Colorado, 2003, 1st edition. 208 pp, 50 b/w photos, maps. Paperback. Fine.
About twenty years ago at an annual meeting of the American Alpine Club, I noticed my wife Heinke Forfota was deeply engrossed in conversation with a woman I did not recognize. When I moved closer, I could hear that they were talking with great animation - in Hungarian! I later asked Heinke who she was talking to. She said the lady's name was "Stettner," and she said she was married to an old climber named Stettner! What I wanted to know was how, in a crowded room, did the only people who speak such an unusual language find each other!
The first exclusive book on pioneer climbing brothers Joe and Paul Stettner. This book isn't just for climbers, but for history buffs and armchair adventurers alike. A remarkable story of early mountaineering legends and a list of their most significant climbs. Fifty vintage black-and-white photographs and six maps. Many exciting stories and personal anecdotes
Joe and Paul Stettner have been called the first true sport climbers in America; contemporary and fellow legend Paul Petzoldt called them 'the human flies' for their bold and acrobatic style. Legends in the early mountaineering community, they put up some of the most difficult routes in North America during a career that spanned the beginnings of modern rock climbing in the 1920s to well into the big-wall climbing era of the 1950s. This is a story not only of climbing adventure but of lives touched by many of the great dramas of the 20th Century.
