THE LIBRARY Yankee Rock & Ice
Books with the word “history” in the title always get put on the bottom of my reading list. Unfortunately, Yankee Rock & Ice: A history of climbing in the Northeastern United States stayed there way too long. Laura and Guy Waterman do a fantastic job putting together, in 300 pages, a story of how Northeast climbing went from a Penacook Indian sticking a peace pipe in the Old Man of the Mountain’s mouth, to the pioneering days of Fritz Weissner and to Lynn Hill’s domi- nance of the Northeast climbing scene in the 80’s.
Through personal interviews and extensive research, Yankee Rock & Ice weaves its way from the Gunks to Cannon to Willoughby and back. The photos of the old-timers make you question their sanity (think: hemp rope). The evolution in style of Northeast climbers (Vulgarians vs. the old bootleg- gers) is well documented, including an entire chapter called “Clean Climbing.” Henry Barber, Kevin Bein, John Turner, Bonnie Pruden – all the colorful characters and top climb- ers in the annals of Northeast climbing are here. This book is a must read for anyone whose fingertips touch rock in the Northeast.
The Watermans’ stop their story in the late 1980’s, “leaving to later historians” the more current history. Which, begs the question: who’s gonna step up and document the last 20 years of tumultuous but groundbreaking Northeast climbing?
Climbing Dictionary T
here are times when you hear someone shout something while climbing that could only be two things: a mumbled, unintelligible profanity as they slip off the crux or an obscure word that you figure one day you’ll know what it means. Lucky for you, Matt Samet’s Climbing Dictionary: Mountain- eering slang, terms, neologisms & lingo has got you covered.
Whether you’ve always wanted to experience the screaming barfies or are baffled by the size of that one dude’s fingers (next time you can call ‘em Jimmy Deans), Samet pulls together the entire climbing lexicon into a slick and readable book—complete with variants, synonyms, origins, sample sentences and entertaining illustrations. You’ll find out that Joe Kinder was the first to describe “turd” routes and that “choking the cobra” isn’t nearly as gross as you thought it was.
Books like Samet’s are usually resigned to my por- celain throne, but this one will get you hooked and stoked to tackle your next s00kr33m route.
26 climber MAGAZINEism | SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2011 |
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