Yosemite CA, 2001, 1st edition. 215 pp, many photos. Previous owner name or gift inscription on endpaper, else Near Fine Hardcover with dust jacket.
The death of Walter Starr in 1933 in the Sierra is one of the great mysteries of American mountaineering. William Alsup has recreated what happened to the young climber, whose body was found by Norman Clyde 90 years ago.
In the summer of 1933, 30-year-old Walter 'Pete' Starr, Jr. set off on a solo expedition in California's Sierra Nevada in order to survey the landscape along the new John Muir Trail. In addition to exploration, his purpose was to gather notes for a guidebook he was writing.
An experienced mountaineer, Starr was also a lawyer with a San Francisco firm and the scion of a prominent family. When he failed to come out of the mountains at the appointed time, his father became concerned. Several days passed; concern gave way to alarm.
Missing in the Minarets is part mountaineering history, part detective story, and part photo album. It is 100 percent engaging reading. Alsup's lucid prose is complemented by the inclusion of numerous well-reproduced photographs, some of which are historical and others documentary images made by the author himself. It would seem that Alsup is ideally suited to write a book like this.
As a recognized Sierra historian (author of the excellent Such a Landscape!, which recounts William Brewer's 1864 California Survey), a skilled photographer, an enthusiastic mountaineer, and a former San Francisco trial attorney now serving as a federal district judge, he applies his many-sided genius to sorting through a complexity of evidence in order to provide his reader with a clear and compelling account of an important episode in the social history of the Sierra Nevada.
