New York, Henry Holt, 1997. 253 pp, b/w photos. White and navy hardcover with dust jacket. May have former owner's gift inscription on FEP. Near Fine to Fine.
Jonathan Waterman recreated the Duke of Abruzzi's first climb, Mount St.Elias in Alaska, and tells a tale of courage and wisdom in contrast to the ego driven climbs of today.
In 1897 an Italian nobleman, Luigi of Savoy, the duke of Abruzzi, set out to climb North America's second-highest peak, the 18,008-foot Mount St. Elias (known to the native Tlingit people of Alaska as Yasetaca). A century later, the author of A Most Hostile Mountain attempts to recreate this same land-sea journey by sailing north out of Seattle and into the Gulf of Alaska. While Abruzzi traveled with an army's worth of supplies and numerous porters to shoulder creature comforts fit for a duke, Jonathan Waterman chooses the relative quiet of a single companion in his attempt to retrace the duke's historic expedition.
