbing hardware, old fashioned nailed boots, vintage wood handled ice axes, ephemera such as flyers and menus, climbing art, rare photographs, mountain posters, 19th century lithographs, climbers' and authors' signatures, plus old books on skiing, Arctic and Antarctic exploration, Tibet, adventure travel, California and American history and similar subjects. We are now offering our climbing book and collectibles bonanza at prices unseen since the 1960s. Please get on our Chessler Books mailing list! EVERY WEEK TO SEE WHAT HAS JUST BEEN UPLOADED. PLEASE ADD YOUR NAME TO OUR MAILING LIST TO SEE WHAT HAS JUST BEEN UPLOADED. Please be sure to join our mailing list as we announce a new collection of 100-200 books every week. If you click on the SALE buttons on top or lower left side of every page, almost every sale item will show. There is also a separate Sale category that is for titles priced at $20 or less. If you need help or have a question, just e-mail or call us. Contacts are on the lower left of this page. We Usually Ship Orders on Tuesdays and Thursdays
HOW DO I KNOW IF THE SIGNATURES IN THE
BOOKS WE OFFER AUTHENTIC? "How can we prove that the signatures on our Books 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. By 2024 fifteen of the climbers shown below have passed away. Photos are copyrighted by Michael Chessler.  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 over the next 20 years, when he would autograph books & ice axes for our bookshop. We would often travel 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 substantial 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 windows at Pre-TSA LAX of course! We still have a few of those very early $5 bills left!  We asked if he ever hammered in a piton. Maybe twice he said.  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. Climbing's first billionaire.
 The Austria-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 gentleman on the left, Madhav Lal Tabdar, was the Nepal Government Secretary, Ministry of Land Reform & Management. The gentleman on the right next to Brad is Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, who was Director General of the Government Survey Department of Nepal. The photograph was taken after their 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!).
 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. He sadly died young in 2024.
 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. For signing books and ice axes for our bookshop we made sizeable donations to Sir Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust.
 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 excellent and readable! What a great life he lived! All above photos, and all photos on this website, are copyright by Michael Chessler. There are more photos of authors and climbers signing books for us, just click on the link Are Your Signed Books Authentic? above and to the left of this section. |
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