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Outside Magazine January 2003

Underground Canon
Lost Horizons
10 great books you've probably never heard of

By Brad Wieners & The Editors

(1948) UTTERMOST PART OF THE EARTH
By E. Lucas Bridges
Bridges belonged to one of the first European families to land and hang on for dear life in Tierra del Fuego. His autobiography (now, sadly, out of print) recalls the adventures he and his kin endured, usually under such detached headings as "Some Observations Concerning Cannibalism" and "Instances to Show That the Cow Is More Intelligent Than the Horse." Once you're in, you see why Yvon Chouinard presses this book on first-time trekkers to Patagonia.
Buy it from Amazon.com (1953) NO PICNIC ON MOUNT KENYA
By Felice Benuzzi
Think The Great Escape meets Life Is Beautiful. From the moment he lays eyes on the looming 17,160-foot peak, Benuzzi's determined to climb it. Problem is, he's an Italian soldier sitting out WWII in a British POW camp in Kenya. No worries; he breaks out anyway and heads up the mountain without a map. Benuzzi's infectious awe and humor remain intact, even when he comes down and is thrown back in the clink.

(1956) THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE
By W. E. Bowman
If this—the definitive, oddly obscure account of the conquest of "the world's tallest mountain"—fails to leave you gasping for oxygen from all the laughter, see a therapist. A brilliant send-up of self-important peak-bagging gas.

(1959) THE WHITE SPIDER
By Heinrich Harrer
Brimming with the suspense and history surrounding his pioneering ascent of the north face of the Eiger in 1938, this book is a surpassing meditation on the "supreme testing place of a man's worth as a human being." Harrer packs every page with reasons why even gazing on the Eiger, much less dangling from its ramparts, makes your palms sweat.

(1970) THE STRANGE LAST VOYAGE OF DONALD CROWHURST
By Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall
An insanely gripping account of one man's ill-fated entry into the first round-the-world solo yacht race in 1968. Crowhurst comes unhinged in the Atlantic after falsifying reports about his progress, and then proceeds to lose his way, his mind, and, finally, his life.

(1977) MAWSON'S WILL
By Lennard Bickel
It's hard to keep a straight face reading what Aussie explorer Douglas Mawson endured in Antarctica the same year as Scott—it's just so grim. The first of his two comrades plunges with his dog team into a bottomless crevasse. The second succumbs to snowblindness, frostbite, madness, and a coma. Alone, Mawson faces 100 miles of wind, ice, and starvation before he makes it back, his mind and limbs barely intact.

(1982) THE SHINING MOUNTAIN
By Peter Boardman
A candid, stunning peek inside the brains of hardcore alpinists. Motivated to "bring my self-respect into line with the public recognition" after topping out on Everest in 1975, the author hooks up with Himalayan vet Joe Tasker to climb the west wall of Changabang in India. Somehow they live to tell the tale.
Buy it from Amazon.com

(1990) CHASING THE MONSOON
By Alexander Frater
Our story begins in a doctor's office in London, with the author wearing an orthopedic collar that makes him "look like a bulging pantomime frog." It ends in Cherrapunji, India, with Frater utterly soggy but loving life, after having taken a stranger's advice to experience monsoon season on the subcontinent. You'll feel better, too, for tagging along.
Buy it from Amazon.com

(1997) TO TIMBUKTU
By Mark Jenkins
With three friends in tow, Outside's own Hard Way columnist sets out to run the Niger River. They make it down, and along the way encounter the menacing African welcome wagon—Killer bees! Guinea worms! River blindness! Rhinos! Crocs! But Jenkins never lets the tough stuff (or tense group dynamics) overpower the beauty of the land he floats through.
Buy it from Amazon.com

(1999) An Unexpected Light
By Jason Elliot
Elliot's eerily prescient memoir of his travels through war-torn Afghanistan—nail-biting excursions with mujahideen deep inside mountain caves and up gorgeous slopes flecked with land mines—is so exquisite, it sometimes masks the ancient danger lurking in the black heart of one of the world's most forbidding regions.

Next Page: Don't cry for L.M. Nesbitt. (OK, maybe cry a little.)

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