Everest (2015)  Just in the nick of time! Hollywood has finally had their hack at the story of the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest, and just in time for me to review it!  The first pleasant surprise provided by this film was that it is not just Into thin Air rehashed and dramatized. The second nice surprise was…

Seven Summits – Dick Bass & Frank Wells with Rick Ridgeway (Rick Ridgeway wrote it, Dick Bass and Frank Wells were the major contributors of information) For the mountaineering reader who wants it all comes Seven Summits, the chronicle of Dick Bass’s endeavor to summit the tallest peak on each continent. You’ll get your dose of disaster…

Noah Bosworth HSTR 467 – History of Mountaineering Maggie Green May 6 (barely), 2016 Nepal and the Gallatin Valley: Case studies in recreational access  For as long as people have owned property, they have disputed this property ownership and disagreed over ways to use it. These disputes take many forms: private land owners pitted against…

Here’s the link to my (very quick) survey. Please be honest and feel free to spread the word! Thanks everybody! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MPMCPZ If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions feel free to email me at vertigomsu@ gmail.com. Thanks again!

So…my topic has shifted in a…somewhat substantial way. I am no longer focused on the evolution of risk, but on the access to this risk. That is, I’d like to examine the complications of access on many scales, from Mt. Everest to the Gallatin Valley. I’ll do so by calling on examples from each scale,…

I’d like to begin by addressing the first of Said’s three pillars of his ‘reality’. He discusses in some length the difference between ‘pure’ and ‘political’ knowledge, as well as the challenges and inconveniences of telling the two apart. Personally, I think Said was a little hasty in passing over circumstances where pure knowledge is…

While I may be alone in this sentiment, tones of this book’s introduction reminded me of Into Thin Air, namely the dramatic buildup to the “but that’s not really how it happened” blow. This may not be coincidence, as David Roberts was for some time a close mentor and teacher of Jon Krakauer at Hampshire College.…

Well this sure felt academic following last week’s read, huh? I’ll admit I’m not the biggest fan of Jon Krakauer’s form in Into Thin Air, but it was a page turner. Sherry Ortner’s work could appear bland, even *gasp* scientific compared to Krakauer’s rant/trip report. This is where a realization struck me. Ortner’s style and presentation reminded me…

In my opinion Krakauer did make an honest attempt to accurately depict the events of the ’96 disaster. However, it is unsettling that many of his interviews with fellow climbers from the trip took place well after the expedition, and followed backlash toward Krakauer’s original article that was published in Outside Magazine (for whom Krakauer was…