Norman Clyde of the Sierra Nevada, by Norman Clyde, with Foreword ...
N orm an Clyde o f the Sierra N evada, by N orm an Clyde, with Foreword by Francis F arq u h ar, Prologue by Jules Eichorn, and a long letter by Smoke B lanchard. San Francisco: Scrimshaw Press, 1971. 180 pages, 20 photographs We … proceeded down the canyon, pleased at having added another outstanding climb to the m any already discovered in the Sierra N evada.” These are N orm an Clyde’s words describing the first ascent of the east face of M ount W hitney in 1931. I was struck more by the m eaning of a single word than by the m eaning of the sentence as a whole: “discovered.” N orm an Clyde d id n ’t ju st climb new routes, he “discovered” them . He is as m uch pioneer as m ountaineer. He has climbed some of his favorite m o u n ta in s forty an d fifty tim es. C lim b in g h isto ria n s tend to
order m ountaineering history by a predictable sequence of events. First comes the era of clim bing the sum m its, then a period of seeking new routes up ridges and easy faces, and finally the ascents of the longest and steepest faces. N orm an Clyde was doing all of these sim ultaneously in the Sierra Nevada. In the sam e era, he m ade the first ascent of 14,000-foot M ount Russell, and the aforem entioned, rope-and-piton ascent of the east face of W hitney. Clyde’s prose was an enigm a to the many people who becam e in volved with his m anuscripts. His w riting is tidy, and a t times lyrical, b u t it is not dram atic. He consistently underplays his own personality and in only one essay, “ The Q uest for W alter A. Starr Jr.,” can the reader feel a sense of involvement. If one has been “ Up The Rugged Canyon of George C reek,” then the events becom e alive. Otherwise they are lost in the constrained descriptiveness. In an epilogue, we are told th a t Clyde signed a contract ten years ago with a New York p u b lisher who he later feared w anted a “ hopped up personal story.” B reak ing the contract, the m anuscript was given to the Sierra Club, where it glided to the bottom of an eighty-year descending curve of interest in m ountaineering, and, in the words of the epilogue, “got caught in the Club’s A rm ageddon and quietly sank out of sight behind the front lines.” But N orm an is a few years older th an the Sierra Club; he waited. Before the reader gets the idea th a t the book should have sunk into well deserved obscurity, I should change the subject. The im portance of the book is not ju st in the au th o r’s words; one has to read into them — to know th a t there will never be anoth er N orm an Clyde, to know th at there are no other G entle W ildernesses on the face of the earth where a m an can spend his life discovering and m aking first ascents of prom i nent m ountains, to know the reality of, “ The Pack th a t W alked Like a M an, who carried hundred pound loads for weeks on end. Here is the happy m arriage of the book. In a ram bling, rollicking letter, Smoke B lanchard gives the reader an inside view of Clyde. The letter is so long th a t segm ents of it are distributed throughout the book along with photos mostly of Clyde and Dave Bohn. W hat Clyde lacks in
conveying personality is m ade up by these sections. Bohn is known for his Exhibit Form at book, Glacier Bay, and it is rare th a t someone who m asters the technique to th a t type of photography is willing to publish the opposite. He has captured m om ents of N orm an Clyde. Sometimes poorly lit and fuzzy, these unpretentious glimpses into Clyde’s recent life were taken at his m ountain cabin and on a 1970 Sierra Club pack trip where, in Smoke B lanchard’s words, he went along as “ a kind of king of the woodpile and general storyteller, and a sort of m useum ex hibition, being as he says, ab o u t nine hundred years old.” Bohn’s well-chosen photos and B lanchard’s ram bling letter save the book from mediocrity and add a historical and visual perspective to the text. Scrimshaw Press neatly solved the pub lish er’s dilem m a: Clyde’s reticence is preserved, and yet the legend of N orm an Clyde is p e r m anently recorded. GALEN A. ROW ELL
order m ountaineering history by a predictable sequence of events. First comes the era of clim bing the sum m its, then a period of seeking new routes up ridges and easy faces, and finally the ascents of the longest and steepest faces. N orm an Clyde was doing all of these sim ultaneously in the Sierra Nevada. In the sam e era, he m ade the first ascent of 14,000-foot M ount Russell, and the aforem entioned, rope-and-piton ascent of the east face of W hitney. Clyde’s prose was an enigm a to the many people who becam e in volved with his m anuscripts. His w riting is tidy, and a t times lyrical, b u t it is not dram atic. He consistently underplays his own personality and in only one essay, “ The Q uest for W alter A. Starr Jr.,” can the reader feel a sense of involvement. If one has been “ Up The Rugged Canyon of George C reek,” then the events becom e alive. Otherwise they are lost in the constrained descriptiveness. In an epilogue, we are told th a t Clyde signed a contract ten years ago with a New York p u b lisher who he later feared w anted a “ hopped up personal story.” B reak ing the contract, the m anuscript was given to the Sierra Club, where it glided to the bottom of an eighty-year descending curve of interest in m ountaineering, and, in the words of the epilogue, “got caught in the Club’s A rm ageddon and quietly sank out of sight behind the front lines.” But N orm an is a few years older th an the Sierra Club; he waited. Before the reader gets the idea th a t the book should have sunk into well deserved obscurity, I should change the subject. The im portance of the book is not ju st in the au th o r’s words; one has to read into them — to know th a t there will never be anoth er N orm an Clyde, to know th at there are no other G entle W ildernesses on the face of the earth where a m an can spend his life discovering and m aking first ascents of prom i nent m ountains, to know the reality of, “ The Pack th a t W alked Like a M an, who carried hundred pound loads for weeks on end. Here is the happy m arriage of the book. In a ram bling, rollicking letter, Smoke B lanchard gives the reader an inside view of Clyde. The letter is so long th a t segm ents of it are distributed throughout the book along with photos mostly of Clyde and Dave Bohn. W hat Clyde lacks in
conveying personality is m ade up by these sections. Bohn is known for his Exhibit Form at book, Glacier Bay, and it is rare th a t someone who m asters the technique to th a t type of photography is willing to publish the opposite. He has captured m om ents of N orm an Clyde. Sometimes poorly lit and fuzzy, these unpretentious glimpses into Clyde’s recent life were taken at his m ountain cabin and on a 1970 Sierra Club pack trip where, in Smoke B lanchard’s words, he went along as “ a kind of king of the woodpile and general storyteller, and a sort of m useum ex hibition, being as he says, ab o u t nine hundred years old.” Bohn’s well-chosen photos and B lanchard’s ram bling letter save the book from mediocrity and add a historical and visual perspective to the text. Scrimshaw Press neatly solved the pub lish er’s dilem m a: Clyde’s reticence is preserved, and yet the legend of N orm an Clyde is p e r m anently recorded. GALEN A. ROW ELL
