Chris Bonington, Mountaineer
Chris Bonington Vertebrate Press, 2016
By his own account, Chris Bonington has escaped death by a close margin about eight times. These occurred during a career that spanned post-war British climbing on the North Faces of the Alps, the era of big-wall mountaineering in the Himalayas and its subsequent evolution into high-altitude alpine style. His extensive writing and photography stems from his unshakeable passion for exploratory climbing that continues to take him from his country home in the Lake District to some far-f lung mountain range every season. Now in his 80s he continues to climb new, long and remote routes. Attention, at times obsessive, to research, planning, and logistics has been central to Bonington’s vision, along with engagement with media, promotion, and public speaking. He understood, better than any other climber of his generation, that climbing can serve the aspirations of a readership.
is an updated version of an eponymous book published in 1989, following his summit of Everest (as part of a Norwegian expedition, the last single-permit-per-route-perseason to be granted) that focused on the 30 years that Bonington was a leading figure in world mountaineering. The photography is excellent, a ref lection of his career as a professional photojournalist that began with dramatic reportage of the 1966 Eiger Direct; as is the distilled narrative of so many seasons in the Great Ranges. To browse through so much climbing in so many places for so long a lifetime is as inspiring as a climbing book can be. In one passage, Bonington describes a pitch high up on an alpine rock route in Greenland as the best he’s ever done. Coming in at 5.9 it’s accessible to anyone with few seasons of rock under their belt, a good level of fitness, and the willingness to plan and organize. He tells us that it’s the moment when you arrive at the base of new route and i magination becomes reality that shakes lose any residual complacency. It’s the moment you know you’ll be stepping into the unknown, halfway around the world from home.–