Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain by Jonathan Bloom Read Free Book Online
Authors: Jonathan Bloom
stopped fighting right then, they would have simply been sent their separate directions. But the fight continued and the police had to struggle to pull the two apart. One officer received a misguided punch to the side of the head. For a second time, Hoyt and Junk spent an evening staring at each other from separate jail cells.
Upon his release, Junk returned to find his business concerns were suffering from neglect due to his absence and McGee’s lack of intelligence. The experience of the past several days had also left him rather uncomfortable physically. But that was not the worst of it. At the Beacon Hill Tavern the first night home, Junk received the word his mother had died. The nightly beatings he had received as a youth were now definitively over, but then again so was the unspoken love and pride Junk had to believe were there in the meals she prepared and shelter she provided. Now he would never know.
Despite these horrible circumstances, Junk seemed in good spirits to those around him. Mountain climbing had come into his life. He wanted to do something like it again. Nay, he had to do something like it again. In what form, he did not know. He was above being a common bridge builder. But he would find some way and some excuse to scurry up things. Even after only one experience, Aaron felt climbing was not a metaphor for something else. Everything else in his life was a metaphor for climbing. Strip the poetry of the world away, and there was simply up, down, back, forth, left and right. Upward and forward were good. Everything else was pointless. He did not yet know how, but Aaron was destined to go upward and forward.
Interlude: August 23 rd , 1937
The Nazis loved to climb. In the time leading up to World War II, Nazis and Nazi sympathizers flocked to the climbing clubs of Germany and Austria. Germany had enjoyed a rich tradition of mountaineering before and after the war. But during the 1930’s and 1940’s the ranks of these fine mountaineers were tainted with others who espoused fascist, racist rhetoric.
In 1933, the Nazis took power in Germany, smothering opposing leftist, socialist sentiments with brute force. At the time, Europe was between wars, but Hitler still had something to prove to the outside world. As the author Jonathan Neale points out in his book Tigers of the Snow , climbing was a perfect means by which the Nazi party could show the world the dominance of the Aryan race. They may not have beaten the British during World War I, but they could do one better and conquer Mother Nature herself. Clive Steinkraus, an SS soldier and avid climber, proposed another likely reason for the Nazi tendency to climb: “There are fewer Jews at high altitudes. They seem to be partial to city life and journeys of introspection. That is fine. It gives us a chance to escape to a place pure, white, and free from usury.”
Whatever the reason, either for pride or prejudice or both, the Nazi government funded several expeditions in the Alps and also the Himalaya. Neither the Germans nor the British had yet succeeded in topping any of the “eight thousanders” (mountains in the Himalayan chain higher than eight thousand meters). The Germans did have a glorious success in the Alps under their belts - Andreas Heckmair’s incredible 1938 ascent of the Eiger’s north face - but especially under Hitler, they felt they needed to reach the highest points on Earth before their British counterparts. During the time of Nazi rule, Germany made multiple attempts at Nanga Parbat, a mountain thought to be the 9 th tallest in the world, in 1934, 1937, 1938, and 1939. The 1939 expedition included Heinrich Harrer, the German climber who wrote the book Seven Years in Tibet. The attempts at Nanga Parbat all ended in failure and in the last case, the incarceration of the climbers by the British.
Nanga Parbat was a regular target for Germany because it was one of the few eight thousanders to which they had
Upon his release, Junk returned to find his business concerns were suffering from neglect due to his absence and McGee’s lack of intelligence. The experience of the past several days had also left him rather uncomfortable physically. But that was not the worst of it. At the Beacon Hill Tavern the first night home, Junk received the word his mother had died. The nightly beatings he had received as a youth were now definitively over, but then again so was the unspoken love and pride Junk had to believe were there in the meals she prepared and shelter she provided. Now he would never know.
Despite these horrible circumstances, Junk seemed in good spirits to those around him. Mountain climbing had come into his life. He wanted to do something like it again. Nay, he had to do something like it again. In what form, he did not know. He was above being a common bridge builder. But he would find some way and some excuse to scurry up things. Even after only one experience, Aaron felt climbing was not a metaphor for something else. Everything else in his life was a metaphor for climbing. Strip the poetry of the world away, and there was simply up, down, back, forth, left and right. Upward and forward were good. Everything else was pointless. He did not yet know how, but Aaron was destined to go upward and forward.
Interlude: August 23 rd , 1937
The Nazis loved to climb. In the time leading up to World War II, Nazis and Nazi sympathizers flocked to the climbing clubs of Germany and Austria. Germany had enjoyed a rich tradition of mountaineering before and after the war. But during the 1930’s and 1940’s the ranks of these fine mountaineers were tainted with others who espoused fascist, racist rhetoric.
In 1933, the Nazis took power in Germany, smothering opposing leftist, socialist sentiments with brute force. At the time, Europe was between wars, but Hitler still had something to prove to the outside world. As the author Jonathan Neale points out in his book Tigers of the Snow , climbing was a perfect means by which the Nazi party could show the world the dominance of the Aryan race. They may not have beaten the British during World War I, but they could do one better and conquer Mother Nature herself. Clive Steinkraus, an SS soldier and avid climber, proposed another likely reason for the Nazi tendency to climb: “There are fewer Jews at high altitudes. They seem to be partial to city life and journeys of introspection. That is fine. It gives us a chance to escape to a place pure, white, and free from usury.”
Whatever the reason, either for pride or prejudice or both, the Nazi government funded several expeditions in the Alps and also the Himalaya. Neither the Germans nor the British had yet succeeded in topping any of the “eight thousanders” (mountains in the Himalayan chain higher than eight thousand meters). The Germans did have a glorious success in the Alps under their belts - Andreas Heckmair’s incredible 1938 ascent of the Eiger’s north face - but especially under Hitler, they felt they needed to reach the highest points on Earth before their British counterparts. During the time of Nazi rule, Germany made multiple attempts at Nanga Parbat, a mountain thought to be the 9 th tallest in the world, in 1934, 1937, 1938, and 1939. The 1939 expedition included Heinrich Harrer, the German climber who wrote the book Seven Years in Tibet. The attempts at Nanga Parbat all ended in failure and in the last case, the incarceration of the climbers by the British.
Nanga Parbat was a regular target for Germany because it was one of the few eight thousanders to which they had
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